God is on the move. I discovered David Redding’s words in a poem on Facebook (thanks Jody!). He wrote about God, “For the leaves are rustling and had my eye been quick enough, I might have seen You pass.”
If you needed to introduce God to someone, what would you say? Have you noticed when we love another person, we can talk about them for hours? Perhaps, we cannot talk about God for long because we do not know him as well as we should. The scriptures help us.
Stephen’s sermon reminds us of Moses’ encounter with God’s holiness in the burning bush. When God saw him looking, he told Moses to take off his sandals, because he was standing on holy ground. God is holy. Isaiah heard the angels shout that God is holy, holy, holy. He is perfectly holy. “So what?” we may wonder. So, we take off our shoes.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning would have agreed with David Redding, “Earth is cramm’d with heaven. And every common bush afire with God. But only those who see take off their shoes. The rest, sit round it and pluck blackberries.”
What takes our breath away? Do we ever wonder at the holiness of God? The very dirt on which we stand is consecrated by God’s act of creation and his presence. He who spoke from a burning bush is not to be trifled with or taken for granted. His holiness calls forth our reverence. To encounter God is to know that we will never return to business as usual in our lives. Moses changed that day. So may we. Will we?
