Brown's Daily Word 9-14-08

Good Morning,
Fear is a reality that we all must deal with in some way. The Christians in Orissa who are brutally terrorized by the militant Hindus are living in the jungles in the refugee camps in fear and dread.
In Exodus 14, we have the famous story of Israel’s final deliverance from the hand of Pharaoh and the start of their journey into covenant relationship with God.
In this case, the threat or crisis is the oncoming Egyptian army, and the Israelites are afraid as one could well imagine. In reaction, they turn on Moses (the grumbling) and ask, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness?” (Exo 14:10 NJPS). Moses instead implore the Israelites to have faith in the God that has already brought them this far. “The LORD will battle for you,” he argues. “Hold your peace!” (14:14 NJPS).

And so the stage is set for God’s providence and action; The Lord is the divine warrior, understanding the LORD as the one who will fight on behalf of Israel against the one who threatens their existence, i.e. Pharaoh.

So God’s angel and the pillar of cloud cut off the Egyptians’ advance and darkness came upon the sky (14:19-20) and then comes the famous cinematic moment: the parting of the sea. The Israelites are able to cross the muddy ground, but the Egyptians chariots (the very thing that most likely gave them their overwhelming military advantage) are unable to follow and turn to flee but are swept up in the waters

And so the fear of the Israelites is relieved and replaced by the fear of the LORD. This fear, however, is not a fear where one trembles and cringes, but is an awe-struck, overwhelmed sense of wonder at what God has done. To fear the LORD in biblical language is less about fearing God’s wrath and more about having respect and acknowledgement for God’s power and authority.

Within the context of Exodus, Pharaoh had dug his own grave. Time and again he was given the chance to end the conflict without it coming to this point, and instead pursued the Israelites blind to the LORD’s admonitions and warnings through the plagues.

There is the tension between God’s love and mercy with God’s righteousness and justice. Evil must be judged and something must be done about it. Miroslav Volf puts it incredibly well in his book Exclusion and Embrace,
If Augustine was right that “the city of this world…aims at domination, which holds nations in enslavement” and “is itself dominated by that very lust for domination” (Augustine, The City of God, I, Preface), then God must be angry. A nonindignant God would be an accomplice in injustice, deception, and violence…God will judge, not because God gives people what they deserve, but because some people refuse to receive what no one deserve; if evildoers experience God’s terror, it will not be because they have done evil, but because they have resisted to the end the powerful lure of the open arms of the crucified Messiah (Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 297-98).

The crossing of the sea is a story that transitions a people from fear to awe, from doubt to faith, from cries of despair to shouts of joy and worship. It is because of the God who heard their cries of injustice and has delivered them that they now can sing and dance with joy, liberated for a new life and new purpose. It is the LORD who turns fear into joy, who delivers us from those dark places of enslavement and exile and brings us through the deep into a new dawn.

The Song of the Sea in chapter 15 sums it up well:
I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.
The LORD is my strength and my might,
and he has become my salvation…
Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in splendor, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:1-2a, 11)

Praise the Lord for the victory that He gives to His people,
Brown