At first, Moses is praised as a hero when he tells the Israelites that God is going to deliver them from Egypt. Then things go poorly, especially when Moses explains this plan to Pharaoh and the Big P heaps more work on the back of the slaves. The people turn on Moses and he is ready to call it a day and run back to the sheep. But God tells Moses to get back in the fight because now is the time for God’s power to be shown in the face of the world’s power.

Pharaoh will not relent, so 9 calamities are sent to Egypt- the Nile turning to blood, frogs, lice, flies, diseased livestock, boils, hail, locust, and darkness. It’s the locust that really freak me out. Those things are gross. But still Pharaoh will not relent. This is a warning to us. Look at how strong and captivating are the lies of the powers of this world. Even in the face of all this devastation, Pharaoh could not relinquish his need to find hope and security in his pride, wealth, identity and social standing.

God talks to Moses and Moses, in turn, tells the people about the coming Passover. Believing in what is about to happen will take great faith on the part of the Israelites. But it will not take blind faith. Real faith is never a blind leap. It is faith in what God has already done. It is faith in a God who is already providing. The people receive their instructions concerning the placement of the blood of the lamb on their door frames. We see again that following God is a matter of life and death. There was no in-between or partial following. There were no exceptions to the Passover rules. A family couldn’t use just any old lamb they thought would work. They couldn’t just put blood in the places on the door they thought would be appropriate or make sense. It is really no different from following God today. There are no exceptions. We follow God or we do not. We put our trust in God or we do not.

The people are also commanded to observe this rite for the rest of their history. They are to remember the importance of this tradition and how it impacts their story. They are to tell their children of what God has done. This is the role of the church now. We are to tell those who come after us the story of what God has done, what he is doing and what he has promised to do.

So after the preparations have been completed, the 10th and final plague is visited upon the land of Egypt. The death of the first born of all living things not protected by the blood of the lamb. This is God’s last resort. I don’t think he wanted to do it. I think it broke his heart to do it. In those cultures, you lived on in the afterlife through your children and their descendants. So in killing the first born, God took everything from them. He even takes eternity from them.

And with this, Pharaoh finally changes his mind but still ends up losing everything he held dear and put his trust and hope in- his workforce, his wealth(Israel is sent out with all of Egypt’s treasure they could carry), his own son. But Pharaoh changes his mind again and sends his army after the people. It’s hard to do the right thing if it’s done for the wrong reasons. Once again, look at how strong the pull of the world and the powers in it. Well, of course, we know that God parts the Red Sea and the people pass through it, collapsing the water onto the Egyptian army, killing them and destroying one more thing in which Pharaoh put his trust.

Israel will now be led through the desert by God’s might right hand and his strong arm.

After a lot of pleading and questioning and maybe even a bit of moping and whining, Moses heads to Egypt with Aaron and the rest of his family. He heads back to the people who knew him best, back to those who knew his virtues and his vices, his talents and his crimes. Imagine how hard it must have been to face those people again. I’ve never murdered anyone but I have done a lot in my life that I’m not proud of and I’ve done a lot of those things in front of people, many of whom I haven’t talked to in a long time. To go back and face those people now, even after all those years and all the trying to live up to the calling to which I’ve been called… well, it would be uncomfortable to say the least. And here is Moses having to finally face his past.

As scared as he may have been, the first part seems to go pretty well for him. He meets with the Israelite people and tells them that God has heard their cries and has a plan to rescue them from the oppression they face. They are naturally ecstatic. I imagine there was a lot of packing going on and a good bit of “Thank God all our troubles are behind us” being said. Following the will of God was going really well for all of them.

Then Moses goes to Pharaoh and explains to him that God has heard the cries of the Israelites and has a plan to rescue them. Shockingly, things start to go downhill. Pharaoh doesn’t seem as high on this plan as the people had been. But why should he be? Why in the world would Pharaoh just give up power? Like everyone else, Pharaoh has lived his whole life being told the lies that the powers of this world wanted him to believe. He believes that his safety and security and power, even his very identity lies not in God but in his wealth and army and workforce and himself.

Angry Pharaoh decides to drive the slaves even harder. He puts more work on their backs. He demands even more of them than he had before. Following the will of God is not going so well for the Israelites now. It seems that following God isn’t all emotional rainbows and lollipops. Quite often it’s actually spiritually depressing, physically painful and emotional arduous. Go read any chapter of Jeremiah to see what kind of toll following the will of God can have on a person.

Things look fairly bleak for the people and they were not happy with Moses. When all the doors closed, God didn’t seem to be opening a window and Moses was ready to bail out and head back to the sheep. But God wasn’t look for Moses to show cowardice or even creativity. He was looking for perseverance. God’s response to Moses was “Get back in there!” Of course Pharaoh wasn’t going to listen at first. Why should he? Why are we even remotely surprised by this? But now, Moses is told to get back in there because God is about to show everyone why his way is not the world’s way and why his power is not the world’s power.

From boy in a basket to royal prince to vile murderer to lowly sheepherder. At this point in his life, Moses is not exactly a person a note. He is a foreigner. A stranger in a strange land who spends 40 years tending to the sheep of his father-in-law. They aren’t even his sheep. Moses seems to be pretty worthless

So often we think of ourselves as the outsider. We believe we are not enough for God to be able to use. Our job, our family, our bank account, our education, even our holiness tries to persuade us that we are not enough of something. I imagine it was very much the same for Moses. And yet, and yet, Moses appears to be chosen by God as much for his worthlessness as for his worth.

God speaks to Moses and tells him why he is talking to him, which I think Moses probably appreciated. God isn’t talking to Moses because of how impressive Moses is or because God is going to do such a tremendous thing in Moses’ life. God isn’t coming to Moses to bestow upon him privilege. Moses had that once. It didn’t work out very well. God is coming to him to bestow a purpose. But it’s not even really a purpose about Moses. God is talking to Moses because of an entirely different group of people. It’s not Moses’ prayers for peace or happiness or a better life that God is responding to, it is the cries of the Israelites that is moving God. I wonder how often we hear from God and think, “Hoo Boy, I wonder what God has in store for me?” when maybe God’s plan is to show us what he has in store for someone else.

God has heard the cries of the people of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and has decided that he will deliver them from Egypt into another place. And he is sending Moses to make that happen. Moses was thrilled. Oh, wait? What? He wasn’t?

There is no part of Moses that wants to go back to Egypt. There is nothing in him that wants to face those he ran from 40 years ago. His sad, little sheepherder life looks tremendous compared to that. So he begins to negotiate with God. Question 1) Who am I to go and do this? Answer- Nobody. Nobody special or important or of such amazing talent as get something like this accomplished. But God tells him that he will be with him and that will be enough. Plenty, in fact. He even tells Moses that he we give him a sign. Now, it happens to be a pretty terrible sign by sign standards because it happen after the event will take place. I like my signs to come before I go through with something. Question 2) And just who are you to send me? Answer- “I AM”. I’ve always liked that this could be translated as “I will be who I will be” or “I am the one who is, who creates”. God is not just telling Moses a name that signifies existence but one that is meant to show the creating, providing nature of God. Question 3) What if they don’t believe that you sent me? Answer- God will show all of them signs. He will show that he is in charge of nature by changing the stick into a snake. He will show that he is in charge of our bodies by turning Moses’ hand leprous. He will show that he has power even over those things they think as deity by turning the water into blood. Question 4) Ummm, I don’t speak so good. Answer- I’m God and I created both mouths and speech, so I’ll be with you and speak for you. Question 5) Not really a question. Moses just straight up tells God he doesn’t want to go. God has kept his cool up to now but that finally makes God really angry. God will let us question him and reason with him and argue with him. He is big enough to handle that. But when we just flat-out refuse him, that’s when he starts to take it personally.

He tells Moses quite sternly, “Now pick up your staff and GO!”. And so Moses packs up his belongings and his family and heads off to Egypt.

In the Beginning…that is a heck of start to a post. I just came up with that. On my own. With no help. Ahem… Anyways…

Humanity fell. It had it made but it believed the lie that God was not enough, that God was not sufficient and humans have been falling for it ever since. God tried to speak to us and all but Noah rejected his truth and so God started over with a flood of water. We found that we wanted to have a relationship with God but we tried to reach God the way we wanted, to do it ourselves, so God destroyed the tower and scattered us across the world.

God tasked Abram with the responsibility of being the father of a chosen people, chosen not for privilege but for purpose. The story continued in Abraham’s son, Isaac, in Isaac’s son, Jacob, and expanded exponentially in the form of Jacob’s 12 sons. Soon the people found themselves foreigners in the strange land of Egypt, cared for by Joseph, but strangers none the less.

And then there came a time when Pharaoh forgot about the service of Joseph and enslaved the people of Israel. Their burden was great and the taskmasters brutal. The powers of the world trying everything they could to establish control over these people. Even birthing a child became an act of rebellion for the Pharaoh ordered the Egyptian midwives to murder the little boys as they came out of the Israelite wombs.

And yet, here we see a picture of great faith. The faith of the Egyptian women who refused to murder those children, even going so far as to lie to the Pharaoh about it. But the threat remained. God’s work is always a threat to the powers of the world.

Moses’ parents, members of the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe, participated in this rebellion by giving birth to a son. He was placed in a basket and sent off down the river with his sister, Miriam, watching from the reeds. Here again we see faith, we see a great act of rebellion from the very daughter of Pharaoh. She was not so dumb as to not understand that this was an Israelite boy and certainly not so dumb to simply believe that some random girl just happened to be watching from the reeds and that she just happened to know a woman able to nurse the young man. Let us give credit where it is due.

So Moses grows up in a position of privilege. The grandson of the great Pharaoh, the ruler of all the land, a god among his people. Moses’ birthday parties must have been excellent. It also seems that he knew to whom he belonged. After all, he was raised by his Israelite mother and sister. I find it hard to believe that they never impressed upon him the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. One day as he is walking through the land, he sees an overseer beating up some of his people. He hatches a plan, waits for when he thinks he is alone and kills the overseer.

Somehow Pharaoh finds out about this and it seems like the only people who knew where his own Israelite people. Whoops. Moses flees as any self-respecting murderer would.

Moses goes from hunted infant to pampered royalty to herding sheep that he doesn’t even own. While he is running, the people are crying out and God is hearing them.