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Moses' Life and Death One of my duties as a priest is to conduct funerals. When I was training for ordination I would often worry about how I would manage at funerals. I was concerned, being a person who cries very easily, that I would find them too emotionally taxing. However, I have found that I feel tremendously privileged to officiate at a funeral and far from finding them depressing, I find them quite inspiring actually, especially when the funeral is that of a man or woman of God. I find the stories that shape a person’s life and their family life are often a wonderful tribute to God our loving Creator who made each of us uniquely different and who has given us the ability to love and care for others. Over the last two months we have focused our sermons largely on the book of Exodus and the life and ministry of Moses. It has been a wonderful journey which sadly ends today. Today we find Moses being summoned by God to the top of Mount Nebo and there God shows him the whole of the Promised Land which he had promised to the descendants of the desert Fathers. Moses has his last conversation with God and it is there in God’s presence that Moses takes his last earthly breath and dies. So ends the earthly life of one of the greatest men of God that has ever lived. I wonder what Moses thought as he surveyed from that elevated position the land across the Jordan. I am sure he will have reflected nostalgically on the life he had lived, the road he and his people had taken and the many experiences both good and bad that they will have shared together. I am sure that as he looked across the Jordan he will have been filled with excitement and anticipation at the future prospects of his people who were about to cross into this God given terrain. There he would have stood looking forwards and looking backwards and standing between the future and the past he would have found himself in the presence of God and at peace. What a beautiful life he had and what a beautiful death he experienced up there in that high place on the summit of Mt Nebo. The stories in the bible are there to inspire us, to resource us, to teach us about God, about ourselves and about the meaning and purpose of our lives. So as we witness the funeral of Moses today, what can we learn from his life and his death? In short what can we learn from Moses’ life and from his death that will help us in our own lives? From his life I believe we can learn what it means to live a life that is committed to God, to serve him in ministry and to walk humbly with him.
We read in the text that Moses knew the Lord ‘face to face’. We have had evidence of this in the recorded conversations he had with God at the burning bush and on top of Mount Sinai where he received the 10 Commandments. Moses was never frightened of intimacy with God, unlike the people of Israel who were so afraid of God that they said to Moses ‘you go up and talk with God and then tell us what he says’. As Christ followers we understand that the number one thing that God wants to do with each one of us is to establish an intimate personal relationship of love with us.
We can take courage from this as we come to understand from this that no matter how old or young we are, it is never too late to turn our life over to God and to enter into His perfect will for our life. You don’t need to be super spiritual for God to use you. All you have to be is willing and to make yourself available and for sure if you allow him to , God will do something exciting with the rest of the time you still have left here on this earth.
Grant’s story of the Holy Spirit. Others of you may be wary of any such experiences, fearful that they may be weird or cause you to become weird. Let me reassure you from the evidence of Moses’ life that divine revelations and manifestations of God are real blessings and the stuff that strengthen and confirm our faith in God. Take courage, be open and allow God to offer you a glimpse of his glory that you might grow in your faith.
So we see that Moses is the disciple who did the work that God had prepared for him to do. He lived a life that proves that one man’s faith can be stronger than a nation’s unbelief He is the prophet who dwells in the presence of God and speaks with him face to face He is the priest who intercedes with God on behalf of his wayward people. He is the archetypal disciple whose example is inspiring to us all. The passage set for today is most apt as we approach All Saints Day and the time when we commemorate and give thanks for our loved ones who have died. As we reflect on Death and perhaps even our own deaths we might ask ourselves what can we learn from this story of Moses’ death about death itself.? So we learn from this passage that there is an appointed time for each one of us to die. We all must die, even Moses. No matter how good a life we lead, death comes to us all and that appointed time is in God’s hands. Secondly I believe that we learn that death is not to be feared. We sometimes wonder what it might be like when we die. Will it be a frightening experience? For the believer in particular I think it will not be at all frightening. In the passage there seems to be no anxiety. Just a great tenderness from God who having cared for his servant leader in life, now cared for him at the time of his death also. We read in the text that God buried him in Moab. How caring is that?! Thirdly , Moses had unfinished business but had to let it go. God took him to the summit of the mountain and showed him the promised land and then reminded him that he would not enter that land. David had to face a similar reality when he wanted to build the temple and God said that it would not be his life’s work to do that but Solomon’s. So it is for each of us. When we come to face our deaths there will always be something that we would have liked to have done but won’t have managed to do . That’s how it is and we too will have to let it go. Finally we learn that Moses lived his life in the presence of God and now was to die in the presence of God and if there is any doubt as to whether he would be enjoying eternal life in the presence of God then all we need do is read the Gospel of Luke 9:28 where we read that he and Elijah joined Jesus on the mountain of Transfiguration where all three shone in glory. Moses, the man of God, lived and died and lived again and his story is also the story of all who would seek to “Love the lord with all their hearts and souls and minds and love their neighbour as themselves.” That is all Christ followers, you and me included. Once at school during a creative writing exercise we were asked to write our own epitaph. I found this a very interesting exercise and from time to time I still wonder what I would put. This is not a new idea, many famous people have written their own epitaphs. Sir John Strange. Here lies an Atheist "The best is yet to come." But you know Moses’ epitaph is the one that appeals most to me as a believer and follower of Christ: “Since then no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses whom the Lord knew face to face.” How neat would that be if one day that were inscribed on our graves, That we had a prophetic role in this world and that we knew our Lord and Saviour intimately and face to face. |
