A Prophet Like Me, Only Greater

(Deuteronomy 18:15-19)

Moses was old now.

His hair was white as the desert moon, and his hands shook a little. He had led the people for a long, long time: through the sea, through the wilderness, up the smoking mountain where God spoke in thunder.

The people had been afraid of that thunder. So afraid. "We cannot listen to that voice," they had cried, covering their ears. "It is too big. It will undo us. Moses, you go close. You listen for us. You tell us what God says."

And Moses had. All those years, he stood in the middle. God would speak to Moses, and Moses would turn around and tell the people. He was like a bridge between heaven and a frightened, dusty crowd.

But now Moses was old.

And the people were starting to wonder, the same way you might wonder, lying in the dark: when the strong ones are gone, who will speak to me? Who will stand close to God for me? Who will tell me what is true?

Moses knew their wondering. He had felt it himself.

So he gathered them close, the way you lean in for the most important thing, and he gave them a promise straight from God's own mouth.

"Listen," Moses said. "The Lord your God is going to raise up a prophet for you. One like me, from among your own people, your own brothers. And God will put his very words inside that prophet's mouth. When that prophet speaks, it will be God speaking. So listen to him. Listen."

A prophet like Moses, and greater than Moses.

The people held that promise like a lamp. They carried it through the years. And every time a prophet came and went, every time a good one died, they whispered, "Is it him? Was that the one?" And it never quite was. The promise stayed lit, glowing, waiting, always a little ahead of them, like a light at the end of a long road.

Hundreds of years passed. The lamp never went out.

Then one day, by a blue lake, a man stood and spoke. And the crowds hushed to hear him. His words did not sound borrowed. They sounded like they came from the inside of God. Loaves grew in his hands. The sick stood up. The dead sat up.

And the people began to whisper it, the old whisper, the one their grandparents' grandparents had carried: "This is the Prophet. The one Moses told us about. He has come."

He had.

But there was something even Moses had not seen. One bright day a cloud came down on a mountain, the way it had come down long ago, and a voice spoke out of it. This time the words were not given to a prophet to carry down the mountain. This time the voice spoke about him.

"This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him."

Moses listened FOR the people, standing in the middle. But Jesus is the middle. He is the voice and the bridge and the Son, all at once. You never have to be afraid of the thunder again. God came close, and his name is Jesus, and you may listen to him forever.

But old Moses still had one more mountain to climb. Turn the page, and walk up it with him.