The Dangerous Birth of the People of God

Scripture: Exodus 14:10-31

Sermon: The Dangerous Birth of the People of God

Topics: War, Birth, Baptism

Preached: November 11, 2018 am Exodus Series Woodlawn CRC

Rev. Mike Abma

Preamble: Israel has fled from Egypt

but not in the most direct route to Canaan.

Instead they have headed southeast into the wilderness.

Meanwhile Pharaoh is having second thoughts of letting them get away.

He jumps into action and begins pursuing the Israelites.

So that is where we pick up the story at 14:10

Israel struggling to get away,

and Pharaoh in his army in hot pursuit.

10 As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord. 

¹¹They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? ¹²Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, “Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians”? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.’ 

¹³But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. ¹⁴The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.’

15 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. ¹⁶But you lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground. ¹⁷Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers. ¹⁸And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gained glory for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot drivers.’

19 The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. ²⁰It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night.

21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. ²²The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. 

²³The Egyptians pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. ²⁴At the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic. ²⁵He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, ‘Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.’

26 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.’ ²⁷So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. ²⁸The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. ²⁹But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. ³¹Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

In the New York harbor stands a statue over 300 feet tall.

The statue is of a woman holding a torch up high.

A plaque on her pedestal names this woman as

THE MOTHER OF EXILES.

She speaks these words:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to be free,

the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my torch beside the golden door.”

These words, engraved well over 100 years ago,

still have power today:

power to move us;

power to inspire us;

power to open our hearts and our arms.

These words have power

because they are not simply words about someone else.

These words are about us –

our ancestors,

our forebears,

our past.

The story of the huddled masses yearning to be free

is our story.

And this is an old, old story

which has its roots here in the book of Exodus.

Exodus is the original story

of the huddles masses yearning to be free.

And in Exodus 14

we find them on their way out of Egypt.

They are on their way out, but they are not yet free of Egypt.

A WAR STORY

On the one hand, this chapter is a war story.

Everything is orchestrated for a military showdown.

Israel is sent

not on a direct route to Canaan,

but they are sent on a detour.

They are sent southeast,

the roundabout way through the wilderness.

There, in the wilderness,

this huddled mass yearning to be free,

looks particularly vulnerable.

Pharaoh notices.

Pharaoh and his military machine jump into action.

Like military strategists throughout history,

they know that if they strike hard and fast,

Israel will not escape.

So they gather

All their chariots

All their horses

All their soldiers

And they set out in hot pursuit.

This hardly looks like a fair fight:

Pharaoh has his many chariots. Israel has only her many children.

Pharaoh has his many horses. Israel has only her many sheep and goats.

Pharaoh has his many soldiers. Israel hardly has any swords or shields.

Added to their lack of military strength,

Israel also found herself in the worst strategic battleground position.

They had an army breathing down their necks to the west.

And to the east, they had a sea,

a deep, dangerous, deadly sea.

I know some translations describe this as the Sea of Reeds,

almost giving the impression that this was some kind of big puddle.

But no.

A better translation is that this is the Sea of the End,

as in, this Sea represents a dead-end.

This Sea, like all deep seas in the Old Testament,

was seen as where chaos ruled and where death dwelt.

So this huddled mass of people was caught in this vice-grip of destruction:

Pharaoh and his army of death on one side;

and a deep, forbidding sea on the other side.

No wonder Israel, in great fear, cried out to Moses:

“WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!”

What does Moses say to them at this critical moment?

Does he go Winston Churchill:

“We shall fight them in the fields;

We shall fight them in the hills;

We shall never surrender.”

Or does he go Braveheart:

“They may take away our lives

but they shall NEVER take away our FREEDOM.”

No.

There is absolutely none of that.

Surprisingly, Moses says,

“Do not be afraid.

Stand firm.

The Lord will fight for you.

You only have to keep still.”

The Lord will fight for you.

You only have to keep still.

Clearly this war, this battle, is not so much between Egypt and Israel.

This war is between

Pharaoh, the champion of chaos and the dealer of death,

and God, the holy warrior, and defender of this people.

BIRTH STORY

So on the one hand, this is a WAR STORY.

But on the other hand, this is a BIRTH STORY.

Remember years earlier, baby Moses was threatened with death.

At that time, God drew Moses out of the water, saving him.

Now, God is about to do the same thing with his people —

He is about to draw them out of the water and save them.

He is about to draw them through the water so that they,

as a people, as a nation, might be born.^[1]

The Plagues have, in a way, acted as contractions.

The Plagues have been the painful labor pains, when all creation groaned.

And now, Israel,

as a nation, as a people,

is about to be born.

In this passage,

God is not only a warrior.

He is also a midwife,

and this passage describes

an incredibly difficult and dangerous birth.

Things look grim.

It looks like this might be a stillbirth,

that Israel will not make it.

But God, the midwife,

shows Israel the way…

the way through that narrow opening in the sea,

the way from slavery to freedom,

the way from death to life,

the way from the old to the new.

This movement through the sea

is a both a birth and a baptism.

And here we see the great Might and Mercy of the Lord.

With his Right Hand, he is the mighty warrior,

fighting for his people.

With his Left Hand, he is the compassionate midwife,

making sure his people safely pass from death to life.

This battle and this birth becomes the defining moment

for the people of God.

This is the story that they will recount again and again and again

through the centuries.

EASTER and BAPTISM

And what is the defining moment for us?

What is the moment we recount again and again?

Isn’t the moment we recount also a battle and a birth?

The battle we recount is the one at Golgotha.

It occurs when Jesus is hanging on the cross.

All the forces of chaos and death have assailed against him.

And there he hangs,

stripped and vulnerable and helpless.

By all appearances, it is no contest:

the cross looks like a defeat,

and the tomb looks like the end.

But we know that on the cross

Jesus disarmed all the dark powers and principalities

that threatened us.

We know that, though he entered the tomb of death,

nevertheless,

on Easter morning he emerged as Lord of life,

on Easter morning he gave birth to a new creation.

He paved the way for us,

all the huddled masses yearning to be free of sin and death.

He paved the way for us to join him

in his death and in his resurrection.

The way we join him

is by passing through the water – the water of baptism,

for in baptism we are given new birth,

in baptism we know that we belong to God.

LUIT JAN TER HUISEN

The truth is, we do not always feel like part of “a huddled mass yearning to be free.” We often feel rather alone.

And in that loneliness there are times we face feelings

of being in a vice-grip of fear,

that there is no way out,

that our hope is ebbing and our despair is rising;

we feel weak, helpless, and all seems lost.

Ina DeMoor recently told me the story of her uncle Luit Jan TerHuisen.

Luit Jan and his father lived in the Netherlands.

They lived in the Netherlands when that country was overrun and occupied by the Germans during the second World War.

By 1944, the Germans were getting desperate for a labor force,

So they began picking up every able-bodied man, young and old.

Both Luit Jan and his father were picked up by the Germans.

Luit Jan was sent to one labor camp, his father to another.

Luit Jan hated it.

It was terrible.

So he planned a Great Escape.

And he did. He did escape.

But his escape only lasted a short time.

He was re-captured.

A company of German soldiers with guns surrounded him.

They gave him a shovel.

They told him to start digging.

So there he was digging his own grave.

Guns were above him.

A grave was below him.

There was no way out.

What did Luit Jan begin doing?

He began singing,

singing loudly;

singing boldly.

He sang a Dutch Psalm – Psalm 65.

Loosely translated,

He sang:

Praise be to the Lord God our Savior.

He daily bears our burdens.

He is the God who saves.

With the Sovereign Lord comes rescue from death,

For surely God will crush the heads of his enemies.

CONCLUSION

I know you want to know what happened to Luit Jan.

But linger with me a moment with Luit Jan

as he is digging and as he is singing.

You do not know whether he will live or whether he will die.

If you were there,

and if you could whisper something into Luit Jan’s ear,

what would it be?

What would it be?

Wouldn’t you want to whisper into Luit Jan’s ear something like this:

“If you live, you live to Christ.

If you die, you die to Christ.

So whether you live or whether you die, Luit Jan,

know this…know this…you belong to the Christ.”

People of God,

once Luit Jan was finished digging that grave

the shot never came.

The German soldiers, perhaps cut to the heart,

asked him to stop singing, then lowered their guns,

and let Luit Jan return to the labor camp.

Luit Jan lived to tell that story.

But he lived to tell the even deeper story,

his story,

your story,

our story.

The deeper story

that whether we live or whether we die

we belong to the Lord.

For Christ died and Christ rose again

so that he might be Lord of All,

All, both the dead and the living. (Romans 14:8-9)

Amen

PRAYER

Lord, thank you for the triumphant message of the gospel.

That through Jesus, your Son

you have saved us, you have freed us, you have given us new birth.

And for that, we praise your name, now and always.

Amen

1. See Rachel Marie Stone, “Delivered Through Water: The Red Sea, the Baptistery, and the Birth Canal,” in Christian Century, June 6, 2018. ↑