If you know me, you probably know that Exodus is my favourite book of the Bible. It never fails to move me to tears, as verse by verse, it unpacks such beautiful truth about God through his relationship with Israel. This post is a little different than my usual ones, as it’s some reflections on Exodus in the form of a letter to Moses as a baby.
So here it is…
Dear Moses,
As this straw basket moves through Nile, there rings a sweet melody of hope.
One day you will learn that God will use your life as a means of Israel’s deliverance.
Soon you will live in the very place that later you will plead to set your people free from.
One day, you will know you are a Hebrew.
Imprisoned and captive to Egypt, weary and hopeless, your people toil day after day. The cries of their oppression will ring loud in your ears, and weigh heavy on your heart.
Surrounded by a people that are hurting your own, you will struggle, later returning to your own people.
Yet, as oppression increased, so did the Israelites in number and strength. For the God of Israel is a covenant-keeping God.
“But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel” (Exodus 1:12).
“When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly” (Genesis 17:1-2).
Soon you will know the God of Israel is a God who hears, sees and knows the suffering of his people.
“And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew” (Exodus 2:24-25).
One day, you start as a shepherd, tending the flock of your father-in-law. Later, God will use you to shepherd and lead the people of Israel.
One day you will meet God, standing in the presence of his power and holiness. Here you’ll hear his deep love and heart for his people. And here you’ll be reassured that he will be with you, as you lead his people.
“And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed” (Exodus 3:2)
“Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites” (Exodus 3:7-8).
On this day, you will learn that despite your inadequacies, God will use you to complete his purposes. And through this, you, and many after you, will find comfort in knowing God uses weak, imperfect people to accomplish his plan.
“But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain” (Exodus 3:11-12).
One day, your plea with Pharaoh to let your people go, will echo in and out of his ears, without penetrating his hardened heart.
One day, plague by plague, you will see that through the lens of God’s wrath, his love is magnified.
And on one day, your people will toil over the last brick there. You will watch the weight of their oppression fade as Pharaoh lets them go. A glimpse of freedom, painted in your people’s hearts at the sight of a sea parted.
Yet soon you’ll see that your people, no longer slaves to Pharaoh, are still enslaved to sin.
So later you’ll watch as your people continually replace gratitude for grumbling, and choose doubt over trust.
Yet here, you will experience God’s faithfulness, provision and love to sinful people.
“When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” (Exodus 15:23-24).
“They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Exodus 16:1-3).
Just as one day you will strike a rock and water will come out, providing physical sustenance for the Israelites, years later, one will come after you, who will be stricken on a cross, through whose wounds, spiritual life will be found.
“Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel” (Exodus 17:6).
One day, through receiving the beautiful, restorative law of the Ten Commandments, the extent of humanity’s sinfulness and inadequacy will be portrayed clearer. And one day you will build a tabernacle for the people of Israel.
One day, you will see the promised land, but you will not enter.
And one day, long after your life on earth, in a manger in Bethlehem, the Hope of Israel will be heard through the sweet cry of a newborn. And through him, the law will be fulfilled, and redemption found for all his people, both Jew and Gentile.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:4-6).
“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4).
From the Exodus to the cross, to today, God is always good and faithful to his people.
