13“But,” said Moses to God, “if I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what do I tell them?” 14God replied to Moses: I am who I am.* Then he added: This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.
15God spoke further to Moses: This is what you will say to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.
this is my title for all generations.
Exodus 3: 13-15
25* l I will sprinkle clean water over you to make you clean; from all your impurities and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26m I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.n 27I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them.
Ezekiel 36: 25-27
Today's culture appears to relieve itself of the responsibility of the concept of God, the all good Creator of the universe. Rather, one supposes that science is the master explanation of all that is, was, and will be. It appears that only through the "good graces" of science do anything have any meaning and only through its proofs can anything exist. The corollary, of course, is that each person is his own arbiter of moral rectitude and behavior.
What I like about the meeting with God by Moses is that we people of good will and faith discover that the "God of our Fathers" exists. That's right, just exists. "I am who I am." Has been, is now, and will be forever. The "to be" verb is an interesting one because it does convey that property of existing. Interestingly, the title "Supreme Being" conveys that quality of existing - but at a level far beyond our meager existence. We have conveniently used the word GOD to convey this "existing".
Unfortunately, too many folks today have supplanted a belief in this "Existing Being" for the belief in things more practical like, power, money, science, or "me". What many of us have discovered over the years is that they more physical things end up being very transient when it comes to overall satisfaction and goodness. Oh, yeah, there is that momentary excitement when one wins the lottery, but many of those folks end up right where they started. How much is enough when it comes to money? Or power? Or whatever?
If we set aside these physical things and emotions and allow the words of Ezekiel to soak in, we discover that the "heart of flesh" is that "God of love" that often hear about but don't seem to be able to find. When we allow "I AM" to be the center of our lives, we find a liberating freedom because we get outside of ourselves and turn to the "other" in our lives. Good thing to be doing during this season of Lent - turn away from the sinful selfishness of our lives and look for ways to ease the burdens of another. Go ahead. Try it!
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