Being Saved From Ourselves

Exodus 14:5-31

5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled,Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” 6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. 7 He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. 8 The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. 9 The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.

10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. 11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

15 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18 The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.”

19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them,20 coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.

21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east windand turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wallof water on their right and on their left.

23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. 24 During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. 25 He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”

26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lordswept them into the sea. 28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

29 But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 30 That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. 31 And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trustin him and in Moses his servant.

Video for this Service can be viewed @: January 9, 2022

NewDay Friends,

My dad was finishing a second graduate degree when I was young. My sister and I would watch him slump down the stairs around lunchtime. Catch, riding on dad’s back—finding any and every way to ‘interrupt’ his traverse from bed to table to home office to the youth detention center where he worked nights (this was after the social work classes he took in the evenings)—THIS was our day job back then. My mom ran a daycare center out of our house too! I have no idea how my dad got through this time, until years later. Back when I was trying to finish school I learned dad was dual enrolled at a seminary in California— on top of it all! He told me that while we were hanging on his feet, preventing him from getting to his jacket, he was failing New Testament Greek (taking it for the second time). As we talked I was currently retaking a language class I had failed at the same school, like father like son, I guess?

My dad experienced a childhood punctuated by trauma. His father passed suddenly when he was young, and his mother’s emotional capacity was lacking and sometimes venomous. For forty years my dad has worked with victims of trauma, mending his own wounds in the process. Being a counselor, helping others through the worse situations of their lives, was somehow a part of his story from early on. Helping his mother through traumatic loss as a young person gave him capacity for the work he would do the rest of his career. It seems most healers are wounded themselves.

Our stories are not wasted, sometimes they end up being the seeds for future courage, capacity and compassion. When we look back through our lives (even if we are young and feel like we have little to offer the world) we notice patterns, ways in which God has taken our joys, obstacles and even sorrows—and if we are willing—God rescripts the broken tale. I’ve noticed that our gifts and passions are often connected to our experiences and what we know to be true about ourselves. God is at work in Jesus redeemed, renewing and reorienting trajectories. As we enter the wilderness together these months, I encourage you to look back over the last year and then venture to ask God what you need to be about going forward (do this with friends or family as you are able). Are there words that come to mind? Is something in the way of you discovering what God is up to? Or, as God asked Moses in chapter four of Exodus, “What’s in your hand?”

This week, notice how God works with characters like David, Moses and the people as a whole to shape their stories to sync up with the larger story God is telling in history. Friends, welcome to the wilderness!

peace.
Dave Rinker

Message Notes For Further Study
“A mystical spirit seems to pervade the wilderness: the spirit sought by hermits and social outcasts as they chose to escape from the noisy world of vain pursuits and oppressive demands. It is the spirit sensed by the solitary prophets who wandered into the desert’s stillness to evade the mindless and heartless cruelty of ordinary society and to ponder the ultimate meaning of God’s works and of their own higher calling.” (Daniel Hillel The Natural History of the Bible, 119)

As you listen and study this week take some time to get out in the cold: early morning, after work or with companions. If you can’t get out, just imagine yourselves in open space. The psalmist says, “You [God] set my foot in a broad place.” Think on that line from Psalm 18 as you walk or imagine. It’s this picture of freedom that the wilderness offers us. God takes back from pharaoh God’s firstborn beloved child Israel and invites her to walk through the sea, to trust and to explore who they truly are—children of the Most High God.

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Genesis 8-12
Exodus 1-4, 14
1 Samuel 17
1 Kings 19
Psalm 105
Hosea 11
Mark 5
Revelation 15