“Rescue at Sea” Exodus 14:5-7, 10-14, 21-29

 The last Sunday that I was with you, we talked about raging waters. Waters that covered the whole earth and the only life that was sustained was Noah, his family, and two of every kind of water. Now, after a few Sundays away, I have returned to you and once again to the waters in scripture. Only this time we aren’t talking about the ark and Noah, but have moved to the second book of scripture, Exodus, and to the waters that covered the Egyptian army. 

To set the scene. The Israelites were slave laborers in Egypt. The same Egypt that Joseph, one of their own, had served and saved by his obedience to God. But  new Pharaoh came to power and forgot what Jospeh had done. So the people of Israel were no longer honored, but were put to work doing hard labor. 

The people of God prayed that God would hear their cries and intervene. And intervene God did. He sent Moses, an Israelite who had been raised in Pharaoh’s house, to tell him to let God’s people go. Moses however, didn’t think that he could do such a weighty task - listing to God all of the reasons why - chiefly that he is slow of speech so who would listen to him. But such excuses did not stop God’s instance and he sent Moses’s brother, Aaron, to accompany him on this mission. 

Only Pharaoh’s heart was stubborn - he would not respond to what Moses and Aaron were saying. He would not let God’s people go. So one after another, God would send a plague upon the people of Egypt, until Pharaoh relented. But the relenting didn’t last long and he would return to his stubborn ways. 

Until the last plague came - where the first born of all Egyptians was killed. Including Pharaoh’s own son. Heartbroken, Pharaoh finally let the Israelites go. 

Or at least, he started to. Until we get to today’s scripture passage, where he looks around and realizes that he has let the people go who were working in the land. In his words, “we lost their service.” So he decides to pursue them, until they turn around and come back to again be slaves in the land of Egypt. 

Pharaoh, was a man of stubborn heart because he did not know the Lord. If you go back to chapter 5, verse 2 of Exodus, we find him asking “who is the Lord?” Because he does not know the Lord, he leans into his own understanding. 

The last Bible study that I led prior to leaving my previous appointment was on the book of Exodus. Almost week-in and week-out, we would comment on how we could recognize Pharaoh’s stubbornness in our own hearts. Times that we failed to listen to God. Times we trusted our way and will more than God’s.

Pharaoh was learning the hard way what it meant to recognize the power of the Lord. He may think that by his title alone that he had authority, but his authority was nothing compared to that of the Lord. So with each of these plaques, when Pharaoh did change his mind, God was giving him the opportunity to repent. Not just change his mind or what he was saying, but really to turn around and change his heart.

What Pharaoh failed to recognize was that knowing, truly knowing God, was about more than knowing about God. It was about knowing who God is, what God has done and what God is doing. In other words, knowing God is more than just acknowledging God’s existence. 

Pharaoh was not the only one having trouble around what God was doing. The people of Israel - the same people who had cried out to God and had seen how he responded and were now on their way to freedom - they didn’t know how to respond when they looked behind and saw Pharaoh and his army marching towards them. 

All of the sudden - the boldness with which they painted their doorposts, packed their belongings and fled Egypt seemed to disappear. They turn to Moses, for what will not be the last time and asked if he brought them out of the land of Egypt simply to die. 

And Moses has to remind them that it is God who has brought them this far and it is God who will fight for them. 

If Pharaoh’s crisis was that of stubbornness, the Isralites crisis came in the form of fear. 

Fear rooted in what the future may hold. 

What happens next truly was God fighting for the Israelites - for he opened up the waters of the Red Sea - pushing them to the side so that the Israelites could walk on dry land. 

I sometimes wonder how the Israelites could have experienced this powerful act of God and still have time after time that they would come to doubt him in the wilderness. But then again - aren’t we the same way, brothers and sisters? God was trying to set the Israelites free from their bondage and all they could see were the hurdles. Hurdles that often didn’t lead them to cry out to God, but to place blame about who brought them into this situation in the first place. 

It is as if our human minds quickly forget what and who has sustained us in the past, as we concentrate only on what we see as insurmountable in front of us. 

Have you been there? Have you been in that place where you were focusing so much on the obstacle or the task that you forgot that it was God who brought you this far in the first place? 

The story of Exodus is one of coming to know God in his fullness. The God who holds our fears, but also tells us to keep moving for him. The God who turns darkness into light. The one by whose actions alone can grant us safety and freedom. 

But God didn’t just desire that the Israelites be set free and be transformed, friends. He wanted that for Pharaoh and the Egyptians as well. Time after time he sent the plagues in hopes of changing hearts to him. And if repent means to turn around - he even gave them the opportunity to repent at the Red Sea, yet they continued to trust themselves more than God. Which ultimately led to their destruction. 

I wonder who you identify with the most in today’s scripture passage. Do you find yourselves forcing your own will and way over God’s - like Pharaoh? Or are you paralyzed by fear - like the Israelites standing before the Red Sea? Are you like Moses - trying to guide others because God is guiding you?

The truth is - it was God who brought the Israelites safety to the other side of the Sea. And the Egyptians thought they could save themselves. May we lean into the God who saves us this day. And may our hearts and lives be transformed through him. Amen.