Day 2 :: Exodus {The Rescuer}

When we turn the page from Genesis to Exodus, it is a desperate scene.

400 years after Joseph ruled, the people of God are held in Egypt as slaves by a cruel Pharaoh who fears their numbers.

In order to contain the Israelites’ population, their baby boys are being stolen from them to be drowned in the Nile.

My boy-mama heart bleeds as I imagine the mothers, breasts engorged with milk, weeping and crying out to God, “Where are you?! Why have you left us here to watch our children die?!!”

Hope is gone. Promises have been forgotten. All seems lost.

Bet then, a baby is born. Hidden from soldiers, he placed in the reeds of the very river where he was decreed to die, and rescued by a princess.

Years later, this baby boy is a man tending his sheep when he comes across a burning bush that speaks.

We know the story from Sunday School felt boards and Charlton Heston’s The Ten Commandments. We know the dramatic rescue complete with walls of water, pillars of fire, and thundering clouds. But do we know the God in the story?

This God who sees misery of his people and hears their cries?

God himself says His people did not know Him (Exodus 6:3).

But they would. In this book, God shows Himself to be “majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders” (Ex 15:11), “slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). The Rescuer they so desperately needed.

There’s a massive cultural element in the Old Testament narratives we miss as Modern Day North Americans. Back then: It was all about the gods.

If you won a war, it was because your god was stronger.

If you took a people as slaves, your god was better.

If you were rich, if your land prospered, if you did anything well, it showed that your god was the best.

And in this worldview, the God of the Israelites was not trustworthy. Many of them most likely worshiped the Egyptian gods.

But God assures Moses, I have come down to rescue them… (Exodus 3:8)

The Lord showed his might and power over the Egyptian gods in the 10 plagues. From the locusts to the frogs to the hail to the flies, each plague is a demonstration of God’s power over the gods of Egypt. Culminating in the death of the heir to the throne, Yahweh defeats the Egyptian gods, proving himself to be able.

But God didn’t just rescue them to show off.

 He rescued them from physical slavery so that He could also rescue them from spiritual slavery to sin.

He rescued them to be with them.

The majority of the second half of Exodus takes place on Mount Sinai with God dictating the first recorded portion of the Law. Within it are instructions for building the Tabernacle, literally the dwelling. God would not wait until He had a fancy temple in Jerusalem, but chose to enter their presence in a nomadic tent in the wilderness. Such is His grace to us.

When I stop to consider it, I am in awe that the God who can cause the sun to be darkened across Egypt, but provide light to the Hebrews (Exodus 10:21-29), would choose to rescue any of us. But He chose to free them. And He chooses to free us.

There are many gods fighting for our attention and promising a better life. They come in the forms of food, exercise, sex, and entertainment. They make us feel better for awhile, but after a fix we may be left feeling empty and lost again.

By ourselves we are all stuck in sin. We all need to be rescued by God.

The Enemy doesn’t want us to experience that rescue. He doesn’t want us to experience life. Instead He speaks lies into our ears “God cannot save you. God does not see you. You are only your depression, your addiction, your fears.”

But God says to this Accuser who speaks lies in our ear:

You think you have won. But I AM.

You think you can keep my people down. But I AM.

You think you have her now, in her addictions, uncleanliness, and sin. But I AM.

I AM who I AM. I rescued the people of Israel from their captors, I can rescue her as well. She is not stuck in the land of the dying. I have come to give her new life. Life in my presence.

In Christ, our Passover Lamb, we have been redeemed from our life of sin and shame. In Christ, we can have life and life abundantly.

Trust in Him. Cling to Him. He is mighty to save.

Come back tomorrow for: Leviticus {The Holy One}