Thursday, February
20, 2020
And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the Lord.’ I
appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I
did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them. And I reaffirmed my
covenant with them. Under its terms, I
promised to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as foreigners.
You can be sure that I have heard the groans of the people of
Israel, who are now slaves to the Egyptians. And I am well aware of my covenant with them. “Therefore, say to the people of Israel:
‘I am the Lord. I will free you from your oppression and
will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and
great acts of judgment. I will claim
you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God
who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. I will bring you into the land I swore
to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I
will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the Lord!’” So Moses told the people of Israel what
the Lord had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the
brutality of their slavery. Exodus 6:2-9[1]
The brutality
of any kind of slavery is a powerfully discouraging kind of image; it’s also enraging
to the heart of anyone with even a mild sense and desire for the decency of affording
human dignity which freedom conveys to all people.
In the context of Israel’s conscription
into a slave nation at the hands of Egyptian power in 1700 B.C., my mind’s eye conjures
mud and straw images, making primitive bricks to build monuments to domination
of one people by another.
While the odiousness of slavery in
American culture most often evokes the shameful history of plantation life in
the 16th – 19th centuries (as well it should), there are other
slave owners fully empowered and operational today. And these are as brutal as any Pharaoh building
a pyramid.
We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. Romans 6:6
The personal (and also powerful)
choice of trusting the slave-busting act of sacrifice on the cross by Jesus –
his blood cleansing us from the guilt of our sins – liberates us from being slaves
to the baser nature. It doesn’t make us perfect
in the sense that we are above it all, better than others, but it means we’ve
been given the power to depend on God fully for His power in our lives to keep
us free.
I had a seminary professor who
expressed it this way: when God
saved my soul I became free to sin all I want…and I do, you see, because when
God saved my soul He also changed my ‘wanter’.
For
You Today
No comments:
Post a Comment