Exodus: Life and Death

The Exodus from Egypt.  It may be a pretty central story to the story of God as told in the Bible, but it is a pretty disturbing story nonetheless.  It is not only the story of the deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery.  It is also the story of the destruction of Egypt.

Last week’s lesson (Ex. 12:1-14) was about the Passover, surely a central theme not only of the Jewish people, but of the Christian.  It is the beginning of the story of deliverance.  It contains the instructions for remembrance, remembrance in a deep sense, remembrance in a sacramental sense that makes the recalling of the great event of the past real and experienced in the present.  It is the story of the Seder.  It becomes the story of the Eucharist.

But even last week, the coming of deliverance was intertwined with death and destruction.  On the night God passed over the houses marked with the blood of an unblemished lamb, God also took the lives of all the firstborn of Egypt, animals and humans alike.  As the Hebrew people prepared for their liberation, plagues descended not only upon the house of Pharaoh, but on the houses of all Egyptians. 

This week’s lesson (Ex. 14:19-31) is similar.  The waters were parted and the Hebrew people walked through on dry ground.  The waters were rejoined and the army of Egypt was drowned.  Not a single person survived. 

It paints a picture of God that is at one and the same time marvelous and terrifying, hopeful and vengeful, life-giving and death-dealing.  It is a dramatic story.  It is a disturbing picture. 

I admit that I do not know quite what to do with that.  I cannot quite bring myself to see God in precisely the way described in Exodus.  Perhaps, I fear, that is because I have an easier time looking through the eyes of the Egyptians than I do through those of the Hebrews, an easier time identifying with the oppressor than I do, the oppressed.

And while I cannot quite bring myself to see God taking the firstborn of the children of the Egyptians nor calling the water back to cover and drown such a multitude in the Red Sea, I can recognize that my own view of oppression, wherever it is found, and my response to it, puts me squarely on God’s side or its opposite.  Life is in one.  Death pervades the other.  The story of the Exodus says this in quite a dramatic way, even a horrifying way.  Still, it gets at something important.  Whether we walk through the sea on dry ground or are drowned in the chaos may have less to do with God’s vengeance and much more to do with how we respond to oppression.

Peace,