Advent, Day 5

A PROPHET LIKE MOSES
The sons of Jacob all went down and settled in Egypt. Generations passed and a dark fog slowly rolled in and settled over them. Before God’s people knew it, they could hardly see anything at all. The Egyptians took them as slaves and they nearly forgot who they were. They barely managed to cling to the remembrance that they were made in God’s image to rule his earth. Starvation, toil, and infanticide surrounded them and stole their dignity. It got very dark in the land of Egypt, but once again, God was not afraid of the dark.

He stepped right down into the story and showed up as a bright flame of fire. The fire filled a bush but left it alive without consuming it. Moses spoke to God and learned of his plans to break his people out of Egypt. God would crush evil and end enslavement. Despite his fear, Moses watched as God’s plan worked. In a final step, God loosed upon Egypt the very same woes they had loosed upon the Children of Israel.

God led his people into the desert where they were finally free. Then God lit their path, appearing as a pillar of raging fire to light the way forward. God used Moses to lead his people, and Moses became a great prophet, teaching them God’s ways. Moses became so great, and did so much to crush evil, that some may even have wondered if Moses might be the long-awaited crusher of evil. But Moses did not crush evil once and for all. Evil grew right back. Evil grew up even in the very hearts of God’s rescued people. It wasn’t enough for Israel to have a prophet who could crush their external oppressors—they needed a prophet who could do so much more. They needed a prophet like Moses, but better—one who could also uproot the evil that entangled their own hearts. God showed this to Moses, who spoke out a radiant new promise on God’s behalf. God gave another clue about the promised deliverer. Moses said, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. (Deuteronomy 18:15)

The promised deliverer would be a king from the line of Judah, but now he was also predicted to be a prophet like Moses—who was the greatest prophet in the history of Israel! In fact, Moses was more than just a prophet. He was the man who went up the mountain to make the covenant between God and Israel. King after king would someday arise from the line of Judah, but none of them ever turned out to be prophets. What kind of figure could possibly fulfill all these many promises? Could some future figure possibly unite all these threads of hope without becoming tangled in them?

DAILY SCRIPTURE READING
(Stephen’s message before his accusers, ~36 CE)
“This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness. This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’ He was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received living words to pass on to us. “But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’ That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made. But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars.”
– Acts 7:35-42

REFLECTION QUESTIONS
– How did the people of Moses’ day respond to his ministry? What expectations does this set up for the greater prophet who would later come?
– Imagine you were an Israelite living between Moses and Christ reading this promise of a greater Moses. What would you have imagined the figure would be like?

PRAYER
Father, I believe in your promises. Please, free me from darkness and cause Jesus’ light to shine on me. Please transform me at a deep-down heart level. Help me live in the invisible story of your incredible rescue mission by faith in your promises. I give my life to you—all that I am in exchange for all that you are. Help me to walk in the light, which includes fellowship and honesty with Christian community. Please set me free from darkness and protect me from it. I know that years of history have shown that humans cannot hold steadily to our partnership with you, so I ask you to carry and uphold me. Thank you that you offer to help us from the inside out. Please fill me with your Spirit and walk with me all the days of my life, until I see you finally in all your beauty and radiance. In Jesus name, Amen!