Hope and Living Water

Jeremiah 17:13, 50:7,  John 1:25

The Pharisees came to John in the Jordan River and asked him, “If you are not the Christ, the Messiah, or Elijah, or the foretold prophet, why are you baptizing?”

There is so much to unpack in this single question.

To understand the full import of what the Pharisees asked, we need to return to Israel before the forced exile to Babylon and the voluntary exile to Egypt, namely the time of Jeremiah the prophet.

During a time of famine, the Word of God came to Jeremiah.

Judah mourns

The cry of Jerusalem has gone up

The nobles have sent their little children to the watersprings

They find no water

They return with their bowls empty

Ashamed and confused

They cover their heads

The ground is beaten down, afraid

There is no rain

The plowmen are ashamed and confused

They cover their heads

The deer calve but find no grass

The wild asses snuff up the air like dragons

Their eyes search to the end but there is no grass

Oh Lord, our sins witness against us

We have turned away, turned back from You many times

For Your own Name’s sake,

Israel’s Hope and Pool of Living Water,

Rescuer and Savior in time of anguish and adversity,

Why are you a stranger and a wayfarer in the land,

One who stays only for the night?

Why are you stunned and confused

Like a champion who cannot rescue or save?

                                                                        From Jeremiah 14:1-9

And again:

Oh YHWH, LORD,

Israel’s Hope and Pool of Living Water,

All who forsake you shall be ashamed and confused

Those who revolt from my words shall be recorded in the earth

Because they have forsaken YHWH, the LORD,

The wellspring of living water.

                                                                        From Jeremiah 17:7

Following the time when Jeremiah spoke and wrote these words, Israel’s people were divided and exiled. After their return to their homeland, they took great care to do whatever they could to avoid another exile and dispersal of their people. From this context, the Pharisees arose.

The Pharisees took Torah seriously and often literally. They followed its teachings in matters of belief and behavior. They were careful to observe religious rites and to perform acts of piety. They eagerly awaited Messiah, more so after their national humiliation first at the hands of the Greeks, defeated by the Maccabees, and now, in the time of John, at the hands of the Romans. They had not been exiled, but they were not the autonomous theocracy they believed God intended. So they were looking for the one God would send to rescue and save them, in part from sin, but in larger part from the Romans. They were the true believers, the true patriots.

One aspect of their belief is the necessity of ritual washing. Torah teaches that many life events cause uncleanness in the individual, who has then to wash and remain unclean until nightfall (see Leviticus, many places).  (It can be noted that these life events often have to do with the death of potential life or actual death, ultimately connected with sin by way of the Fall.) After the Babylonian exile, the devout constructed mikveh for this purpose, sacred individual baths, fed by “living water”—water from springs. Rainwater from a cistern that flowed by gravity into this mikveh was acceptable, but flowing rainwater cannot purify. Then as well as today, converts to Judaism must wash in a mikveh.[1]

The Jordan River, sourced by three smaller rivers all rising from springs, is living water for the purposes of washing away uncleanness. Thus it is the perfect spot for John to immerse those who are repenting of living wrongly.

The Pharisees who came hopefully to ask John his calling had already been through their daily washing, very likely. They wanted to please God so that their nation would be free from oppressors. They also wanted a Messiah who would help turn the nation toward God so that God would free them from Rome.

The Messiah Who Actually Came

The story is familiar about how Jesus arrived at the Jordan, John spoke prophetically of the Lamb of God who carries away the sins of the whole world, and then Jesus enters the purifying water and John baptizes him. John sees the Spirit of God descend on Jesus and witnesses that “this is the Son of God.” By the end of John 1, Jesus has identified himself as the same ladder Jacob saw between earth and heaven, with God’s messengers ascending and descending on it. In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that the natural birth and the water bath must be followed and superseded by a spiritual birth. In John 4, by Jacob’s Well, Jesus offers the Samaritan woman living water, even a well of water springing up in her to everlasting life. In John 5, Jesus heals a man waiting by healing waters, but the man does not, in fact, bathe either literally or figuratively in living water, and he turns Jesus in as a Sabbath-breaker.

In John 6, Jesus walks over the waters of the Sea of Galilee to join the fearful disciples in their boat.

In John 7, Jesus stands in the Temple and shouts,

All who thirst,

Come to me and drink

All who trust in me

Will have streams of living water

Within them

(He spoke thus of the Spirit of God)

                                                                        John 7:37-39

It would not have escaped the Pharisees in the crowd that Jesus was echoing the prophet Isaiah:

All who thirst

Come to the watersprings

                                                                        Isaiah 55:1

John 9 tells of Jesus healing a blind man by spitting in the dust, making a mud poultice, and then sending him to wash in the pool fed by the fountain of Siloam. This washing revisits the whole idea of the mikveh, the purifying bath that prepares for worship. Indeed, when the man sees Jesus again, he worships him.

By John 10, Jesus has completed a circle and returned to the spot where John baptized him. In John 13, Jesus washes feet, saying to Peter, “If I don’t wash you, you hold no part in me….Whoever has bathed is clean, and needs only to wash the feet. And you are clean.” Jesus himself is the living water that purifies, and to be part of him requires immersion in that mikveh as well as the specific washing of whatever is dusty. This becomes more vivid when the Roman soldier pierces Jesus’s side and blood and water flow out (John 19:34)—blood symbolizing life, human life, and water symbolizing the living water of spirit, first referenced in John 1:12-13:

But to as many who held onto him,

Who committed themselves to his character and authority,

To them he gave the strength and freedom

To become children of God:

Born not of human blood nor human pleasure nor human will,

But of God’s blood, God’s pleasure and God’s will.

John identifies Jesus with the purifying and healing water of the mikveh, and this is not entirely new information. But the most exciting insight comes out of the passages in Jeremiah, where the mikveh bath is a sacred pun for hope, one of the three central Christian virtues.

When Jesus is our cleansing bath, we enter into his being, we take hold of him and become one with him and one like him. This is our ground for hope. Hope is not an insubstantial wish for things to improve, but our hope, who is Jesus, anchors us. We may need daily to have Jesus clean us, but no one can take away from us that immersion in the water of life, which Jesus has also placed within us and provided for us. As the apostle says in 1 John 3:2-3:

Beloved, we are now the children of God

What we will be has not yet appeared

But we do know that when God appears

We will be like God

For God will allow us to see God

As God really is

And all who have this hope in God

Cleanse themselves

Even as God is clean

Here is a picture of that cleansing, healing bath from the fiction of George MacDonald. In The Princess and Curdie, Irene has had a terrifying adventure underground in goblins’ tunnels, and has found her way back to her magical grandmother. Here is the scene:

“You are very tired, my child,” the lady went on. “Your hands are hurt with the stones, and I have counted nine bruises on you. Just look what you are like.”

And she held up to her a little mirror which she had brought from the cabinet. The princess burst into a merry laugh at the sight. She was so draggled with the stream, and dirty with creeping through narrow places…The lady laughed too, and lifting her again upon her knee, took off her cloak and night-gown. Then she carried her to the side of the room. Irene…[started] a little when she found that she was going to lay her in the large silver bath; for as she looked into it, again she saw no bottom, but the stars shining miles away…in a great blue gulf. Her hands closed involuntarily on the beautiful arms that held her, and that was all.

The lady pressed her once more to her bosom, saying: “Do not be afraid, my child.”

“No, grandmother,” answered [Irene], with a little gasp: and the next instant she sank in the clear cool water.

When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but a strange lovely blue over and beneath and all about her. … she seemed nearly alone. But instead of being afraid, she felt more than happy—perfectly blissful. And from somewhere came the voice of the lady singing…

How long she lay in the water she did not know. It seemed a long time—not from weariness but from pleasure. But at last she felt the beautiful hands lay hold of her, and through the gurgling water she was lifted out into the lovely room. …When she stood up on the floor she felt as if she had been made over again. Every bruise and all weariness were gone, and her hands were soft and whole as ever.

And here is another lovely picture of the truth of this living water:

And he showed me a clean river

Of the water of life

Crystal clear

Proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb

And on either side of the river was the Tree of Life

Yielding twelve kinds of fruit

One each month

And its leaves were for the healing of the nations

                                                                        Rev. 21:1-2

The first gathering of water referred to as mikveh is Genesis 1:10, where God gathers together the waters called Seas. The mikveh bath is a place where drops of water collect together. Many small drops of water springing from the earth or falling from the sky gather together in one significant community of water. This occurs because the separate drops abide together, or in the case of a river, they are continuous with one another.

Let us take to heart these truths. Jesus washes us clean, Jesus is the living water which springs up in us, Jesus is the living water in which we bathe ourselves, Jesus is our hope. As we gather together, we too can be living water for each other, and our hope bonds us together to be living water and hope—mikveh—for the healing of whole world.

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[1] Much of this information comes from the Wikipedia article on mikveh.

Prayer in the Teaching and Life of Jesus

Preached at South Salem Friends Church

July 7, 2013

When we want to get to know Jesus better, we go to the Gospels and read about what he said and did.  Then we have to think, because what Jesus said and what Jesus did do not always seem identical.  So then we have to be willing to ask what truth is there for us in the disconnect, because as Christians, we believe that Jesus came from God, that Jesus was God as well as human, and that when we see Jesus speaking and acting in the Gospels, we see who God is.  So here’s one riddle to work through, and it has to do with prayer.

First misunderstanding: Prayer should always be private.

We see that Jesus would withdraw to deserted places and pray (Luke 5:16). Furthermore, in Matthew 6:5-8, Jesus gives advice to his followers about prayer.

“When you pray, don’t be like those who pray so that people can see them praying.  These hypocrites stand on street corners or in synagogues and pray out loud so that others will see them.  The attention they get is their only reward.  But when you pray, go into your private room, shut the door, and talk with your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees you praying privately will reward you.”

(We do not now recognize how explosive the teaching that God is “your Father” was at this time.  Watch for how often Jesus connects prayer with this intimate familial relationship to God Almighty.)

Now many folks have read this and felt like Jesus was forbidding or devaluing public prayers.  But this cannot be so, because Jesus himself prayed aloud in front of other people. 

Jesus prays aloud:  “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and revealed them to infants, yes, Father, for such was your gracious will” (Matthew 11:23-24).

Looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to pass out to the crowd (Matthew 14: 19). He took the loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples to give to the crowd (Matthew 15:36). He regularly gave thanks for food. There are other times also when he prays publicly. Therefore, we need to learn how and when to pray publicly.

Second misunderstanding:  Prayer should always be spontaneous and original.

Back to Matthew 6: “Also, when you are praying, don’t heap up empty phrases as those who worship false gods feel they have to; they think that only if they repeat their requests over and over will they be heard.  Don’t be like them.  You have a Father who knows what you need even before you ask.”

Many folks have read this and concluded that repeating a set or liturgical prayer is not the best way to pray, even though the most famous of these, called The Lord’s Prayer, immediately follows. As Luke tells it, Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray say: Father, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial” (Luke 11:1-13 ). Jesus himself used a “set prayer” in his cry from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” a shorthand reference to Psalm 22 (Matthew 27:46). Therefore, we need to feel free to borrow the prayers of others when they express our need and our trust in God.

Third misconception: if we get it right, God will grant our requests.

In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus teaches further about prayer.  Ask, he says, seek, and knock.  The asker receives, the seeker finds, and the door opens for the one who knocks. “Think of God as a parent like you.  Would you give a stone to a child who asks for bread?  Would you give a snake to a child who asks for fish?  So if you, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will our Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Many folks have read this and felt like this guarantees that they will get what they pray for, particularly if they quote this to God.  But that cannot be exactly what this means, because Jesus himself asked God for something that he didn’t get. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane to be spared from death on the cross.  God did not answer this prayer.  Instead, God answered the second half of the prayer, which was “not my will but your will be done.” “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want but what you want (Mark 14: 36).

Therefore, we cannot conclude that when we experience hard things, it is because we do not have enough faith.  Instead the passage challenges us to believe that God is expressing God’s will through our lives, and that in our suffering is nutrition for our whole selves.

Fourth misunderstanding: if we get several other people to agree to pray for the same result, God will give us what we ask for.

“If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:15-20). Intriguingly, the immediate context for this is conflict or wrongs done between Jesus’s followers.  “If anyone sins against you, go and point out the fault, etc.”  This suggests that we must remember in conflict with another that coming to talk to that person directly brings Jesus into the conversation.  Jesus is right there.  The point may be that when the two in conflict can agree to ask for the same thing from our Father, God gladly answers their shared prayer.

Fifth misconception: it is inappropriate to ask God for the same thing more than once.

Jesus teaches persistence in prayer through several parables—the unjust judge and the persistent plaintiff and the neighbor who needs bread from the person who has already gone to bed.  These are funny stories that encourage us to keep asking God to meet our needs—for justice, for daily bread, just as in the prayer Jesus taught the disciples.

Sixth misconception: having faith means getting what we want in prayer.

Jesus taught that prayer itself is an act of faith.  It is not “a done deal,” not like adding baking powder to the biscuits.  Instead, having faith means we believe in the giver of good gifts, our Father, and so we ask.

Additionally, Jesus taught that when we pray, we need to forgive in order to be forgiven. And Jesus taught that our attitude in prayer is humility and asking for mercy, not self-congratulation and bullying God.

So in one central incident, let’s see how prayer works for Jesus.

John 11 Back Story:

Lazarus has died, and Jesus tells his disciples that Lazarus has fallen asleep and he must go wake him up.

He says: “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there so that you can learn to trust. Now, let’s go to him.”

Jesus arrives back in Bethany.  Lazarus has been dead and entombed four days.  Martha, his sister, meets Jesus, and says “If you had been here, Lazarus would not have died.  But even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give to you.”

Jesus says to her, “Your brother will stand up again. “ Martha responds, “I know he will rise in the resurrection at the end of time.”

Jesus says to her, “I am the resurrection and I am life.  All who trust in me, even if they die, shall live, and all who live and trust in me shall never die. Do you trust me on this?” She replies, “Yes, Lord, I trust that you are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into our world, our universe.”

Lazarus’s other sister, Mary, also comes to meet Jesus, and she greets him similarly to Martha, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus sees her tears, and the tears of the whole crowd, and he also weeps. 

They walk to the tomb where Lazarus is lying dead, and Jesus asks them to roll away the stone from the opening.  Martha says, “Lord, he’s been there four days and now stinks.”

Jesus says to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you would trust, you would see the positive judgment, the glory of God?”

This is the part I want to emphasize:  after they roll away the stone and while the stink of death is in their nostrils, Jesus lifts up his eyes to heaven to talk to our Father.

Jesus says, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I know you always hear me.  But because these people around me don’t know that, I said it aloud so that they may trust that you have sent me.”

Then he shouts, “Lazarus, come out.” And from the opening in the earth, Lazarus shuffles out, looking like a mummy.  Jesus says, “Release him and let him go.”

Many onlookers trust Jesus as being the one sent by God on that day, but some go to tell his enemies what Jesus had done.

What can we learn about prayer from this passage?  First, we learn that when Jesus said to pray in a closet, he obviously didn’t mean all the time.  Here he is praying out loud just so that the crowd can hear.

Second, we learn that Jesus knows there is nothing magic about praying out loud.  It doesn’t make it more likely that God will do what we ask.  Instead, he prays out loud to demonstrate his faith that God has told him to come to Bethany and return Lazarus to life.

Third, we learn that Jesus doesn’t take a long time to explain things to God.  He just acknowledges to God what God has told him to do, and in his prayer explains to the crowd why he is praying aloud: so that they can believe God sent him to do this work, so that they can see he has faith that God is his Father.

Fourth, it is clear that a whiz-bang miracle like this one is not enough to win everyone to trusting in our Father God who sent Jesus to show us what God is like.  Some will still work against this truth.  It is not enough that a person rises from death into life.  So we don’t have to succeed in getting what we specifically ask for in order to prove to people that God is real or that they should also be following Jesus.  

Fifth, Jesus’s prayer here is an acted parable for all of us about what our public prayers are for:  They are to demonstrate our faith that God has sent Jesus to do the work of setting people free from spiritual death into abundant spiritual life.  We are a part of the crowd that unbinds people and lets them go free. 

So we have read what Jesus said about prayer and we have seen him pray.  We have learned that Jesus did pray privately, but he also prayed publicly, including thanking God for food and blessing it, that he sometimes used the prayers of others, that Jesus prayed on purpose so others would witness that he and God were in a son/father relationship, that Jesus prayed for spiritual and for physical needs, and that even for Jesus, prayer itself was an act of faith, as it also is for us.

Luke 10:21 At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

Jesus shows us that prayer is important, so I encourage you to be people who pray in private, in public, for spiritual needs, for physical needs, using spontaneous prayers or prayers written by others, but for sure, be praying people. If any of you lack wisdom, ask God for it; God gives it liberally without scolding; pray to the Lord of the harvest of souls to send workers to bring them in.  Pray often, and pray simply, just like God’s little children.

Jesus's Family

Preached Aug. 1, 2010, Family reunion 

Mark 3:31-35

Jesus says, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). If I get to be Jesus’s sister by doing God’s will, I need to know: What is God’s will? Jesus says that the law and prophets are summed up in loving God wholly and loving my neighbor as I love myself. This tells us the direction we should be moving in every action we take—toward love, toward family.

I grew up in a missionary family in a dangerous part of the world—central Africa.  My parents brought me up to know Jesus, and they set a great example of following God’s call wherever it leads.  And yet, my experiences as a child left me unsure of the stability of God’s love for me and unsure if God had good things in store for me, and the gradual recovery from that is taking a lifetime.  These ae some things I’ve learned over that lifetime about God and people.

1) People run from God when they fear God is angry about their sin. They think, “I don’t belong in God’s family.”  But it’s really like when kids get their good clothes and themselves dirty when their parents have clearly said, “Stay out of the mud.” They want to run and hide the evidence they have disobeyed.

2) God looks for people to show them love, just like how parents want to clean the kids up.

3) People need to stop running, turn around, and see who God really is and how God really feels about them. If the kids stop running and come out of hiding, the worst they face is a bath and different clothes, particularly from parents with a sense of proportion.

4) Jesus came to make this clear: God wants to love us and to do us good. “Bring the kids to me,” says Jesus. “Don’t make it hard for them to trust in God’s love. Sure, God’s going to give them a bath and new clothes, but those are the signs God loves them and won’t leave them dirty and afraid.”

5) Turning around and looking into God’s eyes will give us confidence in God’s love; we can persist in talking with God about what worries us, and we can be generous to others. “What food do you have,” Jesus asks, and the disciples answer, “We’ve got a kid here willing to share two fish and five little biscuits.”

6) All this good news is true even if our world is ending personally or globally.

This is the good news: God is here, God loves you, God has forgiven you. Trust God, talk to God, and be generous. This is what God wants us to tell everyone who is on the run: God wants us to “go home to our friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for us and what mercy he has shown us” (Mark 5:19).

The disciples worried about who was a real follower, a real insider, a member of God’s family: who is doing God’s will?

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:38-42).

Whoever is not against us is for us; whoever gives us a cup of water in Jesus’s name is for us; whoever makes it hard for us to trust in Jesus is against us. Whoever gathers others toward Jesus is for Jesus; whoever drives others away, scatters them, is against Jesus. In families, we need to consider how we make it easier for others to trust in Jesus, and we need to consider how we make it harder for others to trust in Jesus.

St. John writes in 1 John 3 and 4: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. . . . The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters . . . We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another . . . We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action . . . this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another . . . Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”

How to be a member of Jesus’s family

1) trust in the character of God as revealed by Jesus Christ, God’s Son

2) obey Jesus’s commandment to love one another

3) do what you can to to meet people’s needs and set them free—including family members—representing Jesus to them

We know how complicated families can be by having come from some sort of family ourselves. Disagreements within a family are often harder to work through than disagreements with acquaintances or friends—in my own family I was not sure it was ok to disagree until I was in my 30s—after a loud family fight in which my father shook his finger at me and said, “You aren’t going to change my mind on this,” and I said, “I don’t know whether I even belong in this family,” we found a way back to each other and learned we could disagree and express that and still honor and respect each other. When my dad was dying, his last words to me were, “Thank you for being you.” That’s redemptive family talk.

Thoughts on Exodus 12: 1-14

This passage instituting the Passover resonates both backward into its own history and forward into the Christian understanding of what Jesus accomplished and how we ourselves fit into the big story of God’s purposes for human beings.

Two things to frame my thoughts: “None of us are free, none of us are free, none of us are free if one of us is chained, none of us are free” (sung by Solomon Burke) and the story of Elsa, a lion born in captivity who had to be taught how to live like a lion in the wild. We need to recognize that our being free depends on everyone’s being free, and that we have to learn how to live free.

A review of the context for this passage:
1) The Egyptians attempt to diminish and destroy Hebrews by enslaving them
2) Pharaoh orders the Hebrew midwives to kill all boy babies as they are delivered; the midwives evade the order with their wits
3) Pharaoh orders all his people to throw boy babies in the water

Moses, technically thrown in the water, is rescued by his mother, sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter and adopted into Pharaoh’s household

This is called irony.

4) Moses returns to Egypt with the mission of leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and slavery
5) Pharaoh ignores 9 plagues prior to this one—9 experiences of being struck by God’s hand (plague means striking)
6) Moses warns Pharaoh specifically about the deaths of firstborns; Pharaoh ignores him
7) This final striking is for the firstborn males—not even yet an eye for an eye, since Egyptians were supposed to throw all male babies into the Nile
8) The striking is for everyone unwilling to follow the commands of God, so not just ethnic Egyptians (Hebrews 11:28 ”by faith he kept the Passover”—anyone who kept Passover was protected.)

What happens to those willing to profit from others’ enslavement or death?

Let My People Go

Thus saith the Lord bold Moses said,
Let my people go
If not I’ll smite thy firstborn dead
Let my people go

The world is built on the idea that might makes right. Whoever is strongest makes the rules, and the weak obey or suffer or both. However, God’s cosmos is built on an spiritual extension of one of the laws of physics—every action results in an equal and opposite reaction. Thus the systematic oppression of one person or of a people builds up a spiritual and cosmic tension that is fearsome to behold. Abraham Lincoln referred to this in his Second Inaugural Address, given in the middle of the Civil War in this country.

“Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’”

It just may be that every act of oppression sets up the energy which will rebound to the hurt of the oppressor, perhaps to the oppressor’s children, since such energy is undiscriminating. Oppression begets violence. And certainly it is accurate to say that both North and South had profited from the blood of slaves, and both paid blood drop for blood drop, if Lincoln is right.

The dead firstborn sons of Egypt provide a graphic picture of who often pays for the sins of the fathers. Those willing to enslave others may lose what they most value

Deut: 12:29-31
When the LORD your God has cut down before you the nations that you are about to enter and dispossess, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their land, beware of being lured into their ways after they have been wiped out before you! Do not inquire about their Gods, saying, “How did those nations worship their gods? I too will follow those practices.” You shall not act thus toward the Lord your God for they perform for their gods every abhorrent act that the Lord detests; they even offer up their sons and daughters in fire to their gods. (Jewish Study Bible, quoted throughout)

So much to comment on here with the sacrifice of children. Remember Isaac the firstborn of Sarah, nearly sacrificed but God provided a substitute.

God tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice Isaac, then provided Isaac’s redemption with a ram. God did not require a child sacrifice, not like fertility gods, or we might call them now prosperity gods.

God does not approve of any person sacrificing another to increase prosperity and protect the future.

Look at all the sacrificed children across the Bible—the Canaanites, who made burnt offerings of their sons and daughters to the god Molech; the Egyptians, who drowned the babies of the Hebrews; Herod, who murdered all boys under the age of two in Bethlehem,. Think of the systematic oppression and sacrifice of children in today’s world. Think about the less systematic abuse that makes it difficult for children to trust God.

How does a person learn to live free?

Have faith and make a break for it.

God asked for a fine lamb to be killed, and a symbolic obedience to be enacted, the blood on the doorposts, followed by the grilled lamb dinner—what an interesting picture of God’s grace—give up something you value to God and get your whole life and your child’s life back and a feast to boot; notice that sacrifice precedes freedom but what God requires is less than the retribution the Egyptians stored up for themselves.

Note also that the Hebrews had to be ready to run the minute the door of opportunity opened.

A freed person must remember.

God tells Moses that the plagues with which he is striking the Egyptians are to be signs for the Hebrew people to rehearse forever the story of how God intervened to set them free from slavery and fulfill his promises to Abraham. Here are some psalms that rehearse the story, including Psalm 136.

Psalm 78:51, 105:36, 135:8, 136:10
To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn, for his mercy endureth forever.

What an troubling juxtaposition of judgment and mercy in this passage. It causes us to think about the fact that God gets to judge, not us, and God gets to decide how to administer justice.

God says to us that vengeance belongs to God; when we are oppressed, we do not retaliate in kind but offload the responsibility to God. Why? Because retaliation turns us into oppressors. Being an oppressor is bad for the soul and bad for the children.

A freed person must trust the character of God.

He’s got the whole world in His hands—the sun and the moon, the brothers and the sisters, the tiny little baby. African-American slaves sang this spiritual, which astonishingly affirms faith the care of Almighty God for them and their beloveds. In the face of contrary circumstantial evidence, they believed in the lovingkindness of God. God cares for every child sacrificed, every Canaanite child, every Egyptian child, every Bethlehem child, every enslaved child, God’s own child. No one is outside the care of God. It is not in God’s character to send these children anywhere but into his eternal love.

A freed person must be not become an enslaver. He or she must be generous to the vulnerable.

God expects the Hebrews to remember God’s intervention and therefore to treat the aliens and strangers settled among the Hebrews graciously.

Deut 10:12-22 And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you? Only this: to revere the Lord your God, to walk only in his paths, to love him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, keeping the Lord’s commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good. Mark, the heavens to their uttermost reaches belong to the Lord your God, the earth and all that is on it. … Cut away, therefore the thickening around your hearts and stiffen your necks no more. For the Lord your God is God supreme and lord Supreme, the great, the mighty, the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing—You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You must revere the Lord your God; only Him shall you worship, to Him shall you hold fast, and by His name shall you swear. He is your glory and He is your God, who wrought for you those marvelous, awesome deeds that you saw with your own eyes. Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons in all; and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. Love, therefore, the Lord your God, and always keep his charge, His laws, His rules, and His commandments.

A freed person has responsibility for others.

The prophet Jeremiah (ch. 31) speaks these words of sorrow: “a bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, she cannot be comforted because they are not.”
Matthew 2 tells of another “striking”—Herod’s order to kill all male babies under the age of two, recalling Jeremiah’s words, and the one child who escaped to Egypt—out of Egypt I have called my son. Did Jesus feel it a burden to be the survivor? Did he think how he could make up for being the one saved out of the striking?

It is hard to think that God took from the Egyptians their most valued children. But we know how God feels about children. The incarnate God said, permit the children to come to me, and don’t forbid them, because the kingdom of Heaven is made for such as these. Unless you become like children, you cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven, God’s kingdom, right here among us. Woe to the one who makes it hard for one of these little ones to trust in God. It would be better for that one to have a stone around his or her neck and be drowned in the ocean. Children are the ultimate weak ones in our world, and God cares infinitely for the weak.

Without God’s intervention in history, the story of redemption does not exist. The story of redemption is a story of sacrifice and sorrow—from the garden of Eden to the hill of Golgotha. It takes enormous energy to break the cycle of oppression and violence, of sin and death.

Jesus the firstborn of Mary, the firstborn among many children, the firstborn from the dead; God gave him up to death to redeem us from sin and death. God sacrificed God’s only begotten son to redeem the world, including us—a sacrifice willingly entered into by Jesus, who is very God of very God—God sacrificed someone beloved and God sacrificed God’s very self to save us.

A freed person recognizes that God sees the world as bigger than “us and them.”

Abraham’s first born was Ishmael the son of an Egyptian mother; Joseph’s sons are half Egyptian. Us and them is just not tidy.

Throughout the time of the Patriarchs, Egypt was the place to go for food when drought happened because the Nile kept water coming almost all the time. That’s how the Hebrews came to Egypt in the first place. However, it became both a place of plenty and of slavery—in fact enslavement to the plenty (in the wilderness, the Hebrews lusted for the varied food of Egypt)—They would sell their souls and their relationship with the Almighty God for the predictability and plenty of Egypt.

God’s story is about hope for all. Isaiah 19 speaks about God’s intentions for Egypt:

First, God will bring Egypt under oppression, until they are trembling and terrified. God will break their pride and their idolatry. “In that day, there shall be an altar to the Lord inside the land of Egypt…so that when the Egyptians cry out to the Lord against oppressors, He will send them a savior and a champion to deliver them. For the Lord will make Himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will acknowledge the Lord in that day…The Lord will first afflict and then heal the Egyptians; when they turn back to the Lord, he will respond to their entreaties and heal them.”

A freed person obeys God’s spirit and does not judge.

God sees those who sold their children, those who sacrificed them in fire, and those who lost them to others’ violence, and God sees the children those parents once were, right back to the beginning. God does indeed have the whole world in his hands. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground but your heavenly Father knows.

And for us today, God carries us as well. God knows when we are willingly complicit in oppressive structures, how we lord it over others in our daily lives, God knows when we struggle against those structures and our own desire to dominate, God knows what we are willing to sacrifice our souls’ best interests for, what we are willing to sacrifice our children to. God knows what we fear.

God also knows when we try to be fair and even merciful, when we try to put others’ interests ahead of our own, when we try to give our children the best we have. God knows we are out of our depth, and God promises us help. This help is most likely to be simple everyday guidance. My 19th century mentor George MacDonald said, “Think of something you ought to do and go to do it, if it be the sweeping of the room, or the preparing of a meal, or a visit to a friend.” When we are confused about how to live, we can ask God for help, and do what God moves us to do.

God disciplines us to help free us to walk along the path of love. God wants us to be like children who, when disciplined, run into the arms of our father or mother where we can know the love that both corrects and nurtures. Then we can go about our lives as free human beings in obedience to the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth.