Leaving a Mark

Jim:

Exodus 2:23-3:15
Yesterday we learned something about the name Moses. Today we learn something about God’s identity. The Hebrew word that God uses as a name can be translated a number of ways: I Am Who I Am, I Am What I AM, I Will Be What I Will Be; perhaps more literally He Causes To Be. According to the Oxford Annotated Study Bible this name has less to with God’s eternal being as the fact that God is present in historic affairs. In other words, God is. And in this divine being God takes certain actions and facilitates certain events. Another way of thinking about this might be to say that God leaves a mark, a sign of presence in the world. The bush through which God spoke did not burn, but lives are changed whenever God appears, and those lives become a sign of God’s presence and effort. As we see further on in Exodus, Moses has a number of objections to accepting the task to which God calls him, but a real, present God over comes them all, and eventually Moses will return to Egypt to lead the people to the promised land.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
These are perhaps Paul’s most familiar words. Verses 4-7 sum things up nicely: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious of boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” In other words, love also “leaves a mark”, a sign of its presence in changed lives and opened hearts. Like God, love is visible in certain actions and in the facilitation of certain events. This may be why Paul considers love to be the greatest of the gifts.

Mark 9:14-29
My heart has always gone out to the father in this story, especially when he says, “I believe; help my unbelief” (verse 24)! But it was not until I had children that I really understood the depth of these words. Because of his love for his child this father is willing to face his own lack of faith, his own doubts and fears, and to ask in effect, that Jesus heal him as well as his son. So here we see an even where God and love both “leave a mark” in very real terms. God’s healing power (and love) in Jesus and the love of the father for the son.