Moses I: Escape from Egypt
February 8, 2015
BMC- Exodus 2:11-25 (Exodus 1:1-24:18)
Through the Bible in a Year
Introduction: The Escape Artist[1]
An escape
artist is someone who is known for being able to get out of self inflicted and
often life threatening predicaments that nobody should be able to get out
of. Probably the most well known escape
artist of all time is Harry Houdini.
Houdini,
who was born Erik Weisz in March of 1874 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, came to
the United States in 1878. The son of a
Rabbi, they eventually moved to New York City.
When he began his magic career in 1891, he began calling himself Harry
Houdini. In 1894, he married a fellow
performer, Bess who also served as his stage assistant for the rest of his
career.
“In 1913,
Houdini introduced perhaps his most famous act, the Chinese Water Torture Cell, in which he
was suspended upside-down in a locked glass-and-steel cabinet full to
overflowing with water. The act required that Houdini hold his breath for more
than three minutes. Houdini performed the escape for the rest of his career.” But it seems to me that Harry Houdini was not
the first escape artist to avoid a watery grave.
Moses Escaped the River
Last week, we wrapped up
our reflections on Job and returned to the book of Exodus. In chapter one, we read of the terrible
situation in Egypt in which the Pharaoh ordered the midwives to kill the male
babies as they were born. In brave acts
of civil disobedience, they did not follow these instructions. They spared the babies and the LORD rewarded
them.This of course led to the familiar story of Pharaoh instructing all of his people to throw every Hebrew boy that is born into the Nile. Moses’ mother hid her son for three months until she could no longer do so and then she followed the Pharaoh’s instructions, with a minor alteration that is. Before placing Moses in the Nile, she placed him in a watertight basket that would keep him afloat.
The daughter of the Pharaoh found the child. Clearly she knew that he was a Hebrew baby. And certainly she knew what the Pharaoh’s orders were about throwing Hebrew boys into the river. Yet she chose to accept the offer of Moses’ sister to get a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. In fact, she gave the baby to the Hebrew woman, Moses’ mother, and paid her for nursing the baby.
Now when Moses got older, he was returned to the Pharaoh’s daughter who adopted him and named him Moses. But not only did Moses escaped death in the watery grave of the Nile as an infant, but his mother also was paid to nurse her own son. And in all of this, she had the assurance that Moses would live.
Moses Escaped the Murder
But this wasn’t the last
time that Moses escaped with his life was it? “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went
out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw
an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that
and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the
one in the wrong, ‘Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?’
“The man said, ‘Who made you ruler
and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?’
Then Moses was afraid and thought, ‘What I did must have become known.’ {Now did
you catch the irony there? The Hebrew
asked, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” when one day, many years off,
God would make Moses ruler and judge over all of the Hebrews.}
“When Pharaoh heard of [the
murder], he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live
in Midian, where he sat down by a well. Now a priest of
Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to
water their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along
and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered
their flock.”
“When the girls returned to Reuel
their father, he asked them, ‘Why have you returned so early today?’ They
answered, ‘An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us
and watered the flock.’ ‘And where is
he?’ Reuel asked his daughters. ‘Why did you leave him? Invite him to have
something to eat.’
“Moses agreed to stay with the
man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, ‘I
have become a foreigner in a foreign land.’
During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned
in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery
went up to God. God heard their groaning and he
remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.”
Once again Moses had escaped. First he escaped death as an infant being
tossed into the Nile River. Now as an
adult he escaped death for murdering an Egyptian by leaving Egypt all
together. Moses was becoming quite the
escape artist, but these first two acts were nothing compared to the grand
finale that was yet to come.
The Plagues
Well sometime
later, Moses was out tending his father-in-law’s flocks when he noticed a
burning bush. Now we often think of the
burning bush as the miracle here, but at the School for Leadership Training a
few weeks ago, Lauren Winner, who was one of the speakers, noted as perhaps
others have noted as well, that the real miracle here was not that the bush was
not consumed but that Moses paid attention long enough to realize that the bush
was not being consumed.
We’re
familiar with the dialogue between Moses and God in which God called Moses to
go back to Egypt to free his people while Moses offered every excuse that he could
think of. His calling didn’t seem to be
so much about his gifting as it was about his faithfulness.
When Moses
returned to Egypt, he met up with Aaron and they brought the people of Israel
up to speed on things. Then Moses and
Aaron went to speak with the Pharaoh and called upon him to let the people of
Israel go to worship in the wilderness. Now
notice, Moses did not actually ask for their permanent freedom. Moses asked to go into the dessert in order
to worship and offer sacrifices. But
Pharaoh refused and made the work harder for the Israelites. With this the Israelites and Moses began to
doubt that they would truly be freed.
But that’s
when the real show began, wasn’t it?
Moses went before Pharaoh and turned his staff into a snake. This did not impress the Pharaoh since his
magicians were able to do this as well.
And so began the back and forth of the plagues. First God turned the water into blood. Then God brought a plague of frogs followed
by a plague of gnats and a plague of flies.
And I can’t help but wonder why God didn’t send the gnats and flies
first and then send the frogs to clean-up the gnats and flies, but that’s
probably just me.
Yet with
each of these plagues, Pharaoh’s heart remained hard and he refused to let
Moses and the people go out into the wilderness to worship. So next came the plague against their
livestock and the plague of boils. These
were followed by the plague of hail, the plague of locusts and the plague of
darkness. But unfortunately, none of
these fully convinced the Pharaoh and so the final plague killed the first born
in every household except those whose door posts were covered in lamb’s
blood. Those houses were passed over and
we have the beginning of the Passover celebration.
Moses Escaped with His People
And thus
began Moses third and most triumphant escape from Egypt. This time, Moses escaped with all the people of
Israel. After the first born were
killed, the Pharaoh released Moses and the people. As the Israelites left, they did as they were
“instructed and asked their neighbors for articles of silver and gold and for
clothing. The LORD had made the
Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they
asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.”
Now that’s a different way to plunder, isn’t it; to ask and then simply
receive.
And so
after 430 years in Egypt, a family that came with less than a hundred people;
now departed with six hundred thousand men, besides women and children. They made their way into the wilderness; but
once again, Pharaoh changed his mind and he pursued them with six hundred of
his best chariots.
When the
Israelites saw the Egyptians coming, they were terrified and cried out. But Moses reassured them saying, “Do not be
afraid. Stand firm and you will see the
deliverance the LORD will bring you today.
The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to
be still.”
Moses
raised his staff and stretched out his hand over the sea. The sea parted as God brought a strong east
wind that blew all night long and dried the ground where the sea had once been. The Israelites crossed on dry ground with a
wall of water on their right and on their left.
But the
Egyptians pursued them. They followed
them into the parted sea and the LORD fought for the Israelites. The LORD threw the Egyptian army into
confusion. “He jammed the wheels of
their chariots so that they had difficulty driving.”
“Then the LORD said to Moses,
‘Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the
Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.’
Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went
back to its place. The Egyptians were
fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the
chariots and the horsemen – the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the
Israelites into the sea. Not one of them
survived.” And so Moses completed
his third and most triumphant escape, once again avoiding a watery grave.
The Lessons
There is
much that could be said about these first 24 chapters of Exodus. But certainly within this, we see that God
had a larger plan for the people of Israel and in the life of Moses. Who better to negotiate the release of the
Israelites than a royal family insider? How better to demonstrate God's
power and commitment to God's people than through plagues that affected the
Egyptians but did not touch the Israelites or through the parting of the Red
Sea to escape from being cornered? In
all of this, even the terrible circumstances, God had a larger plan.
But even more than that, God moved
in unexpected ways in providing the path for these multiple escapes. As an
infant, the escape from being murdered was to be adopted into the royal
family. As an adult with the Israelites in tow, the escape from the
pursuing Egyptian army led Moses unexpectedly across dry ground in the middle
of the Red Sea. These turn of events would not have been predicted to
take place. This is not how we would have imagined their escape to take
place.
But perhaps the greatest turn of
events, the most unexpected part of the story is God's choice to use a
murderer, Moses, to be God's servant in leading the escape from Egypt.
I've heard some portray this murder as an act of passion or rage, and perhaps
it was. Yet it seems significant that we read in Exodus 2:12 "Looking
this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the
sand." So while the murder may not have been premeditated, it wasn't
without thought and choice either.
Yet in this, we see that God chose
to use a man who had sinned. And God chose to use a man who lacked self
confidence. And God chose to use a man who did not appear to be
gifted. Yet God chose to use this man to be the leader of the Israelites
out of Egypt and through the wilderness. And if God chose to use this
man, perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised when God chooses to use us as
well. Perhaps instead of focusing on ourselves and our shortcomings, we
should focus on the God who has called us and simply strive to be faithful to
our call.
Conclusion: Let God Do the Fighting
In the life
of Moses and the Israelites, God had a larger plan and moved in unexpected
ways; even using a murderer to lead his people through their miraculous water escape. And while we may celebrate with the
Israelites their miraculous escape and their new found freedom, we may also
lament the pain and suffering and the loss of life that the Egyptians
experienced in the process. As people of
compassion who serve a loving and merciful God, there are no easy answers for
the dark side of this bright spot in Israel’s history.
And yet, I
wonder if our recent consideration of Job may also shed light on this story of
the Exodus. Certainly, we can’t see the
Egyptians to be blameless and righteous like Job; but we do see that they
suffer like Job in many ways. And as God
reminded Job when God defended God’s self, Job clearly did not have the bigger
picture of all that was going on and where he fit into the order of things.
And in the
story of Exodus we see that when Moses tried to take things into his own hands,
when Moses killed the Egyptian; things did not go well and even his own people
did not have respect for him. Yet when
Moses and the Israelites depended on God to fight for them, to carry out the
plagues and to part the Red Sea, they gained freedom. Like Job’s friends, they did not need to
defend God or fight for God. Rather God
defended and fought for God’s self.
And unlike
the story of Job in which we are able to see what God did through the tragedy
and the suffering, we do not know what God may have done through the tragedy
and the suffering of the Egyptians. We
know very little of their side of the story, especially after the Israelites
made it to the other side of the Red Sea.
We don’t know how God may have used these events to reveal God’s self in
the lives of the people of Egypt as well.
May we keep
in mind that God does have a larger plan and often uses unexpected means to
bring it to fruition. May we though we
are fallen and insecure in our gifting, live into faithfulness to God. And in the of trial and tribulation, may we
rely on God to fight for us rather than fighting for ourselves.
Amen.
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