This was also the last service during Exodus that we did 2 chapters in one service. From here on out we will only be doing one chapter per service because we are moving towards the more legalistic side of things. We are moving to a place where we need to reason through everything to understand the community of Israel and to understand what God is really trying to say. As well as to understand what we need to be grateful for when we talk about our relationship with Christ and what He has really done for us.

In chapter 19 we see quite a different side of God. Initially God was always on the Israelites side, He was meek and mild even though the Israelites pushed His buttons from time to time. God always provided and He never really demanded much except one of two things like not working on a Sunday, but spending time with family and thinking of Him. Also very specific regarding what they had to do for the Passover after they left Egypt. Then in this chapter, there is a very specific thing that they are not aloud to do and if they do so that they will die. Almost like God is creating a distance between Him and humanity. I do believe that that distance that was created was more of a vocal point of human’s ability to understand that we need God to cross the gap and that He is the one who determines how we cross the gap.

 They also had to keep themselves clean. One thing that stood out for the community was the interesting perspective regarding intercourse, which leads to a sense of uncleanliness. This could explain earlier churches’ perspective of sex and the issue regarding woman. It was more in connection to being holy and being focused on God instead of on our humanly needs and desires.

Looking at chapter 20, skipping the 10 commandments for now and handling it separately. We look at the reaction that the Israelites had when it came to the point where God had to speak to them. They were afraid of God, they were afraid to communicate with Him and they exercised the choice that God should only communicate through Moses. For the first time we see here how they choose Moses as their leader. God initially chose Moses as the leader and the Israelites followed, but here for the first time we have a sense of commitment and the desire of the community to rather have Moses be the one communication with God and them choosing him to be their representative.

Another interesting thing was the altar that they had to build that wasn’t aloud to be raised up. The issue with that was that it was not to be in a position where that when they climbed up the stairs that they would expose their nakedness. If you understand nakedness in principal and even if you look at it in the Old Testament when sin came into the world with Adam and Eve, they also covered their nakedness in the presence of God. Nakedness can actually be seen as something more or less like shame. It is something that plays a very big role in understanding that when we step into conversation with God, we don’t step into conversation as whole human beings but that we actually step into conversation as broken human beings. Therefore only when we have the perfect soul, when we die and when everything falls into place, only then can we fully be in the presence of God without having to cover up our nakedness of our brokenness. If we fast forward the metaphor to the understanding in the New Testament, our nakedness is covered with the blood of Jesus Christ and we are therefore no longer naked in the eyes of God and we are perfect. Garments were at that point in time also a way of showing respect towards God.

The 10 commandments

In the one sense it is very tricky, but very straight forward. Where as, on the other hand it is very easy to misunderstand or to misinterpret. We where brought up with the 10 commandments as children and the one that struck fear into our hearts was the commandment to always honour and obey our parents. The thing is that it is not really what the law says. The law says to honour your parents and if you really look at it, it is not really written for children. How would you explain something like cheating to a child when the law is about cheating in an adult relationship? It is more about moral values. The first three commandments focus more on the relationship between God and humanity. Having the knowledge that it won’t help to pray to a tree because a tree isn’t able to do anything for you. The best would be to pray to a living God. Also God saying that He is the living God and everything falls within His power and will. To have respect for Him and to not use His name in vain. It is about respect and also understanding that in today’s world we don’t add so much value to the concept to the power of words. There is this respect that we can still see today in the Jewish community for the name of God. They don’t usually use the name God and they won’t write it out completely out of respect. That reverence for this God and power has to ring true and you have to understand that and carry that out. That is what God is asking, for that respect, just like you would have for any other person. For someone not to use your name in vain, not to lie, not to make promises in your name that you have not made or make comments or even use your name to swear someone or to literally curse someone’s life. That is where the power of God’s name and the respect for it comes in.

Spend some time with Him and the seventh day rest. The seventh day rest is not there because God got so tired that He had to rest. It is there so that we as humans that consist of flesh and bones can rest. We need moments that we actually fall quiet and stand in the presence of God. We as humans have this ability to get busy with the stuff of God but not the God of stuff. It is as if the call to have the Sabbath is a call to calm down, to slow down and actually to get focused on the human need to rest and human soul’s need to connect with God in a peaceful way. God is our peace, He is our silence, He is our waterfall and He is our place where we calm down.

That is what the first 3 laws are about and the rest are actually just moral values. The bar is not set that high if you actually go and look at it and if you go and read the laws, the basic principals of if you leave your personal belonging somewhere you would like it to be there when you return. The same for when a husband leaves his wife at home to go to work, let his wife still be his wife when he returns. We as human beings always insist on trying to live underneath this bar of morality where in the mean time it is just basic principals of life.

The thing that really bugged was the last commandment, to not desire or basically the concept of desire. That is actually a very interesting question and something to go and think about. The most important thing to take into account is that God knows humanity and He knows that what we think, we start to seriously consider. And what we seriously consider we actually start to do. That is where it comes into play,  that if someone desires something that belongs to someone else so much that that someone is not willing to work for it, but is so set on the belonging of that person, that  in all probability that person is going to overstep the line and is going to kill someone or steal. That person is not showing respect to their neighbour. What God is actually saying here is to not even think about it. If someone owns something you like, work hard, save up and buy it for yourself. That is fine, don’t be jealous. Don’t let that ruin the relationship you have with someone else. There is a big different between having a dream, that kind of a desire and the desire that breaks down humanity. We all have a desire to live a full life, but if it is at the cost of someone else then we are overstepping the line. That is what that commandment is about.

The Israelites have left Egypt and the events of these two chapters actually take place after the meeting at the mountain where Moses received the 10 commandments. This specifically happened right after that and the whole situation of his relationship with and his responsibility towards the community.

 In chapter 27 we read about the water out of a rock. Once again the Israelites are like children (and like us) and they complain. They want water and they want to go back to Egypt because there at least they had enough water to drink. They keep throwing those typical tantrums that we associate with the Israelites but that we also so closely associate with ourselves. The interesting thing is that there is a war between the people from Amalek and the Israelites. The Amalekites were under the impression that they attacked a seemingly vulnerable nation because they looked like nomads and they looked like they were not capable of fighting. The ironic thing was that tribal leaders or elders collected all those capable for fighting and they stood their ground against the Amalekites. Moses went to sit on the mountain to oversee this whole thing. He lifted up his hands and as long as his staff was lifted up in the sky the Israelites were winning, but when he started to feel weak and the arm holding the staff upright slipped a bit it seemed the Amalekites had the upper hand in the fight. It reached such a degree that a point was reached that Aaron and Her, one of the elders, actually had to keep his arms above his head so that the Israelites could win and according to this scripture the Amalekites were destroyed. There was also the promise that when an Amalekite were to come into the presence of an Israelite, God would hunt the Amalekites down because there was a strong feeling that they were the chosen people and no one was allowed to step out against them.

 What is very valuable out of this specific chapter, beside the fact that we as human beings tend to complain when the going gets tough even though we are better off than we were, is the fact that we are prone not to support our faith leaders or people in leadership the way they are supposed to be supported. This is a very good example that a nation is only as strong as the support its leader has and that the moment we isolate the leader from the group and not support the leader, immediately the group will falter and become weaker in a sense. The saying is true that the chain is only as strong as the weakest link, but if the leader is the weakest link then everything fails.

Then we read in chapter 18 that Jethro, Moses’ father in law actually comes to bring his wife and children to him so that they can be reunited as a family and Jethro sees all the strain that Moses is taking. A very interesting thing that comes out of that is that Jethro tells Moses that he is approaching it wrong. Jethro himself was a priest or a leader in his community and he understood a thing or two about leadership. He turned to Moses and said that he was wasting his time with petty daily things, that he is so called by this living God that even he (Jethro) now prays to, that he (Moses) has such important work to do for God that sorting out the petty things of the community is below his value that he can contribute to the community. Jethro’s advice to Moses was to rather pick leaders, appoint people who can be responsible and have a community of relational responsibility where you have specific leaders; a person responsible for 10 people, a person responsible for 100 people, etc… to actually build this network of support and leadership to sort things out that are day to day crises. Only if they reach a dispute where there is such a big issue that they can’t sort it out within those ranks then only should they come to Moses and ask how God says they should handle it. It is a very important thing because this is the first time we see the network in how God is a God of relationships and how we can work in a network instead of putting all the weight on one person and that person failing in fulfilling their purpose.  Rather than put all the weight of responsibility on a single person, but to spread that responsibility into a network where every single person in the end becomes responsible and accountable for every other person in the community. Instead of making the relationship linear it becomes a full rounded responsibility and it becomes a community capable of taking care of each other, supporting, understanding each other and being involved in each others lives.

What mostly stood out for the community was the question of Jethro’s input in Moses’ life, whether it was from God or not. The fact that Jethro was from another tribe, not an Israelite, and that he prayed to their God stood out. It is almost like it struck us between the eyes that even though we only know the story of Israel, it does not mean that God was not involved with all the other nations. It doesn’t mean that He was not playing a vital involving role with every one else on earth. Just because we know Israel’s story doesn’t mean God was absent from all the other people.

So it’s been the Easter weekend a while ago and we’ve all been in the Easter festivities, with the mood, the bunnies, the chocolate eggs and then obviously the whole debacle of the hot cross buns. Life has found a way to make a scene about the holidays connected to the Christian tradition. What got me thinking was the responses that sound minded people had about this whole debacle over Easter. I wouldn’t be a theologian and a newbie if I didn’t throw in my two cents about the debacle concerning the hot cross buns. Then there was the article in the Rapport and I couldn’t say anything anymore.  That article made such an important statement that people are missing the plot once again and that Easter to the Christians is indeed about the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, but there is also so much more to it. There is such a deep connection that makes Easter so much more.

I promised myself I wouldn’t write anything about Easter and wouldn’t get involved in this whole debacle. If Easter was all about what we as humans create for us as symbols and what we define as symbols, then we’re missing the whole idea of Easter, aren’t we? God gave us Easter. He gave us the symbols. Being on the journey through Exodus that we as a community are currently doing, we looked at this whole thing and wondered if those people have actually read the story? Looking at Easter just from the Jesus story, the crucifixion and resurrection, looking only at that part of the story is like taking a book and paging through to the last chapter and stating that that is what the whole story is about. It’s not.

 The story of Easter is about how God steps into human suffering and reaches out to the human heart that is crawling and calling out to Him. How he fights our demons with us, battles with us through our struggles and the things that keep us back from ultimate freedom with Him. The final step of freedom is a celebration, it is a dinner where you sit and celebrate the presence of God and how God provides for you. It’s not about hot cross buns or wine or even the lamb. Yes the lamb is the biggest symbol but it goes deeper than that. It is about how God provides. God will give us all the sustenance we need, He will fight with us every battle that we fight even if it seems like He is not there. Sometimes we need to go through the suffering with Him to journey to this Easter, this release, this stepping out of everything. Looking at it now, isn’t that the same story that Christ is telling?

The whole Gospel is like the story of Egypt and the Israelites, the whole moving toward Canaan and towards the place where we belong. At the risk of spiritualising everything and going too spiritual, there is an essence in the story that is being told, almost as if the book of Exodus is the book of humanity and God’s moments in humanity. Where the Gospel then is the book of God in human’s moments and connections with God. In Exodus there is this whole story of how God journeys with people and fights alongside them and for them. He journeys with them until they finally start believing and yet when they believe they still fight with Him, pushes His boundaries,fights with the leadership and keep on asking questions and saying that they want to go back to the way it was before God led them out of Egypt. How many times do we as Christians do that? That maybe I should have held out, maybe I should have pushed the pause button on my relationship with God, just so that I can at least go out and enjoy myself. Then we realise we made a mistake and turn back to God and live our lives with God and then go off again. It is exactly the same way the Israelites treated God during the Exodus story. That is part of why they got stuck in the desert for forty years. It is a natural process between God and humanity, the struggle of humanity with the whole idea that this God is a God that stays true to His promises. He won’t let you down. What he provides and promises to provide will always be there. Looking at the Gospel story it shows how God tries to teach the people to wake up, to look away and move away from tradition and see Him. Once again Jesus fights all the demons and destroys all the things that keep people back from living a full life and He becomes that lamb, He becomes that “God-given” grace, He becomes life’s journey. Then I have to look at my own life and realise there are so many things that I need to put down so many presents and so many plagues that I need to work through and battle with, alongside God. My Easter is coming soon. My final release, to be let out of my Egypt, is just around the corner.

In these chapters there is specifically talked about how God provided water and food for the Israelites. The interesting thing that came through was the understanding that when we work with the tale of Israelites’ journey from Egypt to Canaan, lots of the stories and chapters end in the sense that the story or the journey has already completed or concluded. In the initial part they actually sing the celebration song after God claimed victory for the Israelites by parting the Red sea and the slaying of the Egyptians, but there is also a specific mentioning of Canaan and all the other tribes and places that they conquer along the way to the Promised land. This means that the song started to develop at the parting of the Red sea but only came to conclusion when they reached Canaan even though it is put in as early as chapter 15 in the Bible.

The other prominent thing that stood out was that we as humans, the Israelites being a good example of that, will follow God only until we feel that it isn’t fun anymore and not the way we want it anymore. How often do we as people forget how reliant we are supposed to be on God and how reliant we are on God? The most ironic part is that within 24 hours that God had appeared to them in a cloud in His presence saying that he will provide food for them, did they doubt Him. They were told that they only need to collect food they need for the day and that God will keep on providing day by day, except for the day before the Sabbath where they need to collect for two days. Still there were people who picked up more than their share, who still tried to keep out for the next day as if God never spoke. If we think practically in today’s life, we must humbly admit that we also do that. Even tough we really see God’s actions and see how He steps into our lives we still want to work by human measures and we get stuck at the question of who is lying, God or the world? Is there a way that we can somehow just keep saying that God is the one lying and God is not going to provide? The Israelites kept on doing that, but the interesting thing is that God never really stopped feeding them and He never stopped looking after them. He did get annoyed with them, but never once did He stop even though there were the people who did not obey Him.  In fact He called them foolish and the food that those people took that was too much were rotten the next day and had to be thrown away. Their punishment was not being able to eat that food the next day. Maybe they picked up more than their share because they were lazy. There is an expression in Afrikaans “as dit pap reën moet jy skep”, meaning that when there is good fortune in the sky you must try to take as much as you can. God decides what we need and provides exactly enough day by day.

It is so unique how the manna worked. I grew up with the concept that mamma was honey tasting wafer type of bread, but if you read the description it sounds like flakes and they had to scoop it up in containers about 2L per person. Bread can’t be measured in Litres. We all had this concept that loves of bread fell from the sky, but it wasn’t actually like that. They could do anything with it that they wanted, cook it, bake it, stir fry it. They could even put the manna together with anything they could find and cook it with whatever they felt like having or make from it whatever they needed. I think that changes the perspective of how we saw the whole thing that God gives the food that is nourishing, ample and enough, but you still have to do something with it. You still need to make use of that and process it to be able to absorb it. When I look at everything that God does for us we need to process things before we can absorb it. We need to process God’s presence sometimes before we can absorb it.

In principle the story seems to turn to a point of repetitiveness, the bitter water turning sweet, God having this bunch of kids that keep on complaining, moaning and being unhappy unless they get everything they ask for in the way they ask for it no matter how well God provides for them.  The interesting thing is that once they got cross with Moses and Aaron, Moses asked God surprised why they are getting upset with him. It’s interesting to see how the connection is made that they get upset with the people who where called and how it was interpreted. Moses and Aaron were called as representatives of God and the moment Israel got cross with them for the circumstances they immediately get angry at God. Then again God was the one that moved them to go journey through the desert and to go live in the Promised Land. They are on this journey because of God but the people taking the punishment were Moses and Aaron. Aaron and Moses in turn said to the people of Israel that they were not doing any harm to them but rather to their own relationship with God by reacting this way.

So the question for the week ahead, if that is the case that God sends you on a journey. If you were to get upset about the circumstances of the journey and you would turn your anger towards who ever is leading, how much damage am I doing to the relationship between me and God?