During Lent this year the
smart folks who put together my Lutheran worship guide have
recommended focusing on the mighty acts of God which would be part of
the traditional liturgy of the Great Vigil of Easter. We don't do the
Great Vigil in my parish—even though I'm a liturgical junkie.
Unfortunately, I'm a lazy liturgical junkie, and the Great
Vigil is just too friggin' long a service and too complicated to put
together. I much prefer to sleep Saturday night and get up early the
next day to do Easter Sunrise. But this means, of course, that we
don't get to read the long scripture passages which are so much a
part of the Great Vigil. To rectify that, we're doing five of the
miraculous passages as part of our Lenten mid-week devotions. This
week we're looking at the story of the parting of the Red Sea in
Exodus 14: 10-31 and 15:20-21.
We all know this story of
God's mighty act of deliverance. You've probably seen Charlton Heston
part the sea every Easter in ABC's annual broadcast of Cecil B.
DeMille's The Ten Commandments—a film that's so
breathtakingly bad that it's actually good!
When I look at the
scripture today I am impressed by the truth of it. Okay. It sounds
pretty wild that God would open a passage in an enormous inlet which
is several miles wide at it's narrowest point and would take
literally days—if not an entire week—to cross on foot. If you're
into historic accuracy, I've heard it suggested (Read Bruce Feiler's
Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of
Moses) that the Isrealites actually escaped through the Sea of
Reeds, a much narrower and shallower body of water on the African side
of the Sinai peninsula. I really believe that the story of the Red
Sea rescue was based on an historic occurrence, but it's been raised
to mythological status through the re-telling.
But that's not the point.
What strikes me is how the Bible author tells the story, pointing out
the faithlessness of the people. The cry-babies whine when they see
Pharaoh's army, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that
you (Moses) have taken us away to die in the wilderness?..It would
have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the
wilderness.” Now ain't that just like us..? Whenever we face a
great change, our sinful selves are tempted to go back to the devil
we know than risk the devil we don't know.
Alcoholics Anonymous, in
spite of its great success, has about a 50% failure rate. That is, at
least one out of every two alcoholics who go into the program will
drink again. If you consider that some folks see drinking as part of
their personality or culture, you can see that they'd feel a part of
themselves was missing once they gave it up. The fear having nothing
to fill that empty space drives them right back to the booze.
Similarly, a psychologist friend of mine once told me that some
battered women will leave their abusive husbands or partners and
return as much as four or five times before they finally have the
courage to sever the toxic relationship for good. Change means loss,
and loss means fear. Sometimes we fear the emptiness so much that we
resist the blessings because we've grown comfortable with the curse.
The other thing that
always strikes me when I think of this story (and I always think of
this when I watch Yul Brynner as De Mille's Pharaoh ordering his
chariots to advance into the parted waters) is: What a dumb-ass you'd
have to be to not see that this was a trap. I mean, didn't God
already rain ten plagues on Egypt? Didn't he hinder the advance of
the army with a pillar of cloud? Don't they know they're messing
with the wrong God, and that this God just don't like ugly?
Of course Pharaoh doesn't
get it. Logic and reason don't run the world—passion and ego do.
Like Hitler attacking into the endless Russian winter or the U.S.'s
involvement in Vietnam or Iraq, it's easy for a desperate ego to
ignore all common sense and plunge into disaster. As human beings, we
do it all the time. We run headlong into chaos, ignoring the cost to
others and the stated will of God. God didn't punish Pharaoh so much
as Pharaoh brought the punishment on himself.
Finally, I think of the
blessing God sometimes gives us in desperation. Our desperation is
God's opportunity. Sometimes we just can't go back, so we have to
go forward. All we can do is trust that, even in the swirling chaos,
our God is still an awesome God who wants the best for us in spite of
our doubts, fears, and mistakes. And maybe next time we'll have a
little more trust and a little more peace.
Peace be with you!
No comments:
Post a Comment