Have you ever had a time in your life when you felt stuck between a rock and a hard place, or maybe a dark time when you felt great stress or fear? Most of us have been in a place like that. However, I’m willing to bet that none of us have ever felt quite the stress that the Israelites feel in today’s Hebrew Bible reading.
For four hundred long years these poor people have been abused as slaves of the Egyptian rulers. Moses begs the Pharaoh to let his people go but the Pharaoh has no intention of losing his cheap work force. Yahweh hits the Egyptian people with the ten plagues and finally, finally the Pharaoh gives in. Moses runs to his people and hurriedly urges everyone to get going NOW!
They form a long, haggard parade stumbling out of the city in the dark night. Moses leads them along a back route because they can’t take the good, wide road. Too many Egyptian soldiers that way. They scramble along, urging each other to rush.
Meanwhile, the Pharaoh meets with his advisors who yell at him. "We need those Israelites to build our cities and temples and pyramids! Don’t let them get away!” So, the Pharaoh decides to send 600 chariots and a huge army to catch them and enslave the Israelites again.
The Israelites hear a thundering sound as the army bears down on them. They rush along, only to find themselves trapped on the shore of the Red Sea. The army is approaching and the sea stops their exit. They turn on Moses and yell at him. They would rather have just lived their miserable lives as slaves than die in the desert at the hands of the soldiers.
The Israelites are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. The angel of God is there, as a pillar of cloud, hiding the army of Egypt but the people can hear the horses clomping and the soldiers’ boots tromping. Moses carefully urges the hesitant people into the water, promising them that God will take care of them, God will lead them. However, they are understandably afraid of drowning. Moses is asking them to make a huge leap of faith.
Finally, Moses yells at the panicking crowd to hear him. “All of you! You are going into this sea, not as suffering slaves but as free men and women. God is with you and no one can take that away from you!” Moses stretches out his hand over the sea and the people, united as never before, rush forward and the sea draws back, just enough to let them through.
It’s a big body of water but the terrified people can see that God really is with them; protecting them. They rush across the strange, dry ground, the waters forming a wall on both sides. They can see the Egyptian army pursuing them as the sky brightens with the dawn. The Israelites scramble up the banks of the sea onto dry land while the Lord, in his pillar of fire, has had enough of the Egyptians. He clogs their chariot wheels as Moses once again raises his arm, this time from the distant shore. The sea rushes back to its normal depth, drowning the whole Egyptian army.
The Lord saves the people of Israel on that day, and the people finally trust the Lord and Moses to lead them. A lot was accomplished in this amazing story which is one of the most important stories in the Hebrew bible. It IS a tiny bit over the top, don’t you think?
Well, here’s what little Joey has to say about that when his mom asks him what he learned in Sunday school: "Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge, and all the Israelites were saved."
His mother asked: “Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?"
"Well, no, Mom. But if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!”
The parting of the Red Sea is a story of justice and faith. Egypt was a brutal regime built on the backs of enslaved people. The Pharaoh cares more about maintaining his power and comfort than about recognizing the humanity of the Israelites. He has had so many opportunities to free them, but his heart is hardened again and again.
The parting of the Red Sea is a story of weak vs strong, poor vs rich, oppressed vs oppressor, powerless vs powerful. Now we know that God’s heart is always with the weak, the poor, the oppressed, and the powerless, just as it is in this story. God’s divine justice saves the people of Israel.
This is also all about trust. Would the people, standing on the shoreline, trust that God would protect them? The Israelites stood in the dark, facing the cold, deep water. Their darkness was lit by the cloud of God. God was with them, but they didn’t feel it. God was with them as they stumbled into the water. And then God opened a path for them through the darkness.
God does this. God opens paths for us through our darkness and fear. We may not see that cloud of light protecting us, but it is there. We must try to trust that God will take care of us, take care of everything.
I see so many of my friends having to make big decisions to move near loved ones, or deal with difficult illnesses. It’s so hard to make any change, much less these huge changes. I’ve been surprised to find the degree to which I trust that God will guide all of us through these scary times. I deeply believe that God will ensure that all will work out for the best eventually, even when we can’t see that outcome. Those Israelites, standing on the shore of the sea, had to deeply trust God as they stepped into the water.
So when we are faced with big changes, when we are feeling overwhelmed by life, or just find ourselves in a dark place, we must stop, pray, and reach deep within our hearts to trust that God is right here with us, protecting and loving us. We must all remember that God always holds us in his loving hands and showers us with his amazing, abundant grace.
Amen.