To Be Free

Moses rolled his head, cracking his neck, and spread his arms, stretching his back. After standing all day, slowly meandering through the desert from patch of scraggly grass to patch of scraggly grass, he was glad to see the sun finally resting upon the horizon. In a few minutes, it would melt into the distant sea, bringing long-awaited relief from its searing rays, but already, Moses could feel the temperatures dropping as the evening cool began to creep in.

He could hardly wait.

“All right, guys,” he called, shifting his eyes to the rudimentary camp probably a half mile away. “Let’s go home.” Throughout the day, he had led his father-in-law Jethro’s flock out and about a great circle to the south and east of his camp, and now, as the sun was going down, he aimed his feet once more toward the small tent, where he would light a fire to prepare a light supper and keep him company after the sun finally disappeared and left him all alone with the sheep.

Shepherding wasn’t bad. In fact, truth be told, Moses didn’t mind it all that much at all. The worst part about it was the loneliness. He missed Zippora, his wife, and Gershom, their boy. Of course, being out on the wilderness so much only made their time together that much sweeter - at least, that was what he always told himself whenever it was time to leave again - but the ache still remained.

Now, though, as he headed roughly toward the sun, which was busy painting the western sky a spectacular red even as it itself seemed to erupt in golden flames, Moses could not help being reminded of the blazing suns which the priests and palace magicians had donned. The tricks he and his adopted brother had played on them. The palace he had lived in. The food he had eaten. The life he had known when he was yet a prince of Egypt.

Forty years removed, for the shepherd Moses, it seemed as though the memories belonged to someone else. Like they were someone else’s life.

And as he reached the tent and the sheep began fanning out around him, searching out the last strands of grass remaining after their week-long stay in this one place, he realized that it was someone else’s life.

Easing his weary bones down beside the blackened circle of ash and remnants of firewood, Moses heaved a great sigh, leaned back on his hands, and let his head flop back so he was looking up into the deepening twilight. For a long while, he just sat there, wishing the exhaustion would run down his arms and flow out into the ground, and he closed his eyes. When he finally opened them once more and righted his head, the sun was just a sliver of crimson fire rising just barely over the horizon, and darkness was setting in.

Moses leaned forward and started carefully arranging the few sticks and shards of bark which he had managed to scavenge during the day into a small pile. Within a few moments, he had a meager fire popping and sizzling before him, and he pulled out the pouch of hard bread he had been carrying. With his eyes fixed on the dancing flames, he raised the skin of wine to his lips. After a month with the flock, he had just a few days left before he would be leading his charge back to Jethro’s main camp and rejoining his family for a few days. That was truly thrilling, but as he lowered the bladder once more, Moses’ mind drifted even farther back in time to the long hours he had spent staring at the flame of the torches in his palace classroom and, for some reason, the temple of Ra.

Moses had not contemplated the times his adopted family had taken him to Ra’s temple in years. In fact, he hadn’t contemplated anything particularly spiritual in years. Perhaps because it had been such a large part of that other life. Perhaps because he didn't want to think about the family, friends, and life he had left behind. Perhaps because he didn't want to confront the facts surrounding his flight from Egypt. Maybe because he was pretty sure Ra was, if he even existed, impotent. Maybe because he didn't really care.

For a long while, images floated through Moses' mind until he realized that the bleating of the sheep had faded and the moon had risen high into the night sky. Startled by this realization, as well as the chill which now raced down his spine, compelling him to draw his cloak closer, Moses reached down and poked at the fire, pushing it back together so that it jumped up, pushing its orange glow out into the night and chasing away the chill.

Moses moved a bit closer, hoping to absorb some of the heat, but almost as soon as he did, a sudden gust toppled the entire fire and, in a heartbeat, extinguished the flame completely. Startled, he reached forward to regather the kindling, but before he could do so, his eye caught a strange gleam in the dark.

Puzzled, Moses felt an irresistible urge to investigate, and so, with a grunt, rose once more to his feet and started toward the light. Moments later, as he drew near, he recognized it as a simple scrub bush, but with one very important exception: it was on fire.

Now, Moses had seen these bushes plenty of times before. They were all over the arid land of Midian, which he had called home for these last forty years. In fact, he had even seem some of them on fire. He had broken them up and used them for kindling, and once, he had seen a lightning strike which had ignited several at once. But in each of those instances, the wispy bush was almost literally gone in a puff of smoke. There was simply not enough of the thing there to sustain a fire for more than a few seconds.

But this bush wasn’t burning up.

Compelled, Moses drew nearer to investigate, and as he did, he heard a voice from somewhere on the other side of the bush. At first, he couldn’t figure out what it was saying, but as he drew even closer, he realized two things. The voice was not coming from beyond the bush, but somehow, though it made absolutely no sense, it was coming from the bush itself. And perhaps even more bizarre, it was calling his name.

“Moses,” the voice hailed, just loud enough for him to understand, and Moses straightened, astonished. For a moment, he stood there, trying to figure out if he was dreaming or losing his mind, all the while, his eyes locked on the spectacle before him. And then, again, the voice came, “Moses!”

The voice was unlike anything he had heard before. It wasn’t exactly quiet, and yet he had to strain to hear it. It wasn’t precisely forceful, but there was a definite firmness about it. Even so, there was an unmistakable gentleness - tenderness, maybe - about it, and strangely, Moses supposed in that moment that, if he could ever hear love, it would sound like this voice calling his name. But the thing that really got Moses was the way it sounded. Rather than a singular voice, it was more like a chorus of voices, all saying the same thing. Well, maybe not a chorus, really. As it came again, Moses thought he could distinguish three distinct voices in concert. But still, unlike anything he had heard before, even before he considered that he was now virtually certain that it was coming from the bush itself.

Compelled to respond, drawing even closer, Moses stammered, “Here I am.”

If he had had his wits about him, the man would have realized that, in that moment, the stutter which had plagued him since childhood was not there. Later, he would have countless opportunities to wonder if it could have been a permanent thing had he responded a little differently, but for right now, all of that was as far from his mind as the east is from the west.

You see, in the instant that he had responded, the fire jumped until it was no longer a tiny flame in the midst of the scrub bush; suddenly, it was a roaring blaze which seemed dramatically larger than the bush itself.

Stunned, Moses flinched and even thought, for an instant, that he should run. But now, it was as though his feet were fixed in place. And the voice boomed, “Don’t come any closer.” And then, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Moses complied immediately, scrambling to kick his weathered shoes from his feet, and once he had, the voice continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

Suddenly, a wave of fear surged within Moses. He remembered his adopted mother explaining to him that the Israelites worshiped a god other than Ra. There had even been a time in his younger years where he had inquired seriously about this deity, hoping to reconnect with his birth people. But truth be told, he hadn’t thought about that in years. He had assumed that, if this Hebrew God was real, any chance that He would have anything to do with Moses was ruined when Moses had struck and killed that Egyptian slave master.

Now, though, there was no doubt. Even without pinching himself, Moses knew that this was very, very real. And more than that, he was abruptly very aware of his hands. It wasn’t as though they hurt, or even really tingled. But it was as though they had been splashed with scalding water, and even as the image of that dead Egyptian flashed through his mind, Moses knew why. This God was utterly holy.

And Moses was certainly not.

Nevertheless, the voice went on, “I have observed the misery and oppression of my people in Egypt. I know that they are suffering, and so I have come down to rescue them from their slavery and bring them into a good, spacious, and fertile land. And I’m sending you to pharaoh so that you can lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”