THE THEME OF THIS DEVOTION IS:
GOD MINISTERS HIS WORD AND HIS GRACE TO US FROM WITHIN A CLOTHING OF THORNS.
Exodus 3:2: “And the angel of YHVH appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.”
Exodus 3:7: “And YHVH said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.”
Isaiah 53:3-4: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.”
Luke 19:1-5: “Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that you may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!”
Moses beheld what the nation in the days of Rome beheld, Our GOD afflicted with our sorrows and acquainted with our grief.
Our Beloved is not a passive Savior: in the sufferings of Israel in Egypt, GOD suffered with them. In our sufferings throughout all time, our LORD has always been there with us, flaming in his passionate presence and feeling with us the thorns of our curse.
“Messiah has redeemed us from the curse of the Torah, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
The old rugged cross: splintered as with thorns.
The Hebrew word for “bush” in Exodus 3:2 is “saneh”—samech-nun-hey. It is unique to this passage and to one reference to it in Deuteronomy in the blessing of Moses upon Joseph. In the passage of the bush GOD reveals his holy Name to Moses as “I AM THAT I AM.” The BDB tells us that “saneh” indicates a thorn bush, probably a blackberry bush—abundant in nutritious berries, but forbidding with its multitude of thorns that bar entry to the delicate fruit within.
GOD chose to reveal himself to Moses clothed in a thorn bush. The letter “shin” in Hebrew is a picture of a thorn bush, similar in figure to a three-pronged pitch fork. This letter is stamped on the hills of Jerusalem by way of its three valleys with a dagesh on the right prong. This can be seen clearly by way of an aerial photograph. God—El Shaddai (the SHIN in Shaddai)—is present in his holy city—wearing, as it were, a crown of thorns.
This is the mystery of the Gospel: our LORD, pierced and crucified, wearing a crown of thorns. From this place of suffering, He ministers to us in the Eternal Now of “I AM.” From this place He supplies us with not only His Word but also his Grace through a fellowship of piercings that we endure with him in this life. As the Apostle Paul tells us concerning the “thorn in the flesh” that he was given so that he might not become exalted with pride over the abundance of the revelations that the Messiah gave to him for our good, “For this thing I besought the LORD thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9)
Let us not despise the message of the thorn bush, for it is in this word that our fulness in Yeshua is made real.
