200315 Sermon on Exodus 8:16-21 (Lent 3) March 15, 2020

200315 Sermon on Exodus 8:16-21 (Lent 3) March 15, 2020

I’d like to begin today by speaking about the background to our Old Testament lesson. Moses was an Israelite who was born during the time that the Israelites were enslaved under Pharaoh in Egypt. This was a time of persecution. The Egyptians didn’t want the Israelites to become too strong, so all the baby boys were supposed to be killed right after they were born. But his mother loved him and hid him for three months. Eventually it was too hard to hide him, so she put Moses in a basket in the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter found him, had pity on him, and raised him as her son.

When Moses grew up he learned that he was an Israelite and pitied his people stuck in slavery. One day he saw an Egyptian striking his slave. Moses became angry, killed him, and buried him. He thought that nobody knew what he had done, but soon learned that word of his slaying was more commonly known. Fearing that he would be caught and punished, he went to Midian, which is the land that is east of the Sinai peninsula. There he met his wife, Zipporah, had children, and worked for his father-in-law Jethro.

One day Moses was shepherding a flock by Mt. Horeb, which is another name for Mt. Sinai. God spoke to him there from the midst of a burning bush. What God said to Moses is that he should go back to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let his people go into the wilderness to worship God. This was not something that Moses wanted to do. He would rather keep working for his father-in-law. He wasn’t a good speaker. God would not hear of his objections, but he did give Moses some help. His brother, Aaron, would help him.

So Moses went back to Pharaoh and told him what God had said. Pharaoh was not impressed. Not only did he not let the people go, but he wanted to show the Israelites who’s boss. He forced the Israelites to make bricks without straw, making their work more difficult.

Moses and Aaron eventually went back to Pharaoh again. They were going to perform signs to back up what the Lord had said through Moses. When they appeared before Pharaoh Moses told Aaron to throw down his staff and it became a snake. But then Pharaoh called for his own academics and intellectuals. They were able to do the same thing. The only thing was that Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Nonetheless, Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he didn’t listen.

Then God told Moses to warn Pharaoh about the first plague. All the water in the land would be turned to blood. Moses did as the Lord told him, and all the water was turned to blood. However, Pharaoh’s leading lights were able to do the same thing by their own arts and practices.

Then God sent the second plague—a plague of frogs. Frogs went everywhere. They were in people’s houses, in their ovens, and in their cupboards. The Egyptian scholars, though, were able to do this same thing. Pharaoh eventually had had enough of the frogs. He asked Moses to pray for him. Moses did this and the frogs all died. Great heaps of dead frogs were everywhere. But then Pharaoh changed his mind. He didn’t want grant any freedom to his slaves.

This brings us to today’s reading. The third plague was the plague of lice. Everyone and all the animals got infested with lice. Here there is an important change. Although the Egyptians magicians tried to produce lice by their occult practices, they were not able to do so. The magicians testified to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God. We are not able to replicate this.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hard.

Then there is the swarms of flies. Maybe it was like those no-see-ums that we get from time to time. Here we also see a difference. God distinguished between where the Israelites lived and where the Egyptians lived. This plague struck the Egyptians, but not the Israelites.

I won’t go through plagues five through nine. I’ll just say that the pattern that has already been established continues. Pharaoh and his people suffer. Pharaoh relents to the Lord’s demands, but then he changes his mind. I’ll only speak briefly about the tenth and final plague. This was the death of the first born. Only those houses which were protected by the blood of the lamb were spared, because when the Lord aw the blood he passed over them. This inaugurated the first festival that the Israelites would observe from then on—the festival of Passover. With this last devastating plague, Pharaoh finally told the Israelites to leave and never come back. Eventually they would come to the mountain where Moses was first called—Mt. Sinai. But that is another story for another time.

What I’d like to focus on today is something into which our reading gives us some insight. God gave signs to Pharaoh by afflicting him with plagues. Why didn’t Pharaoh believe the signs to be genuine? Why didn’t he see God communicating through them?

At least part of the reason why Pharaoh wasn’t moved by these signs is that he had an entirely different way of understanding life. When Moses first comes to Pharaoh, Pharaoh plainly says that he does not know the Lord. He doesn’t know why he should listen to this God. Pharaoh understood life according to what he had been taught. What he had been taught is that the way to get ahead in life is to learn from the leading lights among the intelligentsia in Egypt.

This was by no means a foolish way to live. You have to understand that at that time Egypt was what America and the western world is today. The Egyptians were vastly superior to all the other people on the planet. They had the best military. They had the most sophisticated writing. They had the tallest and the largest buildings. They had the most money and the best technology. While other peoples were afflicted with famines, the Egyptians lived high on the hog with the fertile Nile river valley and all the innovative ways that they had figured out how to maximize their yields. If anybody wanted to know anything he went to the Egyptians to learn it.

It is very significant, therefore, that the first few signs that God did through Moses were imitated by the great men of Egypt. In order to better understand this we have to get rid of a powerful modern bias that makes it harder for us to see clearly. The signs that are done are strange to us—impossible, seemingly. When did you ever see a wooden staff become a snake? When have you ever seen water turned into blood? Who has ever produced a horde of frogs? So far as Moses is concerned, we can explain these phenomena by saying that God did them, but what about the Egyptians? How did they copy these things?

Note that I cannot tell you with any certainty, for we are not told how they did them. But perhaps it would be helpful if you considered an analogous situation. Put yourself in the shoes of a different people at a different time, looking in on what our great men and women are able to accomplish in our day. Folks living even a hundred years ago would be astounded that we are able to facetime instantaneously with someone on the other side of the planet. To them it would be quite unheard of and magical. However, to the Facebook executive who is well schooled in these things, it isn’t so mysterious. The electronic engineer understands what needs to be done to bring this about. Or our massive machines capable of doing tremendous work—to another people at another time these would be mind boggling. In a similar way, the great men of Egypt knew what they were doing. To us it is fantastical, because this knowledge has somehow been lost or forgotten.

This last bit of what I’ve said might be hard for you to swallow, because we have all been taught that we are the greatest. We have all been taught that nobody in history has been as good as we are, and so it is laughable to most people that somebody at another time and another place knew things that we don’t know.

You see, we understand ourselves to be vastly superior to all other people who have ever lived. We have the best military. We have the most sophisticated writing. We have the tallest and largest buildings. If anybody wants to know anything, they come to us to learn it. Who from the past would dare to say that they are more advanced in anything?

Perhaps you can start to see how Pharaoh was so deaf to the speaking of this Podunk sheep herder whose relatives were miserable uneducated slaves. It was inconceivable that anybody should know something that the Egyptians didn’t already know. The fact that the great men of Egypt were able to mimic the first few signs that God did through Moses only cemented this opinion in Pharaoh’s head. Moses wasn’t doing anything new or impossible. Pharaoh’s own scientists were able to cook up something similar in the labs of their day. It wasn’t until the terror of the signs reached a fever pitch that Pharaoh ultimately relented after the tenth plague. Even then, he changed his mind soon after and chased them down at the shores of the Red Sea. He didn’t stop in his rebellion against God and his signs until he was crushed by the crashing walls of water after the Israelites had safely passed through.

Let’s apply this to ourselves in our own time. God has not stopped sending his signs and wonders. These signs might be grand and awesome and affect the whole world. Or they might be rather small, known only to you. For example, what could we say about the invention of the atom bomb and then the hydrogen bomb? By just pushing a button a chain reaction could be set off that would essentially end life as we know it on this planet. Does this threat of doom make us repent? Do we change our ways? No, we don’t even think about it. This potential, terrifying plague has grown cold. It’s been around so long that we don’t even think of it anymore.

Or how about this latest disease? Who, in response, lifts up their eyes to the hills from whence cometh our help? Who fears God? Instead, this and all other signs that might come our way get interpreted according to the way that we were raised. Something very popular among us is a kind of stoic que sera sera. Nothing is going on here except a little biology. The same line of reasoning is used when unfortunate things happen to a person. The events are understood and interpreted in a way that does not include the action of the Lord God. This is the very same thing that Pharaoh did. He interpreted what was happening according to his own lights, his own understanding. He refused to believe that God himself was knocking at his door.

Jesus complained about the Pharisees and Sadducees once. They knew that if it is was red in the evening it meant fair weather, whereas if it was red in the morning storms might be on the way. He said, “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times!” It is good to read the signs of the times.

Now it is true that there are some Christians who go too far with their interpretations. They read too much into them. They focus more on the signs than on God’s Word. Some might even focus almost exclusively on the signs instead of on God’s Word and they come up with wild conclusions as a result. Because these Christians go too far, many others understandably recoil in disgust. Many pastors and teachers are afraid to talk about it, because they do not want people to go off the deep end. I get that, but the truth remains that God communicates to us through things that happen in our life—especially when God’s Word is spoken in the midst of it, interpreting us and our condition before God.

To fear God is not a bad thing; it’s the beginning of wisdom. To despise God is not at all impressive; it’s the way that we all are by nature. Pharaoh was proud with the imagination of his own heart that he thought was so superior to humble Moses. The same thing can and does happen today.

Therefore, we should learn from his example. All the happenings of our life should be interpreted in reference to God. Stuff does not happen by accident. There is no such thing as luck. Therefore, when evil and trouble and calamity strikes, we should repent of our sins and draw near to the throne of grace for mercy. Just think of what would have happened if Pharaoh had done that. When we are blessed and enriched with goodness, do not just let these things pass by or give credit to yourself. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Everybody’s life is in God’s hand, and he gives us his Word so that we can know this and live in communion with him.

Learn this way of understanding your life. Although it is the truth, it is the road less traveled.