Our church are starting a series on Exodus. This is how I approached preaching an introduction to the book.
Do you remember your first flight? For me, it’s spring, 1996. I sit waiting in the lounge. The wait goes on for a long time until eventually we are invited to board. I’m now required to show my passport and boarding pass before entering what to all intents and purposes is just a large, metal tube. In a short time, that metal tube will taxi off down the runway before launching into the air. And I will have absolutely no control over what happens next. My life is literally in the hands of the pilot up front in the cockpit.
Does life feel a bit like that at times? Waiting around for what feels like for ever. Wondering if the seemingly constant delays will ever end, then knowing that you are stepping out into the unknown, without any control? If you do, then the book of Exodus is for you.
To understand what is going on in Exodus, we need to go back to Genesis 15. There, God meets with Abram, as he was called at the time, and repeats his promise to bless and make a covenant with him. The promise is of a land, a people (descendants) and God’s rule meaning his provision and protection. When God makes this covenant, he also tells Abram that before all of this can be fulfilled, there will be 400 years when this people will be exiled in Egypt. 400 years of silence foreshadowing another 400 years of silence to come between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New.
This begins to be fulfilled when Joseph, the favoured son of Abraham’s grandson Jacob is sold into captivity by his jealous brothers and ends up first as a slave, then as a prisoner but finally as Prime Minister in Egypt. Joseph is used by God to deliver the world from famine and so save his own family who come and join him in Egypt. It is likely that all of this happened between 1900 and 1700BC. That would have been under the 12th Dynasty of Pharoah’s, founded by a guy called Amenemhat, I, he was a rebel Pharoah who moved the capital away from Thebes and introduced his own deity instead of the usual Egyptian gods.
400 years later and two things have happened. First, the people of God have grown in number. Exodus starts with the words “These are the names of those who went down into Egypt” and its Hebrew title is literally “these are the names”. However, by now they are a full sized nation. God has kept his promise to Abraham, he has given him many descendants but at the moment they are not in the place, the land promised. Additionally, they are not under God’s rule, his protection and provision. You see, the other thing that has happened is that there has been a change of regime, a new dynasty who have retuned the capital to Thebes and restored the traditional religion. Also in the meantime, there have been other migrants and settlers, notably the Hyskos, another semitic, shepherding tribe and their presence had been less benign. So, when a new Pharoah comes to the throne, he has “forgotten” the things of Joseph’s day. The sense is that this period of history has been blotted out. He sees the “Hebrews” as a threat and so he enslaves them, forcing them to build his cities. Moreover, he seeks to wipe them out by having the baby boys thrown into the Nile and drowned.
It’s into this context that a new baby will be born, a little boy in a Hebrew family. Seeing that he is “good” note the echo from Genesis 1, his parents try to keep him safe and hidden for as long as possible. Eventually they realise they cannot keep the baby at home and so they make a little basket, the word for it is “ark” and just like Noah’s ark, it is pitched with bitumen. Then they do something incredible. They place the baby into the ark and place the ark into the very waters of death that the Egyptians wanted to throw him into just as Noah’s family and the animals had gone into the ark and that ark was there floating on the flood waters that brought death. Now, here’s the thing, Noah’s ark lacked a steering wheel or sail. He had no control over what happened next, just as I had no control over the aeroplane I hoped would fly me to Hong Kong. And in Moses’ case, his family had no control over what happened next. They had no plan, just stick the baby in a basket in the very place of danger then watch and pray.
Let’s just pause there a moment because I think this is one of the most significant points to the book of Exodus. This is a book about stepping out without a plan, it’s a book about doing things that at a human level look foolish but trusting God and seeing what he will do. And that’s what it means for us to follow Christ isn’t it? Think about those people who met Jesus in the Gospels. Fishermen and tax collectors told to leave their work and families to follow Jesus or a blindman by the roadside, healed and then following after into Jerusalem as Jesus went purposefully towards his crucifixion. When you put your trust in Jesus, it’s a step of faith and often in life for individuals and churches, there is a step into the unknown.
Later, Moses will lead the people to the edge of the Red Sea, Pharoah’s army behind and the waters of death in front. Now, the whole people will be called to step out in faith into the unknown, to walk through the parted, built up walls of seawater. You know, Paul in Corinthians will compare this to baptism. I know that some of you are thinking about baptism right now. It’s a bit nerve racking stepping into the pool. There are the unknowns; will the water be too cold, will they drop me, hold me under too long, will I cough and splutter and look a bit silly? In order by the way, the answers are: hopefully not, no, no, quite probably. That sense of stepping out in faith without a plan is why baptism is the way that we declare that this is what we are doing by following Jesus
Before that moment though, the boy would be found by an Egyptian princess, grow up, live in the palace. Try to get involved in protecting his people, have to flee for his own life, meet his wife at a well and more importantly meet with the living God out in the wilderness. God appears to Moses as he is shepherding sheep from a bush that is on fire but is not being consumed. Notice two big things here. First that the thing that catches Moses attention isn’t the bush on fire but that it isn’t consumed. Is it possible to be in the presence of the living God, close up to his holiness and survive? Yes, because this is the God who loves us and is not here to get out of us what he wants. Secondly, God at that point tells Moses that he is standing on Holy Ground. Moses, is in exile from being in exile in Egypt. He’s in the middle of nowhere. It seems that God’s people are not in and nowhere near the place God has promised. Yet the truth is that he is in God’s place because God brings his presence to Moses and commissions him to do his work whilst reassuring him of his ongoing provision and presence.
Later, God would meet Moses at the same place on Mount Horeb or Sinai as the people were there in the same wilderness, on a journey to the promised land, a journey from death into life. There, God would give Moses the Law including instructions for how to build a tabernacle, to represent his presence with them. And after Exodus you get Leviticus, a book all about how to worship and offer sacrifices, to be holy and to live in the presence of a holy God.
Exodus is about a journey into life which begins by stepping out in faith. This may feel like a step into the unknown without a plan. However, God is present with his people. What are the things that God is calling us as a church to step out into this year? Can we trust him? Are there specific things that he is calling you to? The journey starts with the first step. Are you ready to take it?
Faithroots 