Raised on the pretty side of unfair. Though born to the poor, brought up by the powerful. Educated along with the noble, groomed beside princes, dining with the high, despite being born of the low. He knew he was not really one of them, he could tell that his features were more akin to the slave forming bricks than to the pharaoh forming a kingdom. Yet these great gifts were his.
We see modern day examples of Moses all around. The professional athlete who despite the cards dealt him in his youth, was blessed to be gifted in throwing a football, catching a baseball, or handling a basketball. When you are given these opportunities you are always careful to protect them. Though perhaps that is not always the case.
A college football player with a free ride to college, high hopes of being taken in the early rounds of the next NFL draft. After the first game of his senior season, he punches an opposing player and has most of that season taken from him by his own foolish choice.
Or take the wealthy investment manager, who wants just a bit more. He begins with small deceits, then as those prove successful they grow. Soon wealth beyond his dreams is in his hands. Then the regulators begin to look. Then the delicate house of cards begins to fall. In that moment he wonders how he got in this trap which now threatens to draw him under.
Perhaps we could look at the over fifty percent of pastors who in an anonymous survey admit they have a pornography addiction and live in constant fear of being found out. The smiles on Sunday morning hiding the painful regret of Saturday night. Terrified that if their elders found out (never mind that if the statistics are true, half of them have their own issues) they would be out of work.
And Moses, foolish Moses, trying to play both sides. Trying to live like royalty and be true to his roots he makes a choice. He has influence. He rubs elbows with the people who could make a difference. And yet, asking pharaoh to change his policies could threaten the good thing he's got going. It probably wouldn't work anyway. Everyone would think he was foolish. He couldn't make a difference.
Oh, but here is a chance. Here is a chance to be a part of the solution and no one needs to know. This Egyptian is beating one of his people! This has to stop. No one is watching. It is over quickly, one man dead. One body buried in the sand. None the wiser. Back to the palace. Only, things never quite seem to work that way do they?
Some one saw! Even the Hebrews he seeks to help don't want a vigilante among them. Someone who can only make things worse. The status quo may be bad, but things can always get worse. Now it's stay and die, or run into the wilderness and hope for survival. Moses ran. He ran and he hid and he made a new life in a new place. Moses, the guilty.
So how is it that God can be here, present in an agricultural pyrotechnic display that would frustrate any horticulturist, special effects artist, or humanist. And He is here to speak to Moses! Moses the murder! Moses the one who had his chances to do the right thing and blew it trying to be the Batman saving his Gotham from a corrupt world.
If God didn't use him under good circumstances, how can he possibly use him as he is now. Guilty.
"Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the LORD' -- and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surly when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him." Psalm 32:1-6
These were the words of a man named David whom God referred to as a "Man after my own heart" and yet shared something in common with Moses, he was a murderer and worse. What is it that makes it possible for God Almighty, the Holy one of Israel, the perfectly just able to overlook the guilt of men like Moses and David? For that matter, what about you? What about me?
A hot temper, theft, disobedient, stubborn, fornication, pornography, deceit, fear, selfish ambition, hypocrisy all are labels that could be placed on my file. What about your file? What could God place on your guilt chart? Even the apostle Paul cries out, "What a wretched man I am! Who will save me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24) And in the next verse lies the greatest news for the mediocre, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25)
The answer for the "guilty one", for Moses, for David, and for you and I is Jesus Christ. "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5:6) Moses never heard the name Jesus, but he placed his trust in a God who covers over the sins of the guilty because of a very special word: Mercy.
It was never possible for us to meet the standards God's justice demanded on our own. God chose to have mercy on us by having the penalty that we could not pay enforced against Jesus, also called Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus came into the world for this purpose, that we can have our guilt label removed. In response, we extend this same mercy to others and become a part of God's plan to bring all who are willing into a new relationship with Him.
And so we see Moses, speaking with the brazen bonsai receiving a call to service. Extraordinary mediocrity, as the guilty are exonerated, and then sent to serve.
