Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Today is a special day for us as we turn an important page in our “Grand Narrative” journey. I left you yesterday in a large caravan walking back from Jacob’s funeral in Hebron, today a city in southern Israel. Joseph and his Egyptian entourage, including Egyptian dignitaries and officials, were returning to Egypt, to resume their very important roles in Pharaoh’s leadership team governing the entire nation of Egypt.
For Joseph’s brothers and their families, however, they were returning to Egypt grappling with a major question. The land of Canaan was the land God had deeded to Abraham more than 200 years before!! The major question all of Jacob’s descendants now faced was WHEN would they pack up, leave Egypt and return to the homeland God had given them?
But also, with Jacob dead and buried, WHO would take the lead on this massive emigration out of Egypt and return to Canaan, back ‘home’? The famine, from which they had fled to Egypt, had ended 12 years before. Each month Jacob’s family remained in Egypt more people were moving into Canaan and claiming territory for themselves. Do you see the problem my friends?
There’s a significant gap of time between Genesis 50:21, as this funeral caravan arrived back in Egypt, and the next verse which says: “Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father’s family. He lived 110 years…then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die.’ But God will come to your aid, and He will take you up out of this land to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Oh my, it’s very clear isn’t it my friends? Joseph and his brothers knew full well that they were refugees in Egypt. Their land of God’s promise was back in Canaan. And yet month after month, year after year, decade after decade, they stayed in Egypt, enjoying the bounty of the land, growing their families and putting down very deep roots.
54 years elapsed between Jacob’s death and Joseph’s! 54 years of continuing to say NO to what they knew they should do…return home to Canaan! 54 more years of embracing Egypt as their home. By the time Joseph died three generations of Jacob’s family had been born in Egypt! (Gen. 50:23) So, do we remember what James 4:17 in the New Testament says? “Anyone who knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” Three generations growing up in the shadow of Jacob and his sons refusing to do what they knew they should do... lead their growing family back home to the land God had given them!
We must remember that, as we transition today into the next chapter of God’s “Grand Narrative”, the Bible book of Exodus!
As Joseph died, Egyptian physicians embalmed his body as they had Jacob’s. It was a long and laborious 40 day process. Joseph’s embalmed body was placed in an ornate Egyptian coffin which was NOT buried, but kept above ground. (Gen. 50:26) Why? Awaiting the day when finally the descendants of Jacob and his twelve sons, including Joseph’s family, would leave Egypt, returning to the land God had given them in Canaan, and would carry Joseph’s coffin with them.
As Exodus chapter 1 opens, lots of time has passed, generations have come and gone, a new Pharaoh in Egypt knew nothing of the story we’ve spent many days following.
The names Joseph and Jacob meant nothing to this new Pharaoh, and Joseph’s ornate coffin was probably kept in some Hebrew slave’s shed, far away from Egyptian royalty. This Pharaoh was fearful of the disruptive potential of the huge number of Hebrews, who were all descendants of Jacob’s large family. This Pharaoh’s solution was enslavement, mistreatment, intimidation and even forced abortion or infanticide, killing Hebrew babies at birth. (Exodus 1)
But one particular Hebrew family hid their newborn son from all Egyptian eyes for three months until finally they built a little basket, coated it with tar, put their little son in the basket and set him afloat on the Nile River, entrusting their baby to God’s protection and provision, for his survival and future.
Undoubtedly, they prayed, not knowing that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was still working His great Purposes in our world and now those God purposes included this baby boy in the basket! Exodus 2:1-10 is that miraculous story we’ve all heard of how the Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket and took the baby as her own, to raise him in the palace as her adopted son!
She chose the name “Moses” for that baby boy, because she said, “I drew him out of the water”. (Ex. 2:10) At that moment, no one in the entire world had even the faintest idea what God was doing in working the complex logistical details of His rescue plan for His people.
I urge us to consider the same may be true about your life and mine. Regardless of our age, our education, our marital status, our background, or where we live in the world, God may right now be working some logistical details to involve you and me in something significant God is planning for our world! Moses grew up as royalty, receiving, we presume, royalty education and leadership training, but he had a tender heart toward these Hebrew slaves.
One day his defense of a slave being beaten resulted in Moses killing that abuser and hiding his body under the sand. But his secret became known, even to the Pharaoh who viewed it as a traitorous act, causing Moses to flee for his life, leaving behind royalty, privilege and promise. (Ex. 2:11-15)
Sitting by a desert well, far from the Egyptian palace, Moses encountered shepherds, some of whom were women, who were being mistreated by some male shepherds. Once again Moses’ heart stirred him to action, and he came to the defense of those women shepherds.
In gratitude they invited him home to meet their father, a man named Reuel-Jethro, identified as “a priest of Midian”. (Ex. 2:15-20) It appears this man of Midian knew of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and was a wise, spiritual man with seven daughters. He invited Moses to stay in his homestead and join his ranch workforce. Moses did, in exchange for one of those seven daughters’ hand in marriage, similar to how Jacob had worked to earn the hand of his beloved Rachel, remember? (Ex.2:21,22; Gen. 29:15-18)
While it may have seemed to Moses that his life was essentially worthless, living on the back side of the desert tending sheep, married to a shepherdess, in truth God was weaving together the strands of a tapestry which displays God’s grandeur, glory and majesty to us nearly 4000 years later!
For this statement is what God’s bigger picture was: “During that long period the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So, God looked on the Israelites and God was concerned about their suffering!“ (Ex. 2:23-25) Do you see it my friends? Eternal God was watching, listening, and working His larger purposes in our world, even in this desperate situation.
God was remembering ALL He had seen in our world since the week HE created it all. Every person, every situation, every promise, every failure…and God was concerned! But this time God was not about to judge or destroy, but rather to rescue!! And that’s the exciting “Grand Narrative” story of Exodus which we’ll continue tomorrow.
For today, what is God seeing and hearing as He watches and listens to your city and mine, your family and mine? Whose cries is God responding to today? What rescue is God preparing today and how is God drawing you and me into His rescue response to the cries of our world?
Here’s a worship song that will lift our hearts to Him in reflection about that. Is it your song of worship today, my friends?
Today’s Scripture: Exodus 1-2.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Exodus 2
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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