Israel’s Exodus from Egypt

Today we start off toward the beginning of the book of Exodus and since it would take a long time to sit and listen to the entire scripture that would provide all the information that I think would be helpful, I thought I would just share some brief context of what is happening in our scripture. Where we find Moses talking to God is at the burning bush in the land of Midian where he has escaped to from Egypt. What has just happened before the burning bush encounter is that the Egyptian king that Moses ran away from has died and the Israelites have been crying out to be rescued and their collective cries rose up to God and God has heard their grief and remembered God’s covenant with their ancestor Abraham which we talked about last week.

So the encounter with Moses at the burning bush is a direct result of the Israelites crying out and God hearing them. And that is what we hear where we pick up today. We hear God very pointedly saying that God knows their pain and sees all the injustices that they are undergoing. And now that God has made this decision and that God has chosen Moses to be the spokesperson for the people, God says Ex 3:10 that Moses should get going because God is sending him to Pharaoh to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.

Maybe I shouldn’t think this is funny but I find it hilarious that God has heard the people’s cry, has seen the injustices happening, finds the most unqualified person and tells this person to go and get the people out of Egypt. Moses has been raised by Egyptians so he probably doesn’t really know anything about his own people. He has run off and left Egypt so he doesn’t even live there and might even have a bounty on his head for killing the Egyptian soldier. Moses even says that they won’t believe him, so God has to share God’s divine name which in English we hear as I AM, and we know in Hebrew as Yahweh. Moses still doesn’t think that is enough and so God uses his staff and turns it into a snake and then gives his hand a skin disease and says that after those signs they should believe him.

God and Moses are going through a whole bunch of hoops and steps to be able to even get the people to listen to Moses even though this is exactly what the people have been crying out for. Even though the scripture doesn’t say that the people didn’t believe Moses when he met them it does say that he did perform both those signs in front of the people and it was after that that the people believed. Which is what I alluded to is one of the issues that arises in our Exodus way journeys. The Israelites had wanted to be rescued from their oppression and yet Moses knew that he would have to prove to them that he was sent by God.

Why is it that we need so much proof to know that when we are being offered help to get out of a situation before we are willing to go along with it? I think we have either experienced times when that has not been the case or we have heard stories and so we are very hesitant and reluctant to trust people when the help actually comes. I know this is a kind of a silly example, but my family loves the musical Shrek. And in the musical the lead female Fiona sings a song about escaping the tower she is locked up in, and in the song she says “Are you there God, it me Fiona”. She wants to know if God is listening to her cries about escaping from her imprisonment. Well then Shrek shows up and she goes along with being rescued until the point when she discovers that her rescuer is an Ogre. She want’s to be rescued but she now has an asterisk on it because it’s now how she was hoping it would be.

I seriously doubt that any of the Israelites would have expected the Israelite born prince of Egypt to be the one that God chose to use to rescue them from their slavery in Egypt. I mean from our text it looked like Aaron was well respected, why not just choose him and leave Moses out of it? Why not pick any one of the other elders that were probably well respected in the Israelite community? But God knew something that everyone else didn’t know. God knew that this Egyptian raised Israelite would be the best person to help them in their exodus from slavery. Sometimes we never know how God might use us or others to begin our own exodus way. After all, exodus literally means ‘out of.’

So who is helping you out of something? Or are you being called to help lead someone or others out of something? How do we listen to God to know, and more important how willing are we to listen to that voice and that calling and either not make excuses as to why it shouldn’t be me or why there are so many reasons not to trust? It can be hard and it can be difficult but perhaps that we need to let our guard down and listen to what God is saying in our lives so that we can begin our journey out of the situation we are in.

And when we do reach that point, I want us to remember something that I focused on at the beginning of my message today. And I think it is probably the most important part of the whole journey that we take. God very clearly says that God heard the cries of the Israelites. God then tells Moses that he knows what the Israelites are going through. And even more than God hearing and knowing what they are going through, in Ex 3:8 we hear God tell Moses that God has come down to rescue them and will take them out of this land and bring them to the promised land.

God not only listens to the cries of God’s people but God then promises to be with them on their journey from the very beginning all the way to leading them into the promised land. God doesn’t say I’ve heard your cries and here’s the road map now good luck and go and I’ll see you on the other end. God promises to be with them on their journey. God promises to have Moses be with them on their journey. As unlikely a leader as he may be, God promises both God’s divine presence as well as the physical presence of a representative of God to be with them.

And that promise is with each of us today. God doesn’t just send out of from your exodus and wish you good luck, God is with you on the journey and God sends people to be with us and maybe even guide us in our journey so that we can know that we are not alone. May you know and feel the presence of God with you whenever you have to begin your own exodus ‘out of’ event. And with that promise may you feel the peace knowing that you are never alone no matter where or what you are going through. Amen.