A sermon written for the Nashotah House class “Exodus & the Liturgy” by the Rev. Gene R. Tucker
I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
This first stanza of what might well be one of the Church’s best-loved hymns, serves to trace the history of God’s creative and redemptive work. For God’s people in every age and in every culture can truthfully say – along with this hymn – that God has shown His power to save the people that He has created.
But, you may ask, “Save us from what, exactly?”
And the answer might be, “From several things, including our bondage to sin, our darkness, our alienation from God and from God’s holiness….these are the things from which we are saved by God’s awesome power.”
God’s people, down through the ages, share these common experiences, for we are all in bondage, and we are unable to free ourselves. Consider the plight of the Hebrew people, in bondage in Egypt. They were aliens – separated from the land of promise in a pagan, polytheistic culture. They lived under the yoke of slavery among a people who lived in darkness, and among a people who practiced the dark arts.
But into this hopeless and helpless situation, God comes. The Lord comes to reclaim His people, the people He had chosen for Himself, the people promised to Abraham so many years before, the people He had created through His relationship with Abraham.
And so, Moses becomes God’s intercessor, God’s agent of change. And God calls Moses from the midst of the bush that is burning but is not consumed, telling Moses that the He is the “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3: 14). For God provides Moses with this additional self-identification, saying, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3: 6).
A central part of Moses’ encounter with God is the announcement of God’s plan that will liberate the Chosen People from their bondage in Egypt.
And so the people of God will go forth out of Egypt. They will experience the power of God to liberate and to save, in the Passover, and in the crossing of the Red Sea. They will be sustained in the desert by God’s provision of water, of manna, and of quail. They will be formed by the covenant which will be given at Mount Sinai.
The story of God’s people, from their departure from Egypt to their arrival in the Promised Land, shines like a beam of light in the pages of Holy Scripture. These experiences enlighten the consciousness of God’s people down through time, and into our own time.
For the experiences of God’s people ages ago are also our experiences. We can say so because God’s nature is unchanging, and the human condition – apart from God’s redemptive acts – is also unchanging. We – like our ancestors in faith from ages ago – stand in need of God’s redeeming.
The task before us in this sermon today involves a consideration of God’s saving and sustaining actions back then in Moses’ day, in order that we might see God’s saving and sustaining actions in our own day.
As we undertake this task, we will divide our analysis of God’s work and our response into three sections. For the purposes of this sermon, I will use verse three of the hymn “Amazing Grace” (one of my most favorite texts, and perhaps as close as I can come to having a motto for my life) to shape the analysis of the steps that God took in Moses’ day, and the steps that He takes with us today. These three steps are:
- “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come,”
- “’Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,”
- “And grace will lead me home.”
So, let’s begin.
“Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!”
God’s saving acts
God’s saving acts in Egypt began with the call of Moses. Uniquely positioned to be God’s emissary (for he had grown up in Pharoah’s house), Moses demonstrates the power of God over the powers of darkness and evil. Acting as God’s spokesman, it is Moses who goes to Pharoah, time after time, demanding that Pharoah the release of God’s people. Each time, the succeeding plagues are inaugurated by Moses’ actions.
The tenth plague and last plague is the plague of death, the killing of the first-born of Egypt, of humans and of animals (Exodus 11: 1 – 6).
But in the midst of death, God grants life….To the people of God, a way of escape from this last, deadly plague is provided, and the way of escape involves an act of faithful obedience: “Select lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood which is in the basin; and none of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to slay the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to slay you.” (Exodus 12: 21b – 23)
Let’s put ourselves into this situation, to see the test of faith that is involved: Remember that – for God’s people – this is a new experience, a new command. Never had they been told to do this before. I will admit to you that, if I were standing in Moses’ presence, and if I’d heard these instructions, I might have responded by saying, “Well, how’s that going to save us? We’ve never done anything like that before!”
But those who did obey were saved, we are told.
And with obedience comes faith. It works this way:
- God tells us to do something,
- We do it, acting in obedience and with faith, and
- God is faithful to His promise
As we respond in faith to God’s word, and God responds, a covenantal relationship is built: God is faithful to His promises, and we respond in faith and obedience.
In the process of this covenantal relationship, we come to know more and more about the Lord. We come to trust His word and His power. We are claimed as God’s people, a unique possession of the Lord.
Now, back to our story….
The tenth and last plague worked. Pharoah agrees to let God’s people go. And off they go, heading eastward out of Goshen, laden with booty they’d gathered from the Egyptians.
But then, the stage is set for the next chapter in God’s plan of salvation: the experience at the Red Sea:
Sandwiched between the waters of the sea and Pharoah’s pursuing army, the people of Israel begin to grumble and complain, crying out, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?” (Exodus 14: 11)
But, you see, though the people of Israel didn’t know it, God had a plan, which He had disclosed to Moses. It was a plan to save God’s people. It was a plan which would continue to prove that God had chosen this people to be His people. In so doing, this plan would have a lot in common with the Passover experience, by which God had begun to claim this special people to be His people, setting a hedge of identity and protection around them.
You know this story quite well. It is the stuff of the great movie, “The Ten Commandments”. The waters divide as Moses lifts the staff to separate the waters. The people of God walk through the Red Sea on dry land. The Egyptians pursue, following them into the midst, but the waters close in upon them once God’s people have passed through. Pharoah and his army would never be seen again, and God’s people rejoiced in song, “I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider He has thrown into the sea….” (Exodus 15: 1b)
But we should pause for a moment to consider the test of faith that stepping onto the dry land with the walls of water piled up on either side represented. Remember that this, too, (like the Passover) had never happened before. Putting myself into the situation, I might well have wondered if the waters would come closing in on me! The point seems to be that there was a test involved, just as there had been at the Passover, a test of Israel’s faith, made in response to God’s demonstrated power.
This passage through the waters of the Red Sea would come to have enormous significance, for the waters form a barrier which acts in two ways: it prevents the pursuer from gaining power over God’s people, and it prevents God’s people from returning to their former lives. (We will explore this truth in greater detail in the last part of our sermon today.)
“’Tis grace that brought me safe thus far”
God sustains His people in the wilderness
Finding themselves on the east side of the Red Sea, God’s people’s situation might not have been much different from their predicament on the west side, before they’d crossed the Red Sea. For on the west side, they faced the sea as a barrier to the east, while Pharoah’s army to the west posed a threat. But now the barrier and the threat remains: the sea continues to form a barrier, making return to Egypt impossible, while the desert they are now in is full of threats.
Two of the threats they now face offer God the occasion of further proof of God’s ability to not only save His people, but to sustain them in their journey.
For our purposes here, we will consider three of these occasions: the provision of manna and quail, the provision of water from the rock, and the giving of the Law, the Torah.
Provision of manna and quail: In this wilderness, the people again complain, saying, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16: 3)
These are remarkably similar words to the sentiments we considered just a moment ago, the words uttered on the west side of the Red Sea, aren’t they? The subtext of these words seems to be, “We had it so good back there in Egypt.”
(God’s people have such short – and selective – memories, sometimes, don’t they!)
But the God who calls His people into existence, the God who saves His people, is also the God who does not abandon them. God sustains His people, providing manna from heaven in the mornings, and quail for the people to eat in the evenings.
And here, too, just as we have seen in the account of the Passover, is a test: the people are to gather only enough manna for each person to eat for that day, only! (And a double portion on the sixth day, which was to last through the Sabbath day.) Any excess gathered would spoil. (The point seems to be, “Don’t be greedy, but trust in the Lord to provide!”)
Provision of water from the rock: Another threat is experienced in the lack of water. Life-threatening, this situation prompts yet another session of grumbling and complaining. The people say to Moses, “Give us water to drink….”Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” (Exodus 17: 2, 4) But now, it is the children of Israel who are finding fault, and who are doing the testing, for we read that Moses called the place Massah and Meribah, because they “put the Lord to the test.” (Exodus 17: 7)
The giving of the Law, the Torah: God’s people are being formed into His own unique possession through a series of redemptive and sustaining acts which identify these offspring of Abraham as God’s people. Each experience serves to further demonstrate God’s favor, God’s protection, God’s sustenance of this special people, who are to enter into a covenant with God.
The covenant is given at Mount Sinai, as Moses comes down from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of stone upon which have been written the Ten Commandments.
In preparation for the giving of this covenant, the people are to consecrate themselves (Exodus 19: 10).
And so, in the Ten Commandments, we see God’s intention for God’s people, the means by which God’s people will relate to God (commandments one through four), while the way that they will relate to one another is charted in commandments five through ten.
In the ancient world, this covenant stood in marked contrast to the peoples of the earth which would surround the Israelites once they had reached the Promised Land.
For one thing, the concept of this one God, the invisible God, stood in sharp distinction to the polytheism of the Egyptians, and to the pagan deities of the Philistines, the Amorites, and others. For another, the holiness of life that the last six commandments demanded with respect to parents, to sexual behavior, to truthfulness, to respect for property was a calling to radical holiness that none of these surrounding cultures practiced.
God’s people would be formed by this covenant, marked as God’s people. Its precepts would form a barrier of protection with respect to their relationship to God and to each other, and it would mark them as God’s unique possession. Its purpose was to form their identity and to sustain their lives, that an intimate and ongoing relationship might be established between God’s people, in order that they might relate to God and to each other in holiness and truth.
“And grace will lead me home”
On their way to the Promised Land
God’ people wandered in the wilderness for forty years, we are told in Exodus. Along the way, their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell, we are told. (Deuteronomy 8: 4)
But Deuteronomy goes on to reflect on the wilderness experience, calling it a time of testing. Hear these words from chapter eight, “All the commandments which I command you this day you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether your would keep His commandments, or not. And He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 8: 1 – 4)
Here, then, is a summary of the time spent in the wilderness. Clearly, God’s intent is to bring His people into the Promised Land. Having saved them, He then sustains them. But He also tests them, giving them the opportunity to demonstrate their faithfulness. Time and again, they would complain and grumble…notice how similar much of that grumbling we’ve chronicled here today sounds! A whole lot of it begins with words we might correctly summarize by paraphrasing, “Why have you brought us out here? We had it so good back in Egypt!”
How else might we characterize this time in the Sinai? Clearly, it was a time in which a longing for a return to Egypt coexisted, side-by-side, with repeated demonstrations of God’s saving and sustaining power. It was a time when the old ways mingled with the new: that is surely one of the lessons in the incident of the making of the golden calf, an event in which the pagan ways of the Egyptians took place just as God was telling Moses that the people were “not to make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall [they] make gods of gold”. (Exodus 20: 23). The giving of the Law coincided with idolatry.
Conclusion: Lessons for God’s people
Earlier on, we reflected a little on God’s nature, His unchanging nature, and we remarked that the human condition – apart from God’s saving and sustaining action – is also unchanging.
It is on this basis that Holy Scripture has its authority.
It is also on this basis that the pages of Holy Scripture come to life. (Notice how they come to life if we allow ourselves to take a place, as human beings, in the accounts we’ve considered.)
For the God who acted in history, continues to act as new chapters of history are being written. God’s saving acts will have lots in common with God’s saving acts in ages past. The same is true for God’s sustaining acts.
Into this great story of God’s saving and sustaining, we are being folded today.
So, what lessons might we draw from what we’ve considered in this sermon?
May I propose the following:
- We are in bondage, alienated from God: The Hebrew people were enslaved. They were in bondage, unable to free themselves. But God saw their afflictions and their bondage, and it was God who determined to free them from their bondage. Down through history, we can see the bondage that characterizes the unredeemed state of mankind. The pages of history are filled with accounts of human bondage to the lust for power, to idolatry, to passions that enslave and which ultimately destroy us.
But God determines to save us from that bondage. And in the process, He chooses human beings to assist in that redemption. Moses functions just that way, as an intercessor with God, as the deliver of God’s word.
Jesus Christ fills the same role, coming among us as one of us (see Philippians 2: 5 – 11), in order to redeem us from our bondage to sin. He brings God’s word, for He is the eternal Word, come from God (John 1: 1).
Jesus Christ demonstrates God’s power by His suffering and death, by His resurrection from the dead, and by His ascension into heaven. Each one of these acts paves the way for our exodus from bondage: His death and descent to the dead (see I Peter 4: 6) certifies the certainty of death. His resurrection proves that life exists on the other side of that final crossing. His ascension into heaven demonstrates the reality of the Promised Land which completes this pilgrim journey.
Along the way, God has created certain rites of passage which mark us as God’s own forever (see the Baptismal service in the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 308). One of those involves a water-crossing, Baptism.
St. Paul describes the baptismal relationship as a death, burial and resurrection. Writing in Romans 6: 3 – 5, we read, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”
St. Paul’s argument is essentially a geographical one. In essence, he seems to be saying, “you’ve passed through the waters – waters which had the power to kill you, but didn’t – into a new territory, into new life, and it is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that makes this new life possible” (my paraphrase).
It’s the same process that the ancient Israelites experienced, as they passed from their former existence, in which there was no life, for there was no freedom, into a new life with God, which ensures their freedom. We, like them, pass through the waters. - God’s sustenance, and our resistance, exist, side-by-side: The ancient Israelites waffled and wavered, back and forth. They had seen God’s powerful hand at work among them, preserving their lives while destroying the first-born of the Egyptians, passing on dry land through the walls of water at the Red Sea.
They had experienced the sustaining power of God in the provision of manna and quail. They drank from the water which sprang out of the rock at Horeb.
Yet, they longed for the fleshpots in Egypt. They longed for the waters of the Nile that provided something to drink. In a time when they thought that Moses had abandoned them, they resorted to the sort of idolatry that they had seen in Egypt.
In their existence in the wilderness, the old and the familiar was an ever present temptation which manifested itself along with God’s provision. The uncharted future seemed dangerous and uninviting, while the past – though not perfect – offered safety and familiarity.
The people of Israel remembered these days and these experiences. In Psalm 106, we see the two, side-by-side. Here are some selected verses that illustrate the point:
7: “In Egypt they did not consider your marvelous works, nor remember the abundance of your love; they defied the Most High at the Red Sea.”
12 – 14: “ They believed his words and sang him songs of praise, but they soon forgot his deeds and did not wait for his counsel.”
19 - 20: “Israel made a bull-calf at Horeb and worshiped a molten image; and so they exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that feeds on grass.”
In similar fashion, Psalm 78 confirms the reality of the intermingling of disobedience and the receipt of God’s favor. Some selected verses will suffice to underscore the point:
9 – 17: “ The people of Ephraim, armed with the bow, turned back in the day of battle; they did not keep the covenant of God; and refused to walk in his law; they forgot what he had done, and the wonders he had shown them. He worked marvels in the sight of their forefathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. He split open the sea and let them pass through; he made the waters stand up like walls. He led them with a cloud by day, and all the night through with a glow of fire. He split the hard rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as from the great deep. He brought streams out of the cliff, and the waters gushed out like rivers. But they went on sinning against him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.”
Verses 18 through 55 go on to chronicle the people’s rebellious ways, alternating with a recitation of God’s might acts.
And so it is with us, isn’t it, oftentimes?
Aren’t we just like them?
Don’t we experience God’s power to save and to sustain, only to wither when danger arises, or when difficulties threaten to overtake us?
Aren’t we a little like those ancient Israelites?
In truth, we are. Our attitude might be summed up in the phrase, “God, what have you done for me lately?”
And isn’t it true that we often treat God like a divine ATM machine? Don’t we want a relationship with God where we can call on God, inserting our “prayer card” to get what we want, when we want it, instantaneously? Aren’t we demanding, just like the Israelites who said, “Give us water to drink.”
In truth, we often act just that way.
As we do, we mirror the culture in which we find ourselves, a culture that is self-absorbed to the extreme, a culture that asks, “What have you done for me lately?”
In so doing, we fail to commend the faith that is in us, as the Prayer Book says (page 268, from the Ash Wednesday liturgy). We fail to bear witness to God’s mighty power, and His mighty acts which have preserved us to this present day. - On our way to the Promised Land: We are on our way, in this life, making our way toward the promise of eternal life, as is promised to us through the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, who promised to bring us to that place where He has gone before, a place of His preparation for us (John 14: 2 – 3).
But, we’re not there yet!
There is still much formative work to be done in us before we cross the final frontier, the frontier of death.
The Scriptures characterize this time prior to our arrival as a time of testing. In the First Letter of Peter, we see indications of this idea. Referring to the reality of testing, we read (verses 6 – 7), “In this [the living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – verse 3] you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Going on to affirm the temptations of our old ways and our old selves, we read a little further on, (I Peter 4: 1 – 5) where we see references to Jesus’ trials, to the barrier to sin that we have received, and the reality of the memory of our old existence. The text says, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer by human passions but by the will of God. Let the time that is past suffice for doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.”
My own life bears witness to the power of God to redeem and to sustain. My prayer of thanks often is:
Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come.
‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
