Lessons from the Exodus

If you are fortunate enough to live within driving distance of either Lancaster, Pa., or Branson, Mo., you must go to the Sight and Sound Theater before you die—think of it as a kind of Christian hajj. I saw both the Philadelphia Academy of Music’s ballet The Nutcracker and Sight and Sound’s Moses in the same week. The wooden soldiers were terrific but the story of the Jewish deliverer was phenomenal.

The Bible itself is strikingly sparse in its narration, leaving much to the imagination. Imagination is helpful in our interaction with Scripture (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:8; Philippians 4:8; 2 Timothy 2:7), to fill in the details the Bible skips over, say, 40 years of Egyptian cultural indoctrination in a pagan court; the heart-wrenching personal tie between Moses and his adoptive mother; Moses’ identity crisis as an ethnic misfit in the royal court. We are given the merest summary in Hebrews:

“By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:24–25, ESV).

What struck me most in the stage production was the sharp line drawn between the faith of Moses and the fickleness of the Jews. No minor setback was too small to make them turn on Moses—and therefore on God (Exodus 16:8).

Initially, the people believed Moses that God would deliver them. But when deliverance didn’t happen instantly and their slavery was initially intensified rather than abated, they were ready to reject God. Then for a brief moment the people were faith-filled as they made their historic Exodus from Egypt, but their momentary gratitude turned to anger when they found themselves caught in a pincer movement between sea and Egyptian military. Then they trusted God again (momentarily) and sang songs to Him, until three days later they found no water and reverted to their opinion that this God thing was a bad deal. And so it went for the entire 40 years in the wilderness—always ready to accuse God at the slightest apparent setback.

“Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction. … Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:11–12, ESV).

That is, we are meant to learn and do better (“with most of them God was not pleased”). The takeaway lesson is this: God has made promises to be with us and to love us. When we think we see contrary evidence to God’s declarations we must immediately call it lying “evidence” from the devil. God’s specialty is last-minute deliverances, out-of-the-blue trap doors, and amazing escapes, but “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6, ESV).