Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God affirms: "I am with you to set you free." God affirmed this promise in different ways throughout the Old Testament. God also fulfilled this promise in various ways, and most graciously in Jesus, who is forever Emmanuel, "God with us". God's presence with us is a sign and concrete expression of his merciful love and loving mercy for us, for "God loved the world in this way that he gave us his only Son" (Jn. 3:16).

So, too, God revealed himself to Moses as a merciful God. He also revealed himself as a God who promises, so that the name "Yahweh" is probably a promise: "I shall be with you." This is the answer which God gave to Moses when he asked God how he was to accomplish such a great work as leading the Israelites out of Egypt. It is a promise which was fulfilled on one level in the Public Life of Jesus Emmanuel; it is fulfilled in a different way in the Eucharist, the life of the Church and the individual spiritual life of each follower of Jesus. Our religion is essentially an experience of God's presence with us, and at the same time an experience of God as a liberating God.