The Staff of Moses

As we have walked with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the staff of the Lord has carried promise, surrender, worship and forgiveness. In the hand of Moses, the staff becomes something else.

When God met Moses at the burning bush, He asked a strangely ordinary question. “What is that in your hand?” In many ways, this question was the entry point to this entire series of posts. His answer was simple: “A staff.”

It was only a shepherd’s staff. Weathered wood carried through the wilderness of Midian. It bore no crown, held no royal inscription and carried none of the magnificence of Pharaoh’s palace. What could one man possibly do with that?

Ask the Sea of Reeds, Pharaoh or the tablets of stone what they saw and you’ll hear a similar tale. In Moses, men and even inanimate objects witnessed a man more humble than any who walked the earth. A man whose ordinary staff became extraordinary only because it was surrendered to the hand of God. In fact, under the shared power of God, Whose hand was over the hand of the man who parted waters, it became the staff of Deliverance.

For the staff of deliverance was the staff Moses most powerfully wielded. But before Moses could carry it back into Egypt, he had to learn what deliverance truly meant.

He had been delivered from the waters of the Nile as an infant. Delivered from the violence of Pharaoh’s house and from his own self-confidence after taking justice into his own hands. Delivered from reputation, position and power into forty years of hiddenness overseeing a herd of sheep. The deliverer first had to be delivered himself.

Perhaps this is always the way of God. He does not often let freedom reign through us until we have overcome our own chains. He does not often place the staff of healing into our hands until we recognize our need for a Saviour to heal our own wounds. He leads us into the wilderness, strips away the illusion of human strength and teaches us to lean entirely upon Him.

His was a staff you only take hold of and learn to wield after being delivered yourself. Which is not to say that our God will not surprise us, shake us profoundly, or waken us more quickly than we can ever be fully prepared for.

For right about the moment he began to find comfort among the sheep in Midian, Moses suddenly found himself standing before the burning bush hearing the unbelievably perfect Name above every name. “I AM WHO I AM.”

He could have exalted his own name after meeting the Great I Am. No-one else had seen such Presence and lived. Instead, he took off his sandals and laid himself low. He could have returned to Egypt boasting that he had encountered the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Instead, he protested that he was slow of speech and unworthy of the assignment. God rebuked him for that, and he received the discipline like a true son.

He could have gloated over the Israelites about his unparalleled position as messenger between God and men. Instead, he hid himself in the cleft of the rock. Shielded his eyes, prayed for salvation for his soul, laid down surrounded by fire but not burned when he saw the immensely beautiful back of the LORD of Heaven’s armies. When He heard the sweetest sound in all creation, greater and more weighty than any symphonic orchestra, a pure and vibrant and holy and profound and perfect utterance of YHWH’s name, spoken by the Lord God Himself!

Moses hid himself there and waited for long hours in the cleft of the rock. Laid low in holy reverence. Braced himself like a man. Adjusted his robe, reached again for his simple, wooden staff. Walked back down the mountain into the demon-possessed valley.

We would do well to follow in his footsteps.

The staff itself was never the source of power. Moses was never the source of any of that tremendous, epic, world-building strength. Deliverance belonged completely to Yahweh.

When Moses cast the staff to the ground, it became a serpent. When he lifted it over the waters, the sea divided. When it struck the rock, water poured into the desert. When it was raised above the battlefield, Israel prevailed.

But behind the staff was not merely the hand of Moses. Behind the hand of Moses was the hand of the Lord. The ordinary wood revealed the extraordinary authority of the One who had placed it in his hand. What a great and terrible staff to wield. And how humbling. And how magnificent.

When Pharaoh trembled in fear watching a mortal man wield the staff of deliverance, he was seeing the hand of the Lord grasping the staff. Egypt’s gods were exposed as empty, and the power of slavery was broken. The sea became a highway, and an entire people walked out from under the weight of generations of bondage.

The greatest deliverer in the story of Exodus is not Moses. It is the Most High God. Moses understood this better than anyone.

Perhaps that is why Scripture calls him the humblest man on the face of the earth. He knew what it was to be powerless apart from the presence of Yahweh. His authority did not come from believing more deeply in himself, but from surrendering himself more completely to God.

He led the people, walked with them for more than forty years, fed and watered and discipled and delivered them, yes. But on more than one occasion Moses pleaded with God Almighty in intercession. He stood between the chasm of sinful man and a holy God.

After the golden calf, Moses did not abandon the people who had rejected God and resisted his leadership. He climbed the mountain again. He pleaded for mercy.

He even offered himself in sacrifice if only the people might be spared. “Forgive their sin, but if not, blot me out too.” That is not the cry of a man obsessed with position. It is the prayer of a shepherd willing to lay down his life for the sheep.

Moses became an extraordinary picture of Christ. He stood in the breach between judgment and mercy. He carried the burden of a nation that often misunderstood, resisted and accused him. He valued their deliverance above his own comfort, reputation and even his life.

Yet Moses could only point toward the greater Deliverer still to come. In the wilderness, when poison spread through the camp, Moses raised a bronze serpent upon a pole. Those who looked upon it lived. Deliverance became healing.

Centuries later, Jesus declared that the Son of Man would also be lifted up, so that everyone who looked to Him in faith would receive life. The staff of deliverance pointed toward another piece of wood far heavier than Moses’ staff, and far more difficult to bear. The cross of Christ.

There, the greater Moses stood between sinful humanity and the holiness of God. He did not merely offer to be blotted out. He allowed Himself to be pierced, condemned and numbered among transgressors. He entered the deepest sea and broke open a path through death itself. He forged a new road, an ancient path that we can walk to Him too. It is the Way to Truth and Life.

With Moses, the captives came out free. The poisoned were healed. The lost were carried home. And how much more so in the greater Moses, Who is Christ.

Let’s walk with the keel of Moses this week. Humility guiding our steps as we lean into the cleft of the rock, witnessing and listening to and surrendering beneath the Glory of the LORD.

Keep Breathing,
Daniel Kooman