Caesar, Moses, Jesus and Wet
The Apenine Mountains run like a high, ridged seam down the center of Italy’s boot. The Rubicon river, flowing down out of the mountains to the eastern coast, neatly divides the map into northern and southern regions. In the ancient world it was illegal for a Roman general to cross the river with his troops - the punishment was death. But in 49 BCE Julius Caesar did exactly that, marching his troops across the the Rubicon and initiating a civil war that would eventually see him in control of the Republic and, indeed, preside over the expanding Roman empire. As a result, the phrase “crossing the Rubicon” has entered our vocabulary, representing a decision that takes us to a point of ‘no-return’.
When the waters of the Red Sea closed behind Moses and the Israelites - and drowned the Egyptian army - they also reached a point of ‘no-return’. They were fully committed to the way ahead and, though they might not have fully grasped the significance of it - their die was cast into God’s lap. I suppose it’s indicative of how pervasive the influence of Greek and Roman culture is for us Christians (as oppossed to the Hebraic culture of the biblical world) that the phrase in our language is ‘crossing the Rubicon’ and not, ‘crossing the Red Sea’.
In the New Testament a pretty clear connection is made between the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and Christians being baptized into Christ. The narrative arc of God’s story of redemption, reconciliation and ‘Shalom’ is arcing outward through our lives to the generations yet to come. In the midst of following the Exodus story we’re going to stop for a moment and look at this weird Christian practice called ‘Baptism’. How did we get it? What does it mean? Why do we do it?
Sooner or later, in all our lives, comes a Red Sea decision. Caesar crossed the Rubicon in an act of naked aggression and hostility, initiating a civil war that would see him seize power over the Roman Republic and expand its empire. Moses took God’s people across the Red Sea so that they could find freedom from oppression and enter into the promised land of God. Both men were fully committed to their path, but these were very different paths, taken for very different reasons. On Sunday I want to ask you a very simple question: What journey are you fully committed to? This ritual we call baptism - that has its origins in a story thousands of years old - is a public declaration of who you are and what your life is about. When you make this very public declaration of baptism you’ve crossed your own point of ‘no-return’. It’s an act that places us in the middle of a story - and a family - that spans thousands of generations, and it can’t be undone.
Yes, you believe in Jesus Christ. You’re following him the best you can. But this is something different. Baptism is a transformative moment in the life of a Christ follower - it’s a moment where you publicly declare what your life is about in front of your friends, your family and your community. No, you don’t need to baptized so that your friends and family know you’re a Christian.
You need to be baptized so that you know you’re a Christian.
Out of the Frying Pan…
What happens when things don’t work out the way we had hoped? Where do we turn when the worst case scenario becomes the very thing we must live through? When there’s no explanation for our suffering, how can we go on? And what if - and this may be the most difficult question of all - there’s no answer to the question, ‘why?’
The 5th chapter of Exodus presents just such a scenario. Moses follows God’s instructions and things start going very, very wrong. The Pharaoh gets angry and increases the workload of the Jewish slaves. In short order the Pharaoh is angry, the Jewish Foreman are angry and the people suffer, terribly - all because Moses did as he was told. There’s a couple of things we have to keep in mind when reading this story. The first is that it plays out over a time-line that was a lot longer than a ‘made for tv movie’. The Jewish people endured real hardship and suffering while this story played out over weeks - if not months. The second is that we read this knowing how the story ends. This is not the case with Moses, the Pharaoh, the Jewish people or anyone else at the time, and their actions look very different when seen from this perspective. They can’t answer the ‘why’ question. They don’t know what happens next. A God they’ve only just been introduced to - “I Am That I Am” - appears impotent and they must pay the price for the foolishness of Moses.
We’re going to try and walk through some of this on Sunday morning. Frankly, the passage raises a lot more questions than it does answers and not all of them are questions we want to ask. It’s easy for us to discuss those questions in a coolly detached way in church but it’s quite another to find ourselves trying to live through them. Sometimes, an answer to the question ‘why’ simply isn’t possible. How can we live without the answers that matter most?
Image: Moses in front of Pharaoh by Haydar Hatemi, Persian Artist. Public Domai
Arguing With God
This Sunday we’re going to be walking through a rather long - and rather curious passage of scripture. This is the story of Moses encountering God in the burning bush and the difficult conversation he has with God. Difficult? Oh yeah - no question about it. God has considerable difficulty with Moses - and Moses has some trouble with God, also. In a nutshell, God asks Moses to lead the Jews out of bondage and slavery and Moses says ‘no’.
Not the story we’re used to hearing, is it? Moses puts up a lengthy argument and his final word to God was
“Lord, please! Send anyone else.” (vs. 13) God, we are told, became angry, and sent Moses’ brother Aaron to help him. With that Moses - and God - both reluctantly relent of their argument. It seems to me that neither one really got what they wanted. Moses took on a job he didn’t want and God took on a less than enthusiastic servant - and then added Aaron to the mix, something he (apparently) hadn’t already planned on. As the Exodus story progresses we see that their relationship doesn’t improve much.
God has no trouble with any aspect of creation. Thunder and lightening, storms out to sea, the Coney in the rocky crags - none of it is a problem for God. People? That’s another story. But I can also understand where Moses is coming from - he’s settled down now among the Midianites, has a wife and young family and now, suddenly, God is asking him to go back to Egypt and… then what? For Moses, the outcome is hardly clear; God has not provided enough information on which to build a plan.
This Sunday we’re going to look at the dialogue between Moses and God. It’s far too easy to fault Moses for doubting God . This becomes an entirely different story when we read it from Moses perspective. The story becomes even more powerful when we consider it from our own perspective in relation to our encounters with God.
The image above is a Russian icon of Moses and the burning bush from the 18th C. [via About.Com]