“A new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph. He spoke to his people in alarm, “There are way too many of these Israelites for us to handle. We’ve got to do something: Let’s devise a plan to contain them, lest if there’s a war they should join our enemies, or just walk off and leave us.”

^11-14 So they organized them into work-gangs and put them to hard labor under gang-foremen. They built the storage cities Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. But the harder the Egyptians worked them the more children the Israelites had—children everywhere! The Egyptians got so they couldn’t stand the Israelites and treated them worse than ever, crushing them with slave labor. They made them miserable with hard labor—making bricks and mortar and back-breaking work in the fields. They piled on the work, crushing them under the cruel workload.” Exodus 1:8-14

“Here are the seven themes of the Exodus story: Wicked tyrant—Chosen leader—Victory of God—Rescue by sacrifice—New vocation and way of life—Presence of God—Promised/inherited land.

We will deal with the first theme. First, the Exodus story was all about a wicked tyrant—Pharaoh, the king of Egypt—who had enslaved God’s people. Pharaoh is, as it were, the most visible symptom of the problem the people were facing.” (“Re-Living the Exodus”,  Simply Jesus,  N. T. Wright, p. 64)

Who are the wicked tyrants of our day? Where are the wicked tyrants in our communities? It isn’t hard to look to history, even to what is happening around the world to find the tyrants. Pharaoh did not start off as a tyrant—in fact Joseph was second in command to the Pharaoh who understood his genius and ability to understand a crisis and plan for the future—they were partners in ministry, so to speak. However, as the family of Joseph grew, and generation after generation passed away, a new Pharaoh came into power—and looked to the Hebrews as a problem, not a partner in ministry. All of a sudden the Israelites were a problem—and an ultimate solution needed to be put into place. Pharaoh hoped to “pile on the work, crushing them under the cruel workload.” The Germans felt the same about the Jews—and found an ultimate solution—working them to death, if not putting them to death in concentration camps.

As believers in G-d, as followers of Jesus, we are called to see the injustices of the world, to name them, shame them, and work for justice wherever possible.

Pastor Dave

“How can you go on believing, from generation to generation, that one day God will come and take charge? Answer: you tell the story, you sing the songs, and your keep celebrating God’s victory, even though it keeps on not happening. Since Jesus himself seems to have deliberately chosen the Exodus story, the Passover story, as the setting for the carefully staged climax to his own public career, it’s important that we think for a moment about the seven great features of this story, which all first-century Jews would have known in their bones.” (“Re-Living the Exodus”,  Simply Jesus,  N. T. Wright, p. 63)

How do WE keep our hopes up when all seems to be falling apart around us? How do WE continue to trust that G-d will, one day come back to make all things right in a world where so much seems to be wrong? We keep our trust and hope firmly on G-d’s promises because the scriptures tell us that G-d will one day make things right. Paul says, in his letter to the church in Ephesus:

“…here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!  All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we’re free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go.” (Ephesians 3:8-12)

Like I said in my last devotion, we need to be more involved in the life of civil leadership and government—and in the life of the church. The more we make the voices of concerned Christians known, the more we can have influence in the decisions that are being made—both in our churches, and in our society. Together we can make known what G-d has in mind for all of creation—the redemption of all.

Pastor Dave