The last time Moses sought an audience with Pharaoh, he told him, "Pharaoh, there will be one more plague, and then, our God will set us free. And you will never see me again." And he left. Pharaoh was a powerful man. It's hard to imagine what kind of power the people and Pharaoh himself thought he controlled and that existed in the Egyptian gods. 

That terrible plague came, and in the middle of the night, Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, "Moses. Go! Go! You and all your people, go and worship your God." The Israelites left with Moses in front. After they were gone, Pharaoh changed his mind. That's hard to imagine after those 10 plagues that had come upon him, but when you see the power of Pharaoh, maybe it makes sense. Maybe he thought, "There goes our labor force." And maybe he thought, "There's one more god that hasn't been tested." Whatever the case, he sought Moses once more. Let's go see what happened when they met again for a final time. Come. 

The text says [Exodus 12] that night, the angel of death passed through Egypt. And anyone who had bought the story that Moses brought, God protected them in the blood that was on their doorpost. Of course, Pharaoh's response was, "Go, go, go." And they went. 

They went three days east toward the sea. Now, we need to note immediately one point. There's a huge disagreement among scholars as to exactly the route they took and exactly the place they chose to cross. I have an opinion. You probably do too and there's lots of good material to research, but we're going to do the same thing here we've been doing all over Egypt. We're going to decide that since God didn't give us enough information to know exactly where it was, we're not going to decide either. 

What we've done is to pick a typical place to try and understand what it was like and what happened and what God wants us to learn from it. God, remember, is looking to reclaim his world. He wants to defeat chaos and to bring shalom, meaning order purpose, to whatever that chaos has disrupted. But he's going to choose to do that through an individual like Moses and a people, among others, like Israel. So when he picked Moses, the first thing he did is sent Moses out into the desert - 40 years - for training. Because to be God's message takes a person of very carefully shaped character. 

So when Israel got chosen to be God's representative to the whole world, of this shalom God is bringing, he does the same thing. He brings them to the point of saying, "You're not ready. You're not ready to handle this at all. I'm going to, first, have to give you some basic training." Now, in a sense, that basic training was 40 years in the desert. Desert for 40. That's basic training. Well, even our rabbi, Jesus, goes to the desert for 40 days. And I think you could call that a training for him too. He learned obedience by suffering. That's the book of Hebrews.

So he's in the desert, being tested of course, but learning too, what it means to fully trust in God. But I think God's basic training started even before they got to the desert. We don't know the route. We do know approximately where they started - Ramesses, Pi-Ramesses. Almost everyone agrees where that was. They left there and went to a place Succoth, which almost everyone agrees. Then they began to come to some places that almost no one agrees on.

But what is clear in the text is that they came, first, to a place led by God (the cloud) that would logically open right up into the desert. I think it made perfect sense. "I know why we're here. We get over those next few hills, we're in that desert, Pharaoh's not going to chase us there. There's no water out there. We get there, we're safe." 

But then, God came and said, "No. I don't want you there. Follow me." And he led them, the Bible says, to another place against the sea. And now, they were trapped - or would be soon. Come. Let me show you.

I have 14 wonderful grandkids. I stand on the shore here and think about how would I have felt if I was a Hebrew with 14 grandkids here up against the sea. I think, sometimes, we make that walk out of Egypt a dance. We're no longer slaves. Well, I think there was some dancing, especially early on. And they were being delivered, no question. But I think there was some intense fear and struggle here that night too. Because though God had shown himself faithful completely throughout the experience to this point, those Egyptian gods had a long history, and Israel had a long history with them. Had they made the right choice? Their lives were on the line here. This wasn't, "We can change our mind and go back." This was going to be life and death.

In a way, their training began by the fact they came in a route somewhere near here. The logical way to the Promised Land is called the Way of the Philistines. It starts in Goshen - the Delta - goes right along the Mediterranean, up to Gaza. It's about 150 miles - a 10-day walk for you guys. Give them, with all their children and flocks and herds and old people, give them two weeks. So in two weeks, they're in the Promised Land. 

God says, "No." And amazingly, he says no because the Philistines are powerful, and there may be war, and Israel would go back to Egypt. 

When I first read that, I thought, "Wait a minute. This is God. He has just brought 10 disasters on the Egyptians, and compared to the Egyptians, the Philistines are nothing. What is he worried about?"

But I think I see in that verse the fact that God is beginning a partnership. Yeah, he could take care of the Philistines. But he wants his partner to be part of the process. Israel is being called to be God's representative of shalom to the world. And they're not ready. They're not ready to handle the Philistines. Not yet. So God says, "I'm going to let you do your part," or, "I'm going to ask you to do your part. So come with me to training." And God's intent is to shape a people who would indeed be the message in community.

I think that training started here. When they left Egypt, God said, "Here's a lesson for you. See that cloud - that one - the pillar. And that one, the pillar of fire. See it? That represents my presence. I'm not abandoning you. I'm not leading you out here in the middle of nowhere. I'm with you, and that cloud and that pillar will represent me wherever you go. Don't forget it. You've learned this."

So God's lesson is, "I'll always be with you." But there were more lessons that night as the people like us in the semi-darkness and the setting of the sun camped - if you can call it that - here on the shore of the sea and waited. Come. Let's go see.

But God used that night to continue to shape that new creation that he wanted to be his message to the world. Another lesson - "I'm faithful. I do what I say." Come back with me to Egypt in your mind for a moment.

God said [Exodus 6], "Moses, tell the Hebrews I'm going to do four things. I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians." Promise number one. 

"I will set you free from being slaves to them." Promise number two.

"I will redeem you with an outstretched arm,"-- think Egypt-- "and with mighty acts of judgment."

"And I will take you to be my own people. And I will be your God."

Four promises. They sound alike. The rabbis looked at them and said they're not. Each one is increasing in its power. "I will set you free from the yoke of the Egyptians." God said, "I'm going to take you out. No more babies in the Nile. No more beatings for not enough bricks. No more hands severed. Tomorrow, you're out from there."

And they said, "Yes! But we're slaves at heart. We've never known any other life. Here we are. We don't know about deserts. We don't know about water. How are we going to survive?"

God said, "And I will set you free from being a slave. I will take your slave nature away. You will no longer be a slave." 

Think of an addict who stops his or her addiction, stops using but still struggles every day with a desire, and God says, "I'm going to even take the desire."

Then the Hebrews thought, "But we're dirty. We've dirtied ourselves with those gods."

And God said, "I will redeem you. Come with me to Sinai, and I will clean you up."

They said, "Yes! But what if we go back?"

And God said, "No, no. I will take you to be my own people, and I'll put my arms around you and protect you."

Those four promises, God began to show them this night, the night along the Red Sea, that, "I'm going to keep those promises." 

We'll come back to them, because those four promises become the four cups of the Passover. Wouldn't it be amazing if Jesus chose a couple of those cups to use to describe himself?

There's another lesson here. Now, I need you to imagine you hear the sound of the sea here. That's fearful to us partly because it's chaos in the Egyptian mind. It would be chaos in the Jewish mind. It's partly intimidating because none of us can swim very well. Then, somebody up on the hill hears it in the distance - the beat of horses' hooves, a cloud of dust in the distance, and then, on the horizon, the first of 600 prized chariots. All of sudden, we realize we're trapped. 

The text says, "They marched out of Egypt with raised arm." Actually, your Bible says "boldly". I like "raised arm" better. Remember that Egyptian symbol?

So here came the Hebrews. "We're Hebrews!" And I think maybe when they heard those chariots coming, they said, "Put your arm down. Put your arm down. It's going to have to be God on this one."

But listen to the text [Exodus 14]. "When the Israelites saw the great power of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him."

Listen to the text. When the people caught sight of Pharaoh's army, they cried out - ze'akah. For the first time, they cry out to the God of the Hebrews. Remember, we learned when they were in slavery, they cried out - ze'akah - to no one. But God heard them. Here, they know who to cry to. It's as if God looked down and said, "Yes! Good job! You learned your lesson. You can depend on me."

But there's something else happening here that night that's really a pretty profound thing. Say leyl shimmurim. It's a Hebrew expression that's twice in the Exodus story. It actually shows up the night the death angel passed through Egypt. God said, "Moses tell them, 'You put blood on the door, and that death angel passes by, he'll see the blood, and he'll spare you.' Because tonight I am going to watch over Israel." So for God, that night was a night of watching - leyl shimmurim - a night of watching. 

Then, God said [Exodus 12], "For generations to come, I want the Hebrews tonight, the night of that death angel, to spend the night watching. Remember, there are terrors that stalk by darkness. But the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. So because I watch you, you watch and see my protection."

So the night after Passover, the night they left Egypt became, for a Jew, the  night of watching, remembering and watching as that death angel passed and hearing the cries in other homes and wondering if he would come to mine, wondering if I had done it right and discovering that God was watching. 

A godly Jew spends the night after Passover, watching. In fact, I know a certain rabbi who went out from Passover with his disciples down to a garden, and he said [Mark 14], "Watch with me." Strange language unless you're a student of the Exodus. 

That watching continued. I need you to think about the watching that happened here. They saw the sea and then those chariots. Picture them again. Hear the thunder of the hooves. See the dust raised by the wheels. Look at the formation - 600 chariots in one formation. Then, it says, "And all the rest of the chariots of Egypt." And here they came thundering across that field. 

And we scream in terror. "Help, Yahweh!" And God watches. So there's a watching of terror as the Egyptians come. And there's a watching of protection by the God of the universe. Then, tomorrow morning, there's going to be the watching in awe as God poured his fury on the nation that oppressed and brought chaos into the lives of others. 

There will be another Moses who will spend that night watching. But that night, God's fury will not fall on the nations or on the Egyptians. But a fury that even Pharaoh couldn't have imagined will fall. And that story starts here. 

There's one more lesson that night. Imagine those chariots. They're closer now. We hear the horses; the shouts of the officers are plain. We can even hear the crunch of the wheels in the gravel. The text says, "God led his people like a shepherd." A shepherd leads from in front by voice. 

So God said, "Tonight, I will finish this struggle between the gods of Egypt and me. Moses, step to the sea. Raise your stick. Stretch your hand out over the sea."

I don't know exactly what that looked like, but it's that stick. "Do it, Moses. Do it." I see Moses stand, shaking on the shore of the sea with that stick - the stick of God. And all night long, an east wind blew, and by midnight, there's a path through that sea. What's keeping that path there? Yaweh. 

"Moses, follow me in," as if to say, "Are you with me, Hebrews? Do you trust me enough to walk into there? You don't know for sure that's going to stay there. I want your life. Come."

He asked an enormous commitment from them. Imagine the terror as you watch those huge walls of water 10 feet from your 14 grandchildren. So by the middle of the night, they were all out there - those frightened former slaves. Would you have been there with them? Would you have risked your 14 grandkids, your kids, your spouse, your parents, your friends? Come. Let's go.

Modifié le: jeudi 27 août 2020, 12:22