Let's Take Time to Celebrate Life!!!!

Out of Egypt

I am getting ready to preach a sermon that looks at the whole idea of what it means to come out of Egypt into a better place. Moses is on a mountain where he has an intimate encounter with God. It might even be described as a salvation moment. It is the place where God has become real. Many of us know that place. We can look back and see in the here and now that wanting that moment to live on is an eternal longing.
Moses is a fugitive who is running away from certain death. He has chosen to align himself with the people that God has called him to. He had life in a palace. It was all because he was drawn out of a river as an infant by an Egyptian princess. When he finds out where he comes from, the same people he had oppressed, he seeks ways to bring comfort. At one point he sees a taskmaster beating up on an Israelite. Moses can take it no longer and kills the Egyptian and now the message is clear. Moses is to be treated like the slave even to the point of being put to death. After all Israelite slaves do not matter in this cultural mix. The death of Moses will prove this assessment to be true.

God give Moses a promise that comes with a vision. Moses will come back to the place that he has met God and bring others with him to meet God. Another words people will know the same experience of a relationship with God that Moses is knowing. There is an essential truth that will arise from the same deliverance that Moses knew when an infant and later on as an escapee from the law. God sees something in Moses that no one else does, not even Moses and the people will come to this mountain and give praise to the God who allows a redeeming vision to take place. It is a reminder that God is ever present and does not forget. He is the living God of people like Abraham, Jacob and Joseph and in this case Moses who will risk his life to bring freedom to God's people.


Nowhere is this more true than in the scripture that precede the ones that Moses is gifted with. They speak to us who are in a culture that often seems cold and uncaring. God sees the misery of his people. Hear this loud and clear. God knows what is going on. There is no one who is alone in misery. Think upon the suffering of being sick, alone, weeping, never being able to feel like one is good enough. God sees all this and want to put a stop to it. Believe it. God sees it and will follow through. God also hears the cries!! The taskmasters are not getting away with anything. God knows the voice of his sheep. God does not want any of His people to suffer. God does not want any of us to suffer. The God who says that his name is "I am", Yahweh calls others into
this same kind of relating. It is not because of what any person does, as if one could earn salvation. It is because of the God who calls people to move beyond their identity of slave to know that it means to be loved by the same God who has created them.

There is so much of this passage that is instructive to us that call ourselves believers. We are part of a heritage that predates us. The Exodus from Egypt is a constant reminder that God has a better place for us that the world can ever offer. We look at the scripture through the eyes of the gospel. Just like Moses, Jesus comes out of a place that is regal. Jesus could have stayed in heaven, but chose to come to the people that God called unto himself. At one point Jesus is rescued as an infant and sent to Egypt where he might be safe. The king was threated by someone who might one day be king.

Jesus enters into a world that is anything but safe. There are Roman emperors who believe that they are God. The religious establishment lays claim to knowing what God's will is, even if it means that people will be oppressed and enslaved. They are more concerned with the buildings that they occupy through no effort of their own, which supposed bear witness to their superiority. Jesus comes to show what it really means to believe in God. It has to do with a revelation about God that sees the misery and hears the cries for help and will do something about it. Jesus is even willing to die on a cross humiliated. Moses knew this kind of humility and Jesus is that humility lived out in the appearance of a man. At one point Moses would lift up a staff to part the Red sea. At another point he would have a pole lifted up so that people would not be killed by poisonous snakes. Believing in Jesus is this same kind of phenomenon. He speaks to the God called I am. Forgive them for they know what they do. It is the reality of amazing grace. Jesus comes to be with us so that we can be with God. We are called to be on the same mountain that Jesus has been called to shine forth the glory of God.

It is by the red sea of blood spilt for us that we are saved. We are to look at the cross as a door to salvation. God sees in us the presence of Christ and rises us out death to know resurrection. We can never be the same. I knew this intimately when I was too scare to live and to scared to die. Jesus understands. See Jesus on the cross and know that resurrection is not far away. Cling to the promises. Jesus says that he is the light, he promises us a place, for God so loved the world, there is a spirit of Christ that comes to dwell in us sharing with the world what the caring presence of Christ can mean to a world that is lost.

The story of Moses pilgrimage out of Egypt is out story. We are called out of our suffering to share with a waiting world what it means to overcome temptation, and bring comfort in the same way that it is brought to us. We are called to look up and know God is ever present and will not leave or forsake us. There is a promised land and in the world of clinging on to God, promise there is eternal hope. Let us consider how we can come out of the Egypt of our own existence. God sees the misery, hears the crying and will life us out of a death prepared for us by the slavers to new glorious life. Let us catch the vision and share the vision. Our hymn of celebration is amazing grace. What else can liberate and set free. Amazing grace is enough.