More than Moses

Seeing how extraordinary the Eucharist is

07/13/2021

Ex 2:1-15a A certain man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman,who conceived and bore a son.Seeing that he was a goodly child, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took a papyrus basket, daubed it with bitumen and pitch, and putting the child in it, placed it among the reeds on the river bank. Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the river to bathe, while her maids walked along the river bank. Noticing the basket among the reeds, she sent her handmaid to fetch it. On opening it, she looked, and lo, there was a baby boy, crying! She was moved with pity for him and said, “It is one of the Hebrews’ children.” Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” “Yes, do so,” she answered. So the maiden went and called the child’s own mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will repay you.” When the child grew, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her son and called him Moses; for she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

One of the main messages of the gospel of Matthew is comparing Jesus with Moses. Let me give you some examples and this is far from exhausting the parallels. Both Moses and Jesus were babies who had to be protected from the political powers of their day: Moses from Pharaoh and Jesus from King Herod. (That was our first reading from Exodus today.) Moses fasted for forty days and nights before receiving the Law, the Ten Commandments, and Jesus fasted for forty days and nights before giving the New Law, the 8 Beatitudes. Moses parted the Red Sea while Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee.

Moses gave the people manna to eat in the desert and Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish to feed the hungry people. And the highlight of the holy dynamic duo is the Passover. Moses instituted the first Passover by shedding the blood of the lamb to save the people from slavery, and Jesus fulfills the Passover by being the Lamb of God whose Blood was shed to save us from our sins. More examples could be multiplied like the loaves and the fishes. If you listen carefully to the readings at Mass for the next three weeks, you will hear readings from both Exodus and Matthew hammering home this parallel between Moses and Jesus.

Why was Matthew on a mission to show this close connection between Moses and Christ? Well, because no one in the history of Israel carried as much authority as Moses did. And so Matthew wants his readers (and you and me) to approach Jesus with the same awe, appreciation and amazement that they would have had for Moses. Put in modern parlance, imagine all the respect and reverence we have for figures like George Washington, Albert Einstein, Michaelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, maybe even Justin Bieber, etc. all rolled up into one person, and that is how the Jews looked at Moses.

He was the original “rockstar.” And Matthew’s point is that Jesus is not only like Moses, he is even more than Moses. Can you see why Matthew is at pains to create this parallel? No one in the Old Testament was as close to God as Moses – except maybe Adam and Eve before the Fall – and now we have Someone who is not only close to God, he is God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

Matthew could find no better earthly example of a person who paralleled Christ, and so he used Moses. Indeed, Moses himself suggested this comparison when he said in Deut. 18:15, “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you among your own kindred; that is the one to whom you shall listen.” In other words, even before Matthew made the comparison between Moses and Jesus, Moses made the comparison between Moses and Jesus.

Okay, so what does this mean for us today? Well, that same Jesus, who is much more than Moses, is precisely who we receive in the Eucharist in Holy Communion. Sometimes we can treat Holy Communion as something too commonplace, too casual. But when we remember the Mosaic background of the Mass – the manna in the desert, the Lamb’s blood of the Passover, the man who spoke to God face to face, and whose face glowed with God’s own glory – all of that, and even more than Moses, is what we approach at Holy Communion.

My friends, that is why the Church teaches we should not miss Mass on Sunday. That is why the Church insists we confess our mortal sins before receiving Communion. That is why the Church requires an annulment for those who are divorced and remarried before receiving Communion. That is why the Church prohibits non-Catholics from coming to Communion. That is why we kneel at the words of consecration at Mass. That is why some Catholics prefer to receive Jesus on their tongue instead of in their hands.

Why do we do all these things? Well, because here at Mass we meet the One who is more than Moses. And that is why Holy Communion should be anything but commonplace.

Praised be Jesus Christ!