Gordon E. Ellis
September 4, 2005
IN THE MIRACULOUS & IN THE MUNDANE
Have you ever crossed the Red Sea? I don’t mean that LITERALLY, of course, but figuratively. In other words, is your faith BASED on, or ROOTED in, or GROUNDED upon some SPECTACULAR act of God’s DELIVERANCE? IS there a specific EVENT in your life that you would call a WATERSHED moment in your LIFE and FAITH? Was there a time when maybe you didn’t believe at ALL, or thought you believed, but DIDN’T… and then something really POWERFUL happened to you, and it somehow CHANGED your life FOREVER? In other words, is YOUR life divided into a BEFORE and an AFTER, so that when you sing Amazing Grace, you just THROW back your head and let it fly: I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see? Does that describe YOUR life? Is YOUR story one of MIRACULOUS deliverance from an almost OVERWHELMING threat or danger? Well, that certainly seems to be ISRAEL’S story, doesn’t it? And I suspect that SOME of us relate to it rather EASILY, while OTHERS of us relate to it very UNEASILY, if at ALL.
SOME of us just don’t know what to MAKE of the Red Sea story, the EXODUS. And I guess we can blame SOME of that on Cecil B. DeMille and Charlton Heston, who got there first and made a movie that has sort of become our DEFAULT image of the EXODUS event. Can you PICTURE the now-PRIMITIVE animation in that movie, which was actually pretty mind-boggling in its day? Do you remember those HUGE walls of water, as the vast ocean leaps aside to create DRY ground for the HEBREWS to cross -- and MOSES, in the person of Charlton Heston, raising his mighty STAFF over the raging sea? And then, there’s Yul Brenner, with his hands on his hips in a menacingly MACHO pose, and with his SHAVED head, more FEARSOME than fashionable. He’s the PERFECT image of the BAD guy, PHARAOH, isn’t he? And once ISRAEL gets ACROSS the Red Sea, Brenner’s bad guys in CHARIOTS get what’s COMING to them as those MOUNTAINS of water just cave IN on them. Yes, THAT’S our DEFAULT image of the EXODUS, isn’t it? And it’s a TOUGH image to SHAKE, at least for those of us who saw the MOVIE before we read the BOOK. SO, when we’re trying to make SENSE of this STORY, it’s often THAT image that we’re trying to make SENSE of.
Now, some scholars AGREE with that image, only they’ll tell you that we’re not really dealing with the RED SEA here; we’re dealing with the REED Sea, or what’s call the Sea of REEDS. It was a marshy TIDAL area that stood between the escaping Israelites and the wilderness of SINAI. And to render this Bible story more PLAUSIBLE, these scholars suggest that there must have been an extraordinarily LOW tide, coupled with the strong WIND that the Bible says blew all night long, and it opened a path THROUGH the marsh that was passable for people on FOOT, the HEBREWS, but NOT for HORSES and CHARIOTS. THEY got bogged down in the MUD and couldn’t make very much HEADWAY. And THEN, all of a sudden, there must have been a SHIFT in the WIND, and along with the returning TIDE, it combined to SUBMERGE all those mired chariots and soldiers.
Well, in SOME ways, this explanation makes SENSE, doesn’t it? HOWEVER, such a MODEST account of the Exodus will NEVER suffice in the memory of Israel. And THAT’S because this DRAMATIC biblical narrative, the crossing of the Red Sea, the EXODUS, is THE foundational EVENT in Israel’s HISTORY. For THEM, it was God’s MIRACULOUS doing, and NOTHING less, that permitted this MOTLEY crew of SLAVES to escape the grip of the greatest military and technological EMPIRE, the sole SUPERPOWER in the ancient world. I mean, THINK about it! The EGYPTIANS had CHARIOTS, which were the ancient equivalent of TANKS or heat-seeking MISSILES. SO, Pharaoh had the SOLDIERS! Pharaoh had the WEAPONS! And Pharaoh had the HORSES and CHARIOTS! Yes, Pharaoh had EVERY conceivable ADVANTAGE, while ISRAEL – well, all THEY had was this guy named Moses, who had a big stick and a gleam in his eye, and who told them that GOD had sent him. I mean, it was just NO contest! And YET, just a FEW verses later, they would strike up the band, so to speak, and EVERYBODY would sing a NEW song: O sing to the Lord, for God has triumphed gloriously; horse and RIDER God has thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my might, and has BECOME my salvation. (Exodus 15:1-2). Yes, against PHARAOH, against the living SYMBOL of earthly POWER, against the COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF of the ancient world’s ONLY superpower, GOD had PREVAILED!
Now, most of us CRINGE at the images of the BODIES, both HORSES and soldiers, STREWN everywhere upon the shore. The CARNAGE in this story seems just BRUTAL and PRIMITIVE. But the ISSUE for the Israelites is JUSTICE. You see: the harshness and cruelty of PHARAOH and his taskmasters have come FULL circle! Pharaoh’s attempt to THWART God’s promises to Israel, and to REDUCE God’s CHOSEN people to a nameless, faceless group of SLAVES, without any IDENTITY, has FAILED to succeed. Over and over, Moses has APPEALED to Pharaoh’s BETTER nature, and ALL of those APPEALS have fallen on DEAF ears! So NOW, DEATH has come to those who DEAL in death. And if THAT seems BRUTAL and CRUEL, at LEAST it is recognizably JUST. And THAT’S the Hebrew’s CONCERN here!
And while it’s STRANGE that the BIBLE is the only place where we can FIND this story, that it didn’t even make a BLIP on the RADAR screen of history EXCEPT in the Bible, we CANNOT dodge the IMPORTANCE of the RED Sea EVENT, the EXODUS. Yes, the history SURROUNDING it may involve some CONJECTURE, but the THEOLOGY of it is CRYSTAL clear. IT is the TESTIMONY of the HEBREWS that God does AMAZING things in order to DELIVER God’s people; that God SIDES with the OPPRESSED against the oppressor; and that God HEARS the cries of the downtrodden, SEES their suffering, and raises up SERVANTS from among them who will LEAD them toward LIBERATION and JUSTICE. And against ALL odds, GOOD will prevail over evil, TRUTH over falsehood, JUSTICE over injustice, and LIFE over death, because GOD is a God of GOODNESS and JUSTICE, TRUTH and LIFE. Yes, GOD’S deliverance is REAL, and that’s ALL there is TO it! THAT’S the Hebrew EXPERIENCE!
And some of US can TESTIFY to that fact as well. There are MANY here today who have had their OWN Red Sea experiences, their OWN version of the EXODUS story! SOME here have struggled with SUBSTANCE abuse or abusive relationships. OTHERS have battled TERRIBLE experiences of DEFEAT, or CRUSHING periods of GRIEF or depression, and OVERCOME them, WITH the help of GOD! And those of you who ARE Red Sea SURVIVORS, so to speak, please KNOW that YOUR witness to the REST of us helps ALL of us to keep our FAITH and our HOPE in the God who will ALSO rescue US.
BUT, there IS one thing that TROUBLES me here. As WONDERFUL as this Red Sea story IS, it is also FASCINATING to me that it is VERY quickly followed by 40 YEARS of wandering through the WILDERNESS of the desert. You see: one thing we know for certain about great religious experiences is that we can’t STAY there. We can’t LIVE in them. The water PARTS, and we have to pass THROUGH it to the other side. OR, we come DOWN from the mountaintop. OR, we get a flash of insight, or a moment of forgiveness, or a big breakthrough, but it’s ALWAYS only a DOORWAY. And while everything is DIFFERENT on the other side of the door, it STILL has its OWN routine, with its OWN potential for BOREDOM and dreariness. And SO, the people’s PRAISE here VERY quickly, within LESS than a CHAPTER in the book of Exodus, turns into COMPLAINING! They tell Moses they should have DIED in Egypt, where at least they occasionally had ENOUGH to EAT. And I guess WHAT that tells ME is that being SAVED in such dramatic fashion does not EXEMPT a person from subsequently getting LOST again, even if they NEVER have to return to CAPTIVITY. And in response to getting lost AGAIN, I guess we’re ALWAYS tempted to RETURN to a past that we KNOW, as bad as it was, rather than face an UNCERTAIN future, with LOTS of ANXIETY. HOWEVER, what SOON becomes CLEAR in the book of EXODUS, when we read the coming chapters, is that God is WITH them EVEN while they WANDER through the wilderness.
You know: sometimes we make too MUCH of powerful religious experiences. I mean, we can devote so much of our lives to yearning for MIRACULOUS “Red Sea” experiences, so MUCH so that we miss the quiet and constant revelations of God that go on in our lives ALL the time. We can become so PREOCCUPIED, like the prophet Elijah was, with waiting for God in the EARTHQUAKE, that we miss the gentle nudging and prodding of God’s Holy Spirit in the QUIET, in the day-to-dayness of our lives. Yes, God is at LEAST as present in the ORDINARY as in the SPECTACULAR. In fact, throughout Hebrew scripture, and CERTAINLY right HERE in the Book of Exodus, the witness of the people of Israel is that God is present at EVERY moment of our existence, GIVING us what we most truly NEED, be it dramatic or be it mundane. Even in times when our spirits feel BONE dry, God is WITH us IN that desert. EVEN in times when ALL we can do is CRY like the psalmist, in those words that JESUS echoed on the cross, My God, my God, WHY have You FORSAKEN me? (Psalm 22:1) God is PRESENT! Yes, God is PRESENT even in what we experience as God’s ABSENCE! I just LOVE the words of St. Paul in Romans, chapter 8, when he REMINDS us: NOTHING in ALL of creation has ANY power to SEPARATE us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And whether we’ve HAD a miraculous “Red Sea” experience or NOT, we need to REMEMBER this SAVING truth, because it will ENABLE us, and EMPOWER us, to FACE and DEAL with WHATEVER life dishes OUT to us, WHATEVER is on our plate, day after day. Yes, it is truly GOOD news, and it is for US, so that WE might have LIFE, and HAVE it in ALL its FULLNESS, by DARING to trust GOD in ALL things and at ALL times! Thanks be to God that IN the miraculous and IN the mundane, GOD is WITH us, and God IS at WORK! Amen.