The Divine Name and the Mystery of God

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, March 3, 2013, the Third Sunday of Lent
| Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15
• Ps 103: 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11
• 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12
• Lk 13:1-9

When asked why they climb, professional mountaineers often
give varied but interconnected reasons. They mention the challenge of doing
something difficult and demanding, a deepening understanding of themselves,
and, paradoxically, a loss of self-centeredness. In a similar way, those who
spend time living alone in the wilderness can experience the same contemplative
moments leading to a more honest and truthful view of themselves and others.

Mountains and desert play a prominent role
throughout the Bible, not just on a physical plane, but on a spiritual level as
well. Mountains were considered holy, ancient, and eternal; they were where God
often met His prophets and people, as seen in last week’s Gospel reading
describing the Transfiguration. The desert, as harsh as it was, often
represented a place of safety, discipline, and waiting for the promises of God
to come to fulfillment. If the mountain was where God would sometimes reveal
Himself, the desert was where man’s trust in God was tested and increased.

Today’s reading from Exodus describes Moses, many years
after leaving the Pharoah’s court in disgrace, tending sheep in the desert.
Like another shepherd, David, he was toiling in anonymity—until he received the
call of God at Horeb, the mountain of God. Also known as Mount Sinai, this was
the same mountain that would shelter the prophet Elijah when he fled from
Jezebel (1 Kings 19:8) and would, of course, be where Moses received the
Commandments from God (Ex 19-20)

Moses’s encounter with the burning bush was as dramatic as
it was mysterious. At first he was curious and then, upon realizing whose
presence he was in, overcome with awe and fear, hiding his face. In remarking
upon this encounter, the Catechism
provides a simple but urgent lesson perfectly suited for Lent: “Faced with
God's fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own
insignificance” (CCC 208). If there is anything clear about the name uttered
before Moses, it is its mysterious nature: “In revealing his mysterious name,
YHWH (‘I AM HE WHO IS’, ‘I AM WHO AM’ or ‘I AM WHO I AM’), God says who he is
and by what name he is to be called. This divine name is mysterious just as God
is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a
name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is—infinitely above
everything that we can understand or say…” (CCC 206). 

Although God is mystery, in giving His name He reveals that
He is personal, loving, and faithful. Having revealed His name to Moses, “He
has made known his ways to Moses”, as today’s Psalm proclaims. He desires the
salvation of His people and He provides a means for that salvation. And so
Moses is called from tending the sheep of his father-in-law to tending a new
flock, the people of God, leading them out of Egypt, through the desert, and,
after forty years, to the edge of the Promises Land. 

Today’s epistle makes a sacramental connection between the
prophet Moses and the greatest prophet, Jesus Christ. The Israelites had
experienced a sort of baptism (crossing the Red Sea) and Eucharist (miraculous
manna and water); these prefigured the sacraments of the New Covenant
established by Jesus, the New Moses. And yet the Israelites kept succumbing to
idolatry. Saint Paul exhorted his readers in Corinth—who belonged to a church
that was struggling with every type of scandal and sin—to learn from the
mistakes made by the Israelites, for “these things happened as examples for
us…” The lessons of the desert, if not learned and heeded, go to waste when
those who think they are standing securely do not take care of their spiritual
lives.

Lent is a microcosm of the mountains and deserts that
every Christian travels between baptism and death. As the Holy Spirit helps us
to understand ourselves better, we begin to recognize that our worth can be
found in nothing else but the person of Jesus Christ. And He asks that we, in
turn, bear the fruit of His life in us, so that we might give witness to the
mystery of the God who is.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the March 11, 2007, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)