Forward

“WEEPING AND REJOICING ON THE SAME DAY”
Exodus: 14:19-31
Faith United
September 14, 2008

Have you ever been between a rock and hard place?
In other words, have you ever felt trapped?
In a situation where—excuse the expression—
you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t?
There just doesn’t seem to be a good answer
to your dilemma, to your situation
No matter what you do, it’s going to hurt
but you know that you can’t just keep standing where you are

The Israelites weren’t too sure that they wanted to be saved
they couldn’t agree on whether they wanted to be delivered
They had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years
I mean, it’s all they knew,
it’s all their ancestors knew
It’s who they were, they were slaves
they were born into it, they lived it
they didn’t know anything else
except maybe, that it was not a life at all
And here Moses comes along and tries to save them
tries to tell Pharoah,
to let his people go
Yeah, this little rag-tag, peasant-looking kind of guy
with a walking stick
standing in the Pharoah’s elaborate court
surrounded by powerful, wealthy people
asking if the Pharoah would please
let his people go …
Right
You know the stories from Sunday School
or perhaps from movies
the plagues, the awful things that came down on Pharoah’s people
and still the Pharoah would not let them go
But then there was that horrible, tragic night
a date that would live on in Egyptian history forever
as one of their darkest days as a people
The night that all the first-born sons of the Egyptians
were killed
and the night was filled with weeping and mourning
and the pharaoh himself was crazy with grief
at the bedside of his first-born son
“Go!” he said to Moses through gritted teeth
and angry tears
“Get your people out of here,
I don’t want to see your ugly faces again…
leave….”
And it would have been a miracle
if not for the overwhelming anguish that surrounded Moses
and his people as they packed their things
It was one of those moments
that you knew you should be dancing with joy
and yet they couldn’t help but hear
the tears and sorrow and unhealable grief
loud wails of crying mothers
angry and stricken fathers
weeping for their children
as the Israelites quickly packed what they could carry
and left the slave quarters at night
The Israelites didn’t know whether to laugh or cry
they didn’t know how to feel
but still, they packed, they gathered their own
precious children in a hurry
no time to grab that extra toy
that beloved blanket
we gotta go… now
and the hundreds of Israelites,
beaten down by years of sorrow,
years of slavery,
years of making bricks in the hot sun
years of the sting of the whips on their back
years of feeling lower than the unclean animals,
those Israelites walked as quickly as they could
through the darkness
pushing forward, wanting to get out of sight of Egypt
wanting to catch a glimpse of the distant horizon

But then the music changed—
from a peaceful song of having escaped
to the stressful, harsh sounds of fear and terror all over again
When Pharoah found out the people had indeed left,
he went crazy
Still crazy from the grief of his loss
still crazy from all the events of past weeks,
he just lost it
He ordered his chariot
and his whole army to get ready and go
to chase after the people, to bring them back
The Israelites heard the sounds shatter the night
heard the sounds of shouting and of chariots
and they looked back
to see the entire army coming after them
Children screamed and cried
as mothers held onto them so tight it hurt
Men were shouting, panicking
The ones closest to Moses were screaming at him
for getting them into this
to bring them out here just to die at the hands of Pharoah
They could be safe in their beds, asleep
knowing what to expect each day
Slavery, yes, abuse, yes,
but at least they wouldn’t be dead
Sheer panic broke out
as hundreds of Israelites anticipated being slaughtered
in their tracks
But then….
Some of them saw it,
others weren’t sure
if their eyes were just deceiving them
causing them to hallucinate
from the constant stress and panic
but others told of it later
a cloud…. not just a cloud, but a BRIGHT cloud
a cloud in the middle of the night
shining up ahead
and some turned around, but most didn’t want to look back
the brave ones who looked back
saw the shining cloud behind them as well
blocking the view of the vicious army in pursuit of them
A shining cloud
that lit up the night
they’d never seen anything like it

Then someone among them screamed again
and others joined in
as the whole company of Israelites
began to panic all over again
They’d come to the Sea
The Reed Sea
in fact, in Hebrew, it means the Sea of Ends
And it certainly felt like the end for them all
They had Pharoah’s army behind them
and the huge, endless sea in front of them
they were trapped
If they went forward, they would die
if they turned around, they would die
if they stood still, they would die

Then all of a sudden as they were ready to just lay down
right where they were and wait for the end
a huge wind picked up
seemingly out of nowhere
it was a strong wind
that whipped through the crowd
and they began to see the ripples of the sea
the white caps on the waves ahead
At first they thought the sea itself would rise up
and drown them, as it felt like a sudden hurricane
but the wind whipped up the water
Those at the front of the crowd saw Moses
with his eyes toward heaven
his hands in the air
one of them holding his walking stick to the right
his other hand moving to the left
as if he were commanding the winds themselves

“Forward!!” Moses shouted
“Tell everyone to go forward!”
and the message spread from the front to the back of the crowd
“forward, he wants us to go forward….”
What, is he crazy? Surely we’ll drown
I have little children, they can’t swim
this wind, this storm
it will surely be the end of us all…
but the message kept coming
and some pushed others forward
who didn’t want to go
others reached back and grabbed as many hands
as they could to pull them forward
None of them knew
but would hear the story later
that Moses had cried out to God in a panic
with the company of thousands of panicked Israelites behind him
and God had said to him,
“Why do you cry out to me??
Tell the Israelites to go forward…
Go forward,” God said

It was crazy
We know about the stories of Jesus walking on water
but they didn’t
and now Moses was telling them
Go forward…
Walk INTO the water
Walk INTO the raging sea
They looked back and there was Pharoah’s army
in angry pursuit
they looked ahead and there was a raging sea
and Moses was telling them to Go Forward
What choice did they have?
It seemed like a choice between death and death
death by capture and probably a continued life of abusive slavery
or death by drowning
So they did
They … went forward

I heard a news cast from Galveston, Texas yesterday
of a 45 year old man
who’d lived in Galveston all his life
he and his family were at a shelter
and the eye of the storm had not yet passed
and he told the news reporter
“In all of my 45 years, I’ve never seen the water so high…
it’s coming up over the sea wall
and you don’t know what’s going to happen…
I have NEVER seen the water so high…”

I imagine that’s what the Israelites would tell their grandchildren later
as they came to the edge of the sea
“I’ve never seen the water so high…”
and yet the water was not in front of them
but by some crazy circumstance
that they could only attribute to God
The water was high on each side of them
as they did indeed go forward as they were told
walking on dry land
between two huge walls of sea water
People pushed from behind
and pulled from ahead
as children and adults alike
stared up at the amazing walls of water
with their mouths gaping open
They looked back and the Pharoah’s army
was still in hot pursuit
so they hurried, the Israelites panicked again
and rushed forward, threatening to crush each other
in their haste
and when they finally all made it to the other side
they looked back
and the walls of water came crashing down
on the path on which they’d all just walked
in the midst of the loud crashing of water
and the howling of winds
they could still hear the screams of the men of Pharoah’s army
Soon the water came to be still
as the trembling multitude stood on the opposite shore
and watched
I wonder if Israelite mothers clutched their youngest
to their chests, weeping
weeping with relief
but also weeping at the sight of the bodies of the Egyptians
that floated everywhere
They closed their eyes as if that would drown out the screams
followed by the silence

There’s a happy little ditty about this story
that I’ve sung when attending other churches
I’m kind of relieved that it’s not in our song books
it’s a happy, peppy song
about the horse and the rider being thrown into the sea…
I always felt funny when asked to sing that song

The company of Israelites looked out at the sea
that was now calm
listened to the stillness
and realized the winds had died down
and someone burst into song….
people started dancing, clapping and laughing
some brought out their homemade tambourines
that they’d used to worship the Lord
and a party happened on that seashore
Chapter 15 is the song they sang
about God’s faithfulness…
Ï will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea…
Pharoah’s chariots and his army
he cast into the sea
his picked officers were sunk in the Red Sea,” they sang
And they kept singing,
“The floods covered them,
they went down into the depths like a stone…
You blew with your wind, the sea
covered them;
they sank like lead in the mighty waters….”
and on they danced

God had delivered them
they did not die
they were no longer slaves but they were free
something they could never imagine
in their wildest dreams
The horizon opened up in front of them
endless possibilities
an open future
They wept, danced, sang, hugged their children
and praised God
this God who delivered them

And this story would be told again and again and again
that day would forever be remembered
a story passed down from those who were there
to the next generation
about God’s faithfulness to God’s people
The story of the Exodus was the central story
of the Israelite people
when finally they would come to write down their stories
so that we, all these thousands of years later
would know them
when they wrote it down
they wrote it through the eyes of the Exodus story
The God who delivered them from slavery in Egypt
was the same God who created the earth and the heavens
The Exodus story was the first story they told
and when others asked,
“how was the world made?”
“who made the world?”
They answered, the God of the Exodus
The God who creates and renews and gives life
This God, in the beginning, before anything else was made
This God, said, “Let their be light, and their was light…”
A light that existed before that shining cloud in the wilderness
that led his people forward into deep waters
out into new life
And they wrote the stories down
the stories that made them who they are
the stories that told them who God is….

I wonder what stories the Egyptians told?
I wonder what stories were passed down on the other side of the sea
from generation to generation?
Because when the winds died down
and the music stopped for the night
and the Israelites unrolled their blankets
to settle down to sleep
when all was quiet
in the distance, they could hear the haunting sound of weeping

Jewish tradition includes the midrash stories
that are stories that kind of expand the stories in the Bible
it’s kind of like the Rest of the Story
And in that midrash tradition
there is a story that was passed on
And the story goes, as the exodus drama unfolded,
there was a group of angels standing around in heaven watching
AS the first Israelite set foot on the distant shore
there was a great cheer
And then as the waters rose and drowned the Egyptians,
the angels started dancing around and slapping each other on the back
and yelling, “We got ém! We got ém!”
But then, in the midst of the revelry of the angels,
God’s voice boomed forth:
“What do you think you’re doing? You are dismissed from my service.”
The angels, suddenly very angry, talked back to God:
“What do you mean we’re dismissed? We were only celebrating the
vanquishing of those despicable Egyptians!”
And God said to them, with sorrow in his voice,
“Do you not know that the Egyptians are my children too?”
Do you not know that the Egyptians are my children too?
Do you not know that the Iraqis are my children too?
The Afghans? The Iranians?
The Russians?
Do you not know, God says, that your enemies
are my children too?

Sometimes it feels like we’ve never seen the water so high
it seems like the world has never been so scary as it is now
it seems like we’re trapped, sometimes
between a rock and a hard place
we’ve gotten so used to war and violence
that we don’t know how else to solve our problems
But God says to us now,
as God said to the Israelites, Go forward
Go forward into deep waters and I will be with you
Go forward by the light of my presence behind you and before you
and we will reach the shore together
Go forward, learn from me, learn who I am
from the people who have gone before you
learn from their triumphs and their mistakes
learn from their sorrow and their joy
but Go forward as my people
For I am the God of Life,
and I will not rest until ALL my people are delivered
from the powers of hell and death and war and slavery
and evil
ALL of them
Until all of us are free, none of us are really free
because we belong to each other
in the name of the God of Exodus, of Deliverance,
of Freedom and of Everlasting Life
Go Forward and know that God is with you…