Collegiate United Methodist Church/Wesley Foundation
Sunday, May 4, 2025
  • Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!

      • Exodus 3.1-2NRSV

      • Exodus 3.3-4NRSV

      • Exodus 3.5-6NRSV

      • Exodus 3.7NRSV

      • Exodus 3.8NRSV

      • Exodus 3.9-11NRSV

      • Exodus 3.12NRSV

      • Exodus 3.13-14NRSV

  • Stepping into a New Season

    Today we begin a new season in the life of the Church—Eastertide. If that word is unfamiliar to you, you are not alone. In the last 100 years or so the church seems to have hyper focused on the seasons of Lent and Advent, and largely beyond those two we have become distant from the other liturgical seasons.
    It’s part of what’s known as the liturgical calendar, a rhythm the Church has followed for centuries to move through the story of Jesus and the people of God, one season at a time.
    (insert story about living liturgically during covid)
    The liturgical calendar isn’t just a schedule—it’s a way of helping us live into the mystery of our faith across the course of a year. It gives us time to prepare, to reflect, to celebrate, to grieve, to wait, and to grow.
    We’ve just come through Easter Sunday, the celebration of resurrection. But the story doesn’t stop there. The 49 days between Easter and Pentecost—called Eastertide—invite us to dwell in the meaning of resurrection and prepare for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
    And yet, for many Christians, the Holy Spirit can feel like the least understood part of our faith. We talk often about God the Creator, and about Jesus the Redeemer. But the Spirit? Too often, the Spirit is treated like a footnote, the optional add on. The third wheel of the trinity.
    But in the Wesleyan tradition, the Spirit is anything but optional.
    Our Methodist roots are grounded in the conviction that the Spirit is active, alive, and essential:
    The Spirit is the one who convicts and comforts, who empowers and equips.
    It’s by the Spirit that we’re drawn into grace—and it’s through the Spirit that we’re sent out to live transformed lives.
    It is not possible to be a Christian without the Holy Spirit.
    So during Eastertide, during this eastertide we pause to make space for that. To listen. To prepare. To expect the Spirit to move—not just in Acts, not just in history—but here and now. and to long for the day of Pentecost.
    And here’s the deep promise of this season is that: God is with us, even from the beginning.
    Even before we understand. Even before we’re ready. Even before the Church is born at Pentecost.
    To get to our story today we have to do a bit of forshadowing of where we are going in this series. We have to look ahead in order to go back. We start at Pentecost

    Looking Ahead by Going Back

    To really understand Pentecost, we have to go back—not just to the early Church in Acts, but even further, to the book of Exodus.
    Pentecost originally happened during a Jewish festival called Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. In that sense, Pentecost is deeply connected to the story of Moses and the burning bush—because that’s where the journey toward Sinai begins. Even from the Begining. God’s radical act of presence is with us.
    When the Holy Spirit comes as fire in Acts 2, it’s not a new image. It’s a continuation of something ancient. Some rabbis taught that the flames of Pentecost resembled the Hebrew letter Yod, a letter associated with God’s very name. That detail invites us to see Pentecost as part of a larger pattern.
    The fire of Pentecost and the fire at the bush are linked by one truth:
    God is with us, even from the beginning.

    The Spirit Has Always Moved

    And although modern Protestant traditions often skip over Eastertide in the liturgical calendar, and our more ancient church siblings did not. This season—between Easter and Pentecost—has always been a time when God seems to stir something in the Church. There are powerful moments in history that seem to echo that same pattern of Spirit-led transformation. And when we look back to many of the moments of church history a lot of the pivotal moments in the history of Christianity occur within these 49.
    John and Charles Wesley experienced conversion in the days after Pentecost.
    Ignatius of Loyola had a vision that launched the Jesuit order.
    Augustine was consecrated as a bishop.
    The Council of Nicaea reached its conclusion.
    The Augsburg Confession was presented.
    John Calvin arrived in Geneva.
    King Henry VIII formalized the break from Rome.
    The Anabaptists gathered in secret during Pentecost, leading to the formation of new faith communities like the Mennonites and Amish.
    The point is this: When people seek the Spirit and open themselves to the presence of God, transformation tends to follow.
    Or perhaps more accurately: we move—more fully into the life God is calling us to live.
    I am not suggesting that there is anything magical about these particular 49 days, but what I am suggesting is that God is that there is no place which we could go in which God is not already at. And that perhaps the lesson that the history of the church has to teach us is that we ought to pay deeper and fuller attention to what it is that God is doing in our midst.
    Exodus 3:1 “1 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.”

    God Appears Before We’re Ready

    The Israelites at this point have very little theological framework. There’s no codified doctrine, no Torah, no organized worship. What they have is oppression in Egypt, ancestral stories, and longing. In a very real sense, God is introducing Godself to a people who barely know who they are, much less who God is.
    And where does this all happen?
    This first divine encounter doesn’t happen in a holy place. It happens “beyond the wilderness”—not in a temple, but on a mountain of no great significance yet. And that’s fitting, because the people Moses will one day lead don’t yet have a law, a worship practice, or even a name for their God that they can cling to with confidence.
    And still, God appears.
    The mountain is just a mountain until God calls it holy.
    It is not that this is a Holy Place it is that the pressence of God meets the people there, and that is what makes it Holy.
    God meets us not just in the Holy but in exactly where we are
    Not where we wish to be
    In the confusion of our calling.
    In our wilderness seasons.
    In our despair and eye rolling at the way things are
    In the middle of the small sigh and exhale we have right as someone asks us how we have been
    God meets us
    In the testing hall and at the Memorial Union
    In the Committee meeting and the email typing
    And says this, this is Holy because this is where God is
    God always has met us where we least expect

    God Shows Up in Unlikely Places

    The first surprise of Exodus 3 isn’t the bush—it’s where Moses is when it happens. He’s not seeking a vision. He’s not praying on a retreat. He’s doing the ordinary: tending sheep, deep in wilderness territory, likely far from anything familiar.
    And then it says something strange: “He came to Horeb, the mountain of God.”
    This mountain won’t be known as God’s mountain until after this encounter and after Sinai. So what does it mean that Moses finds God there—beyond the wilderness, off the map?
    It means something profoundly good: God’s presence is not limited by place, status, or preparation. God chooses obscure places to reveal eternal things.
    And the message that God has for Moses is:
    Exodus 3:12 NRSV
    12 He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

    God was with us from the Begining

    Moses stands barefoot on holy ground, underqualified. When Moses questions his own ability—“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?”—God doesn’t answer with a pep talk, credentials, or strategic clarity.
    Instead, God gives a promise:
    “I will be with you.”
    So this moment in Exodus isn’t just a commissioning—it’s a reintroduction. God is pledging covenantal presence to a people who barely know what covenant means.
    And even more striking: the "sign" of God's presence won’t come until after Moses follow.
    No words are spoken about the Holy Spirit, no mention of the word Trinity but there is a promise.
    A promise that echos throughout the Bible and throughout history that says I will be with you.
    The intention for our season and our sermon series is that is promised to us even now.
    God does not offer Moses proof upfront. God offers presence along the way.
    There is no solace that things will be alright, or that things will be easy, or that Justice will come.
    There is no promise that this will be the last oppression that Israel ever faces, or that we face....the promise is that through all of it God will be with us. That

    Presence Is the Pattern

    This isn’t a one-time motif in Scripture—it’s the central pattern:
    To Jacob, fleeing in fear: “I am with you and will watch over you.”
    To Joshua, stepping into leadership: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.”
    To Mary, visited by the angel: “The Lord is with you.”
    To the disciples, commissioned by Jesus: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
    ecost, the promise intensifies.And then, at Pent God is no longer just beside the people—but dwelling within them through the Spirit.
    In a desert bush, God calls Moses.
    In a stable, Christ is born.
    In a garden tomb, death is reversed.
    At Pentecost, the Spirit comes not to the powerful, but to the waiting and ordinary.
    Time and again, God speaks from the margins, and from those margins, history shifts.
    And this pattern didn’t stop with the early Church. It continues across time:
    In a monastery in Hippo, Augustine's theology took root.
    In a cellar in Wittenberg, Martin Luther translated Scripture into the language of the people.
    In a small chapel on Aldersgate Street, John Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed.”
    In the catacombs, early Christians worshiped underground while Rome hunted them.
    In the fields of Assisi, Francis gave up wealth and embraced radical simplicity.
    In the slums of Calcutta, Mother Teresa bore witness to Christ among the poor.
    In Black-led churches under Jim Crow, freedom hymns and Spirit-fire fueled the Civil Rights Movement in this country.
    It we only take time to listen to the spirit.
    These were not the centers of institutional power. These were edges, outposts, borderlands. And yet they became holy ground—because God was there.
    God doesn’t just show up in the sacred. God makes places sacred by showing up

    So where might God be showing up in your life?

    Maybe not in fire or wind, but in questions…
    In someone who won’t stop showing up for you…
    In a stirring you can’t explain…
    In a longing you can’t quite put words to…
    Eastertide is a season not just of looking back—but of looking around.
    What would it look like to believe that God is with you—
    Even in the places that feel unfinished?
    Even when you feel unready?
    Even when you feel unsure?
    In the places that feel not ripe for fire

    Conclusion

    It just is.
    Promised.
    Even now.
    From the beginning.
    So wherever you find yourself in this season— In the wilderness or in worship, In the questioning or in the quiet, May you know this:
    The fire still burns. The Spirit still speaks. The promise still holds.
    Promised, even now, from the beginning.
    Amen.

    Time of prayer

    Let us pray.
    God of fire and whisper, of wilderness paths and quiet promises— You are with us, even from the beginning.
    Before we had the words to pray, Before we knew what to believe, Before we were ready to say yes— You were already near.
    You met Moses in a forgotten place, And called him by name.
    You met the disciples in a locked room, And breathed peace into fear.
    You meet us still— In our questions, in our longings, In our routines and our wildernesses.
    Kindle the fire of Your Spirit in us again. Help us pay attention. Help us trust that this ground, too, is holy. Not because we are perfect— But because You are present.
    Let us carry Your presence with us. Let us walk forward in faith. Let us believe— that You are with us, even now. Even here. Even from the beginning.
    Amen.

    Benediction

    Go now— into the wilderness places, into the ordinary rhythms, into the moments that don’t yet feel holy—
    and trust this:
    God is with you, even from the beginning.

      • Exodus 3:12ESV

      • Psalm 48NRSVUE

  • The Great Thanksgiving
  • Here I Am, Lord
  • Shalom to You
Collegiate United Methodist Church/Wesley Foundation
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