On April 29th 1587, Sir Francis Drake sailed into the port of Cadiz and sank 23 Spanish ships, causing significant damage to the Spanish Navy. The event became known as the singeing of the King of Spain's beard. It happened almost 430 years to the day from the writing of this post, and it seems a very long time ago - the length of time during which events become a bit hazy in the retelling, the sort of period for something to become folklore. Even though we still own and tell the stories of Francis Drake playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe as the Armada approached there is no first hand account of this, but we tell the story because it says something about what it means to be a dashing Englishman, unflustered by the approaching enemy.
Four hundred and thirty years is also the stated time that the people of Israel spent in the land of Egypt (Exodus 12:40). One wonders how many of the stories they told about their identity dated back a similar length of time as we might do to Drake and beyond. Their stories would probably have been the accounts of Abraham and his descendants that we find in Genesis 12 onwards.
In those years, they had descended from the glory days of Joseph's blessing of Egypt by his administration and wisdom in a time of famine, to being the hated and despised racial grouping - Pharaoh using the fear of what they might do as justification for oppression. Thank goodness we live in more enlightened times!
Exodus seems to be give little clue as to the spiritual well-being of the nation. My experience visiting the South Sudanese Refugee Camp in northern Uganda would suggest that being oppressed and without resources is not a bar to having a vital faith, but it becomes harder over time as the possibility of restoration diminishes and despair creeps in. My feeling as I re-read Exodus recently is that the peoples' relationship with their God was more akin to an inherited identity than a coherent practice. There is no record of there being the infrastructure of worship or of those with the role of leading it (the Tabernacle and the Priesthood were to come later in Exodus). Having said that, the midwives were described as 'God-fearing' (Exodus 1:17) and the cry of the slaves went 'up to God' (Exodus 2:23). God has compassion on them and, as we come to hear, acts.
But when God choses to being the revealing of Himself via the burning bush in Exodus 3, it is as if God has to introduce Himself afresh (or, possibly, the Moses' generation needed to learn for itself the person of their God).
I'm not quite convinced that this is exactly how it happened. I don't think God sounds like Darth Vader reading from the King James Bible...
...but opinions may vary.
The key moment of revelation is later, as Moses meets God on Sinai and we learn more of God's character; holy and faithful. Interestingly, God seems to have communicated about his character and holiness by the means of instructions for their own lifestyle and ordering of their own communities.These instructions can, to our ears, sound bizarre and a little random. Some are given as an echo of God's own character (for example, the Sabbath is blessed because that is the day God chose to rest - Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17), others are given in order to differentiate God's people from those who would be living around them later, others seem to have little specific rhyme or reason.
There are whole chapters in Exodus which deal with the proper ordering of worship whilst the people are walking through the wilderness. We know that the pattern of worship significantly shapes the understanding and actions of the worshippers, so here too there is emphasis placed upon who the people are to be as a direct result of their being rescued and then their encountering the presence of God.
The God of Exodus takes the initiative to reveal Himself, to call Moses, to rescue His people and to offer the Law - the means by which a people might remain identified with and close to their God.
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