Exodus 15:22–18:27
The blog for Lesson 4 is offered by Carissa Herold, PW marketing associate.
The book of Exodus is brimming with very unsettling images: a burning bush, a pillar of fire, and even three sets of three plagues! But perhaps the most frightening of sights—before them a sea, behind them Pharaoh’s army—were frightening with an exponent because of when these threats appeared and what was newly at stake. The deeply persecuted people found themselves literally between the sea and an army as they were on the very threshold of their freedom. So close, so close, and yet ….
I love what Janice Catron writes in chapter four: “The strain of the people’s panic led them to mentally ‘rewrite’ history. Suddenly, they no longer remembered crying out for help in Egypt but claimed to have never wanted to leave! They turned on Moses, saying, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’?” (14:11-12) (p. 40).
I think most of us who have had a prayer answered can attest to the initial urge to rewrite our own history in protest or fear. Change, even good change, is often more terrifying than staying with the familiar.
So the people had two choices before them. They could turn around and return to the terrible familiar or step forward into the unknown in trust that the God who brought them to that place would help them find a way to freedom. Moses tells them, “Do not be afraid. [S]tand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today” (Ex. 14:13). And so they did.
Do not be afraid. J. Gerald Janzen writes in his Exodus commentary on these words: “Moses responds in words that occur some eighty times in the Bible, from Genesis 15:1 to Revelation 1:17: ‘do not be afraid’ or ‘fear not.’ Twelve times this phrase in the Old Testament is translated into Greek with a verb that means ‘take heart,’ ‘be of good cheer,’ or ‘courage!’ Of the seven occurrences of this expression in the New Testament, especially noteworthy are Mark 6:50 and John 16:33. So this expression goes to the heart of the biblical message. Where our spontaneous response is fear, and we cry out in that fear, God’s reassuring response is ‘don’t be afraid’” (J. Gerald Janzen, Exodus, Westminster Bible Commentary, 1997, page 100).
When I think of a wall of deep water, I am certainly afraid, army at my heels or not! But stepping forward into the water in faith, loosening the tight grip I have on my life, keeps me from sinking into unhealthy routine and deadening apathy. We are meant to swim forward but not alone. Or perhaps we aren’t really meant to swim but to let go and float. I am reminded of Kathryn Threadgill’s message at the closing worship at the 2012 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women (whose theme was aptly, River of Hope) where she shared the message that “hope floats”: ““So, what do we do when we leave this place? God says “be still.” We float and we come to know God. We float in the River of God’s hope.”
Although the ancient people physically walked (rode or were carried) through the sea’s parting, I like to think of them floating to freedom in God’s hope. Do not be afraid, indeed! Float on!
Until next time,
Carissa
