You can’t go it alone

James Cathcart September 07, 2026 7 2

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Exodus 3: 1–6 (NIV-UK)

1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.’

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’

And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’

5 ‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ 6 Then he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

The Bible is not a book. 

It’s not so much a thing we read, as a place we go.

So let’s go with Moses to the far side of the wilderness. We stand with him and the herd. It’s quiet. As Scott Preston writes in his novel ‘The Borrowed Hills’ for sheep “standing and eating are the same thing”. So we hear only their persistent munching jaws and a low crackling sound coming from a bush…

Moses is alone with his thoughts. But we’re not. We stand with William Tyndale a 16th century English priest, taking in this scene and trying to find the words for it — to plug his readers straight into the ancient Hebrew.

And then, depending on our journey to this place, there are others here with us too — parents, friends, Sunday School teachers, preachers, politicians and historians. Many have trodden this path with Moses — wondering what it is like to take off their shoes on holy ground.

We never come to the Bible on our own. The Bible is a communal work and is intended to be read in community. Even when we’re on our own reading it there are countless hands who have brought it to us. Then there are the musicians and artists, speech writers and inscribers who have used it to justify all sorts of things — much we agree with and much that we don’t.

You cannot come to the Bible alone. Most of all, because God always joins us through the Holy Spirit.

In the Bible we meet our ancestors and our contemporaries, our friends and our enemies, our God and ourselves.

And that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

The Bible is not just something that happened — it’s something that ‘happens’ when we honestly and humbly bring all of who we are to all of what it is. We cannot ‘go it alone’ in life and we can’t go it alone with the Bible either. We travel with those like William Tyndale who opened the door wider. And Moses — the loner ex-con turned reluctant people’s champion — who would tie his life to his community, who would no longer ‘go it alone.’

Prayer:

Bind us together God,

as we learn what the Bible is

how it is

and why it is.

Keep us compassionate and hospitable in this place

this place like no other.

Amen.