Transcript
Moses’s mother thought he was the most beautiful baby that had ever been born. All that dark curly hair, those big brown eyes, the only problem is that he was a boy. And Pharaoh had already decreed that any boy born to the Hebrews should be thrown into the Nile River and drowned.
Hadn’t always been that way. When Joseph was second in command over all Egypt, he had invited his family to come down from the land of Canaan and settled there with him in Egypt. Pharaoh himself had come out to bless them.
He said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the land. And that’s exactly what they did. Years after Joseph had died, generations had gone by.
A Pharaoh arose over Egypt who knew not Joseph, had no respect for that legacy. All he saw was this multitude of Israelites. And he was afraid.
He thought if these people should rise up against us they would certainly overpower us. And so he told his taskmasters to force them into slavery. And they did.
And for years and years those Hebrew people worked in Egypt as slaves. And yet it seemed that the harder they worked, the more they proliferated. Pharaoh called in the two Hebrew midwives, Shephra and Pua.
And he said to them, now listen, when you go to the home of one of these Hebrew women to deliver her baby, if it’s a girl, you may let it live. But if it is a boy, I want you to kill it on the birthing stool. Those women heard those words and promptly ignored them.
When Pharaoh heard about that, he called them back in and said, what’s going on? They said, well, you don’t understand. These Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. These women are strong.
And by the time we get there, they have already delivered their babies and they’re up cooking supper for the rest of the family. There’s just no stopping them. And so Pharaoh said to all his people, he sent out this general decree and said, should you find a baby boy among the Hebrews, I want you to throw it into the Nile River and let it drown.
Well, Jochebed was not about to let that happen to her beautiful boy Moses. And so she hid him out for three months until his lungs were so strong and his cries were so loud she realized she couldn’t hide him any longer. She got a basket made out of papyrus reeds.
She covered it with pitch so that it would be waterproof. And then early one morning, before daylight, she put that beautiful boy into the basket. She kissed him on both cheeks and put a lid on top.
She carried the basket to the edge of the river and placed it among the bulrushes, right where Pharaoh’s daughter came down for her morning bath. And then Jochebed slipped away and waited. Sure enough, early the next morning the princess came down to bathe in the Nile and she heard the sound of a baby crying.
She sent one of her servants over to have a look and the servant came back carrying this papyrus basket with a lid on top. The princess took the lid off the basket and she saw that beautiful boy inside crying his eyes out. It broke her heart.
About that time, Miriam, Moses’ older sister, came trotting up and said, would you like me to find one of the Hebrew women to nurse this baby for you? And the princess said, why yes, that would be wonderful. And when he is weaned, bring him back so that I may raise him as my own son. I will call him Moses, which means to draw out, for I drew him out of the water.
Little did she know that one day that boy, Moses, would grow up and draw God’s people out of their slavery in Egypt. Well, he did grow up in Pharaoh’s palace. He learned the language of those people, their customs and their culture.
One day he went out to see how the work was progressing. Those Hebrew slaves were building storehouse cities for the Pharaoh, the cities of Python and Ramses. He went out to watch and he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave.
And when he made sure that no one was looking, he killed that Egyptian and buried his body in the sand. The next day he came out and saw two Hebrew slaves fighting with each other. He told them to stop and they said, what, are you going to kill us as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? That’s when Moses knew that he had been found out.
And when Pharaoh found out, he vowed to kill Moses. So Moses had to run for his life. He ran to the land of Midian.
He sat down beside a well and he saw the seven daughters of the high priest of Midian driving their flock toward the well to water it. Moses got up and watered the sheep and the goats and they invited him to come back home with them and meet their father, Jethro, the high priest of Midian. Well, Moses began to work for Jethro and Jethro gave him one of his daughters, Zipporah, to be his bride.
Moses settled down in the land of Midian, began to raise his family. Years went by and the old Pharaoh died, but the new Pharaoh, his son, was even harder on those Hebrew people than his father had been. They began to cry out to the Lord asking for deliverance and the Lord heard their cry and decided to do something about it.
But whom shall I send, he wondered, and who will go for us? And then he thought of Moses, who had grown up in Pharaoh’s palace, who probably knew the new king and knew how to relate to him. Moses, he thought, would be perfect. The very next day, Moses was driving his flocks and herds around the slopes of Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, when he saw a bush that was burning without burning up.
It was a curious thing. He said, let me take a closer look. And when he came near, he heard a voice saying, Moses, Moses! Yes, Lord? Take off your sandals, for the ground you are standing on is holy ground.
So Moses did. And then the Lord said to him, I have seen the misery of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.
I know their suffering and I have come down to bring them up out of that land and into a good and broad land, a land that is flowing with milk and honey. And I am sending you to tell Pharaoh to let my people go. But Moses said, who, who am I that I should do such a thing? I’m just a Midianite shepherd.
God said, no, I want you to go. And when you go, I will be with you. And this is how you will know that it is I who have sent you.
When my people are freed, you will bring them back to this mountain and worship me here. Moses said, but, but what if I speak to the elders of Israel and they ask me who sent me? What shall I say? Who are you? And God said, I am who I am. Or in Hebrew, Yahweh.
You tell them that I am has sent you, the God of their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They will believe you. But what if they don’t? Moses said, what if they just don’t believe me? And God said, what’s that in your hand? He said, it’s, it’s my staff.
Throw it down on the ground. Moses did. And it turned into a serpent wiggling across the sand.
God said, grab it by the tail and pick it up again. And when he did, it turned into a staff. God said, take your hand and put it inside your robe.
Moses did. And when he drew it out, it was as white as snow. But when he put it back inside again and took it out, it was brown and healthy like before.
God said, do that. If they don’t believe the first time, they will believe the second one. If they don’t believe the second one, scoop up some water from the Nile River.
Pour it out on the ground. It will turn into blood. They will believe that.
And Moses said, but what if I can’t do it? I’m not very good at talking. I have a speech impediment. What if I can’t convey your words to the Pharaoh? And God said, who is it that made the human mouth? Was it not I? I made your mouth.
I will put my words in it. You deliver them to the Pharaoh. Now go.
And Moses said, please, please, Lord, send someone else. And then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. It wasn’t only the bush that was burning.
It was the wrath of God. He said, I want you to go. But yes, I will send your brother Aaron with you.
He is a smooth talker. You put your words in his mouth. He will deliver them to the Pharaoh.
And so Moses went back to his father-in-law, Jethro, and said, I need to go to Egypt. And Jethro said, go in peace. Moses took his wife, Zipporah, his children.
He went back toward the land of Egypt. His brother Aaron came out and met him at Mount Horeb, and they embraced. And Moses told him everything that the Lord had told him.
They went back together, and they spoke to the elders of Israel. Moses told them the name of God. He showed them the signs that God had given him, and they believed him.
They went with him to speak to Pharaoh. And Moses, through Aaron, said to the Pharaoh, I have been speaking with the elders of Israel. We want to go into the wilderness, three days journey, and worship the Lord and offer sacrifices.
I’m asking you, Pharaoh, to let God’s people go. But Pharaoh said, no, a thousand times no. You people want to go off on a spiritual retreat in the wilderness because I haven’t been working you hard enough.
We can fix that. And he began to work them harder. He told them to make bricks, but he no longer gave them any straw.
They had to gather their own, and it took so much longer. It was so much harder. They were working and exhausted, and said to Moses, things were so much better before you showed up.
Moses said, just trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. He’s going to bring you up out of this land and take you to a good and broad land, a land that is flowing with milk and honey.
Just trust me. He went back to Pharaoh and told him again, I want you to let God’s people go. Let them go into the wilderness and worship the Lord.
Pharaoh said, no. And then Moses said, you will see what the Lord can do. He is going to bring plagues upon you like have never come upon the land of Egypt before.
Brace yourself. And then Moses and Aaron, by the power of God, they turned the water of the Nile River into blood so that the fish could no longer live in it, and the river began to stink, and the people could no longer drink from it. And then Moses brought forth this plague of frogs.
They came up out of the river and began to cover the land. They were everywhere. Frogs were everywhere.
They were in people’s beds, and in the kneading bowls, and in their ovens. And Pharaoh said, pray to the Lord. Tell him to take away the frogs.
Moses prayed, and the frogs died. And if you think it’s bad finding a live frog in your bed, think about finding a dead one there. The people of Egypt piled up stinking heaps of dead frogs, and the next plague God sent was a plague of gnats.
Those tiny swarming insects that buzz around your face, and your eyes, and your ears, and you can’t breathe in without inhaling some of those gnats. After that flies so many of them, such huge swarms that they blotted out the midday sun. After that disease on the cattle and the livestock of the Egyptian people only, not the Israelites, but all the cattle, all the livestock of the Egyptians began to die.
And after that boils on the skin of the Egyptian people, not the Israelites, only the Egyptians. Terrible boils. After that God sent thunder, and lightning, and hail so large that it destroyed the crops in the fields.
It killed people, and animals, and broke the branches off of trees. And after that a swarm of locusts so huge that it covered the landscape, and they gobbled up every green thing that was left in the land. Only then did Pharaoh’s advisors say to him, you know, I think maybe you should let these people go.
Let them go into the wilderness and worship their God. What could it hurt? Whereas keeping them here is destroying our nation. And so Pharaoh began to bargain.
What about only the men? No, no, said Moses, it has to be everyone. What about the men and the women? No, it has to be everyone. What about the men, and the women, and the children? No, has to be the livestock too.
Then no, said Pharaoh, I will not let you go. God sent darkness over the land of Egypt so thick it could be felt. Imagine it, thick darkness that could be felt.
The Egyptians were wandering around, bumping into walls, and into each other. And finally when that plague ended, God said to Moses, I’m sending one more plague upon the Egyptians. I am going to kill every firstborn child in every family in the land.
But as for you, if you will tell the Israelites to slaughter a young lamb and spread its blood on the doorposts and lentils of their homes, in each household slaughter a lamb, spread its blood, so that when the angel of death passes through the land of Egypt, it will pass over the homes of my people. Moses told the people what to do, and they did it. And that very night, the angel of death came through the land of Egypt, and in every home the firstborn died.
You could hear the sounds of parents weeping over their dead children everywhere in the land of Egypt. It filled up the air, and all the Hebrews could hear it. Early the next morning, Moses went to Pharaoh and found that he was a different man.
His own child had died in the night. God had pounded his hard-boiled heart until it broke like an egg. And Pharaoh said, go.
Just go. You and your women and your children, your flocks and your herds, go get out of my sight. I never want to see you again.
And so Moses took them, took them out of the land of Egypt, three days journey into the wilderness. The presence of God was with them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. They traveled until they came to the edge of the Red Sea, and then they couldn’t go any farther.
Pharaoh heard about it, and when he heard about it, he mustered his army. He got his 600 trained charioteers. He set out in hot pursuit of the Hebrew slaves so that he could bring them back again and put them back to work.
They heard the sound of the Egyptian army coming long before they saw them. The Hebrews turned and saw that cloud of dust in the distance, and they cried out to Moses, were there no graves in Egypt? Is that why you brought us here to die in the wilderness? Moses prayed to the Lord, said, please, Lord, you haven’t brought us this far to let us die. Deliver us.
Deliver us. And then he said to the people, these Egyptians that you fear, you will never see them again. Only trust the Lord.
And that pillar of fire moved around behind them and stood between them and the Egyptian army all night long. And all that night Moses held out his staff over the waters, and a strong east wind blew, and the sea opened up, and a way through the water appeared with walls of water on both sides. And I don’t know who it was, but probably some little child that took the first steps down that road into the sea.
And then all the others began to follow. And all through that long night they went through the sea and came up on the other side just as the sun was rising. They turned around and saw that the Egyptian army had pursued them, but the iron wheels of the chariots had bogged down in the mud.
They were thrown into a panic. They began to say, the God of the Hebrews is fighting for them. And when Moses saw all that, saw that his people were safely on the other side, he held out his staff over the waters, and the waters closed over those Egyptians.
And every one of them was drowned, their dead bodies washed up on the shore. And when Miriam saw it, Moses’s older sister, she picked up her tambourine and began to shake it, and began to sing. And the women of the Hebrews began to join her as they sang, Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.
It may not seem like something to rejoice over, but when death has been breathing down the back of your neck, and suddenly death itself lies dead on the seashore, it seems like something to celebrate. What do we take away from this story? Maybe this, that God knows about human suffering. As it says in the story, he saw the misery of his people, he heard their cries, he knew their suffering, and he came down to do something about it.
Walter Brueghem, the great Old Testament scholar, said that in the story of the Exodus, God stands in radical solidarity with the powerless, and stands against the systems of domination and oppression. God still does that. So I don’t know what it is that you’re facing, don’t know what it is that is making you feel stuck, or trapped, as if there were no way out.
It may be financial, or physical, or personal, or emotional, or spiritual, or God forbid even political. Whatever it is that makes you feel trapped, know this, that God can still make a way out. Imagine yourself standing on the shores of the Red Sea as that east wind blows across the water, as Moses holds out his staff, and as you begin to see the waters part from one another, and a way opened up where there was no way before, and you begin to take those first tentative steps toward freedom.
Shall we pray? Gracious God, for hearing the cries of your people, for answering their prayers, and for meeting their needs, for making a way where there was no way, we thank you. In the name of Jesus, who came to set your people free, in his name we pray, amen.
