“Moses said to the people, ‘Don’t be afraid. Stand firm. You will see how the Holy One rescues you this very day. Those Egyptians you’ll see today, you will never see again'” (Exodus 14.13).
Here’s how I picture it: folks aren’t feeling too good about the direction of the country. Every neighborhood still stinks of rotting frogs. After the lice, the grocery store is out of Benadryl and calamine lotion; so, most folks aren’t sleeping very well from the welts that itch all through the night. There’s probably a good many nursing busted noses and broken bones from when that deep darkness fell.
There’s still funerals, day after day, for the firstborn—adults, teenagers, little children. The grief of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends seeps forth from every house. At the gas station, in traffic, walking through their ruined gardens everyday Egyptians burst into tears, their sorrow as common as birdsong or the wind through the trees.
As a result, those polling numbers looked pretty bad. Approval percentage way down. Do you think Pharaoh handled the issue with the Children of Israel well? No, say more than three-quarters of the people (no word on that quarter of folk who think this is what good leadership looks like).
And, there’s the podcasters, so-called journalists who are appalled their great leader gave in, let those people leave. Where’s the man who stood up to these people? Is he going to let a little inconvenience change his mind? The people just need to pull up on their bootstraps. We have to make sacrifices if we want Egypt to be great again.
This gets under Pharaoh’s skin, of course. Tyrants, bullies they’re insecure by nature. All this criticism and disapproval bothers him, keeps him up at night roaming the palace and firing off all sorts of rants at whoever will listen. And someone, sensing an opportunity, says you know what people want, you know what’ll turn those polls around….
Which brings us here, at the edge of the sea. The forces of Pharaoh’s government, his own personal enforcement squad riding out in their body armor with their faces covered, ready to do whatever had to be done to get Them back where they belong. And if a few die in the process, well, this is a war. Besides, they’re obviously a threat. Probably a bunch of terrorists.
With this facing them down, the Children of Israel are afraid. They’re unarmed. They’re not looking for a fight. So, they look to Moses, asking him just what they’re supposed to do now.
Moses tells them, “Stand firm. Don’t be afraid.”
In his little book On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder offers up twenty lessons, as he calls them, for dealing with tyrants and authoritarians. His first lesson comes to mind reading this story: Don’t obey in advance. Don’t self-censor. Don’t acquiesce to the threat you think may be coming.
Said another way: stand firm. Hold on in the face of those who would wield power in violence. Root yourself in what is good, and kind, and within the fertile ground of love.
The sea may not open up behind us, giving us a means back to the country we used to know. But we can still hold on. We can stand, and watch.
Because no earthly ruler has yet prevailed over the present and real Reign of God.
Anointed One, the only one we call Lord, these are tense, uncertain, and sometimes frightening times. Give us the courage of the Cloud of Witnesses about us to stand firm, to not fear, and, most important, to love. For we know, no weapon, no Pharaoh, no paramilitary force can stand against the love that makes all things new.