Sermon Text for Vespers February 25, 2026

 Lent Vespers Exodus 3:1-15                          February 25, 2026 

O Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. 

This morning when I took the recycling out, I was so delighted with the beautiful day, that I started to hum How Great Thou Art. We have that hymn in our hymnal on page 801. I could not remember all the words, so I looked it up. These words are familiar to all of you. In the first two verses, the writer uses imagery from nature. “When I in awesome wonder, consider all the works thy hand hath made, I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder, Thy pow’r throughout the universe displayed. When through the woods and forest glades I wander, I hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees; when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze.” The refrain declares, “Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee, How great thou art.”  

A question that rolls through my mind is how do we get from beholding the splendor of nature and singing praises for its beauty in sight and sound, to making a confession of faith that God is my savior? 

Many people over the thousands of years of recorded history have spoken poetically about nature. When a question is asked such as, “where does all of this beauty and wildness and order come from?” a person that is only looking at nature is without a source for an answer.  Some conjectured, like Aristotle, that there is an unmoved mover that is responsible for it all. 

In order to know anything specific about the force behind the creation and sustaining of our world, we need Revelation. We need God to step out from behind the visible and reveal Himself. God must reveal Himself and explain to us who He is. Otherwise, we just won’t know. The magnificence of the visible world tells us that something or someone has a remarkable imagination and tremendous power, but that is where our knowledge ends. Until the LORD presents Himself, reveals Himself, in a way that captures our attention. 

The LORD speaking from the burning bush to Moses is one such revelation. What a revelation it is! Not only do we learn God’s name, but we also learn about God’s character. What we learn is good news for us. 

What is God’s Name? God’s name is Yahweh. Translated as “I am who I am.” God needs no reference point beyond that. I am who I am. God has no beginning, no end. He is the all-knowing and all-powerful God that creates and sustains all of creation.   

God is holy. He expects reverence. Hence, Moses must approach without his footwear. God’s holiness requires that there be a physical separation between God and Moses. Moses may approach but He can only be so close. God’s holiness overpowers Moses. He cannot bear to look at the Lord. 

God remembers His people. He is not the kind of God that will simply dismiss a people or forget about them because they are suddenly inconvenient. God remembers His covenant. He remembers the names of the men that he made a covenant with: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God remembers his promise of their own land. He has every intention of returning them to the Promised Land. In remembering His people, God also hears their moans and cries as they suffer under the burden of slavery.  God’s chosen people are to be free. 

God works through humans, the pinnacle of His creation, to accomplish His purposes. Moses will represent God to the Chosen people. Moses will speak for God to Pharoah. 

All of this is Good News for us. God is a personal God who desires that His creation know Him. He does not allow His holiness to keep himself from us. God wants us to understand that He sees us in our joy and in our suffering. God wants us to know that He remembers his promises, and he plans to fulfill all of them. 

Good News comes to us in Exodus. God reveals himself. The all-powerful creator aaand sustainer of the world cares for his people. The Lord hears the prayers of His people. He rescues His people from slavery. He saves them. 

The act of redemption that is told in the book of Exodus prepares us for Christ. In Christ Jesus God is incarnate and dwells with us. He is even closer to our humanity. He enters fully into our suffering through His passion and death on the cross. Jesus comes to rescue us from all that enslaves us. He releases us through the grace of His forgiveness so that He can take us to the Promised Land of heaven to live with him forever. 

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.