Loving God, you consistently push us out of our comfort zone, urging us to take hold of the life that truly is life.  Grant us a continuing awareness of your gift of salvation and an openness to the power of your Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    Way back in Genesis 15, part of God’s promise to Abraham was this:

Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions (Gen. 15:13-14).

    This is, in fact, pretty much what happened before we get to today’s story about crossing the Red Sea.  Jacob, who was also known as Israel, brought his entire family to Egypt because there was a famine in the land.  That was at the time when his son Joseph was second only to Pharaoh and had saved enough grain to feed the people.  However, once Joseph was out of the picture, a new Pharaoh arose who made the Israelites into slaves.

    Their slavery did last for four hundred years, which is hard for us to even imagine.  And during that time, there were many prayers to God asking for deliverance from this oppression under which they lived.  God heard those prayers, and kept the promise that had been given to Abraham.  It took ten different plagues and lots of wrangling between Moses and Pharaoh, but finally, after the death of his son, Pharaoh agreed that they could go.

    This little bit of background is particularly important when we come to today’s reading.  They have come out of Egypt after 400 years of slavery.  They have made it as far as the Red Sea before Pharaoh changes his mind and comes after them.  And at the first sight of Pharaoh’s army pursuing them, what is their response?... Why did you bring us out here to kill us?  What have you done, bringing us out of slavery?  Don’t you know that we just wanted to stay and serve the Egyptians?

    Can’t you just see Moses going something like this? (hand to forehead) Yet, what we are seeing is human nature at work.  Those who have been held in captivity for a long time often have a hard time adjusting to freedom.  And most people prefer the slavery that they know to the freedom that they haven’t experienced yet.  People stick to the same patterns over and over again, even when those habits aren’t working for them.  Some return to the same abusive situation time after time, or even get themselves back into prison because they can’t handle life on the outside.

    So what is God’s response to these people who have had a little taste of freedom and now wish that they were back in Egypt?  Does God just say, “All right, then.  I suppose freedom is too much for you.  Off you go.”?... Absolutely not!  Instead, God tells them through Moses to do exactly what every instinct is telling them not to: Stand still.  Stand firm.  See what God will do.  “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still” (Exod. 14:14).

    It is a marvelous piece of advice – not only for when the Egyptian army is bearing down on you, but for any situation where you are afraid and feeling trapped and seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place.  Stop, look and listen.  Stop fretting long enough to be still and be aware of God’s presence.  Listen and watch for God’s direction, for a way might be about to open up even though you couldn’t see any way before.

    Of course, once that way does open up, you need to do more than just stand there and look at it.  The people of Israel needed to step into the sea - which had now become dry ground - and keep on moving toward the other side.  They had to step out in the belief that God was not about to drown them.  Instead, this path through the sea was a way to safety that opened up for them at exactly the right time.

    At the same time, we see the Egyptians who were there who had set themselves against God.  Keep in mind that this is the same Pharaoh who didn’t mind killing babies in order to get rid of any threats to his power (kind of like King Herod in the New Testament!).  And so, even though it seems as though maybe the Egyptians will make it through the sea on the same path, as soon as the Israelites are through, the water flows back to where it normally is and destroys the pursuing army.

    This entire exodus from slavery to freedom and from death to life becomes the most important act of salvation in the entire Old Testament.  It becomes the basis for the covenant that God makes with the people at Mt. Sinai, and it is the one event that gets remembered over and over again.  The people are always saying to one another, “Do you remember how God saved us at the Red Sea?  Do you remember how God brought us out of slavery and led us into the freedom of the promised land?”

    At the same time, it becomes the pattern for baptism and for Easter.  Particularly the apostle Paul often uses images of slavery and freedom to talk about what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ.  He talks about how we were in slavery to sin and encourages people not to return to that same slavery after having been set free.  He addresses the people who didn’t seem to know what to do with the freedom that they had been given through Jesus Christ (cf. Rom. 6).  It sounds like that scene at the Red Sea all over again, as people preferred the slavery that they knew to the freedom that they had not yet experienced.

    My suspicion is that many people today think about freedom as the ability to do whatever you want.  However, not everything that we want to do actually sets us free.  Take, for example, people who indulge every appetite that they have, whether for food or drink, or even sexual appetite.  Over time, their health will suffer, their relationships will suffer, and it will be their appetites that control their lives.  In the same way, addictions can take control of our lives, or the love of money, or anything else in our lives that becomes our ultimate concern.

    The alternative to these things is to place ourselves under Jesus as Lord and to make God our ultimate concern.  As we discover over time, God really is the only one who gives life, and the only one who has power over the things in this world that seek to enslave us.  God is also the one who has acted to save us, just as God acted to save the people of Israel at the Red Sea.

    In our case, however, God saves us through the waters of baptism, which unite us with Jesus Christ -- bringing us from death to life and from slavery to freedom.  Just as it was important for the Israelites to remember how God had saved them at the Red Sea, it is important for us to remember how God has saved us through Jesus Christ.  For in that remembering we are reminded of God’s continued presence and power, not only now, but into eternity.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Pentecost 16 (NL 1)                        Exodus 14:10-14, 21-29
September 28, 2014
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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