The Burning Bush

JMJ
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MOSES’ VISION OF THE BURNING BUSH is read as a typological prefigurement of the Incarnation. God enters the womb of the Most Holy Theotokos without damage or corruption just as the bush was burned yet was not consumed. This, along with reading through Pope Emeritus Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth, and today’s feast of the Transfiguration, all joined together into a meditation. It is not a complete meditation, it’s open for you to follow in many directions.

All of history can be read as a typological echo from the Burning Bush, or, more to the point, the Burning Bush is the earliest shockwave of this cosmic chain. Walk with me through this process. It’s rather like a tree of life actually. I mean that in the kabbalistic sense.

The Burning Bush pairs well with the Incarnation itself. As I mentioned Mary echoes this in that she is not harmed or corrupted by the Incarnation happening in her womb. But the Heavenly Fire does not stop with the bush in the story of Moses. The next time we see the Heavenly Fire is as the Pillar of Fire that defends the Israelites. Next, we see it on the face of Moses himself as he comes from the presence of God with the divinely-inscribed tablets. We finally see it as the Shekinah Glory hovering over the Mercy Seat in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple.

Likewise, the Heavenly Fire does not stop with the Incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. We see it again at the Transfiguration and again at the Cross. We see it at Pentecost and we see it in the Eucharist.

As the fiery pillar was a manifestation of the presence of God for the purpose of defending the Israelites or directing them, so too the Transfiguration was for the express purpose of defending the Apostles from the shame of the Cross and directing them to the heavenly vision.

As the Heavenly Fire was seen on Moses face departing so too Jesus breathed his Spirit forth from the cross and the fire fled into all the world. As Moses at Pentecost handed down the divine fire to the Israelites so Jesus at Pentecost handed the divine fire of the Holy Spirit to our hearts in the Church. And as the Shekinah came to rest in the Temple hovering over The Mercy Seat, the Eucharist by the Holy Spirit has come to rest in our churches, hovering over the altar.

And so from Moses at the bush, to the people of Israel, through the Blessed Virgin, from the Cross, through the Holy Spirit to the Church, and to you comes the divine fire of transfiguration. The shockwaves do not stop there, though. As the bush was burned yet not consumed, as the tablets were inscribed, as the Temple was filled with the glory that cannot be contained in all of the Universe – and so also as the womb of the Most Holy was made more spacious than the heavens; as Jesus was Transfigured revealing the glory of God enrobed in human flesh, so you, if you will let it, can house the holy fire and let it shine through you. This is the Shockwave of the Eschaton echoing through history and you: God’s fire bursting in and through us. The everlasting flames of God’s all-consuming love stand ready to receive us if we will but let him have us.