Going Through The Waters
Sermon
The Divine Salvage
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Middle Third)
I suppose when we hear this passage about the parting of the Reed Sea, many of us cannot help but recall that scene in the movie The Ten Commandments. There is Moses, played by Charlton Heston, in a flowing black robe, long hair blowing in the wind, and his arms lifted up with one hand holding the staff that God had given him. The sea suddenly heaves and parts, creating a path with rolling walls of water on either side. Then, Israel marches through on dry land, barely ahead of the pursuing Egyptian army.
I understand that nowadays a lot of people see this scene reenacted several times a day at Universal Studios in Hollywood. It could well be that more people know about this scene from Hollywood than they do from the Bible. But it's not surprising that Hollywood has made use of this dramatic Biblical event. It speaks to us on many levels: escape to freedom, miracle of God, water that saves the good guys and destroys the bad guys.
Biblical scholars have attempted to explain the crossing of the Reed Sea as a natural event. They point out that in that region the area is flat and marshy and occasionally covered by shallow water driven in at high tide by the wind. When it is covered by water, this same wind can blow in, push the water aside, and open a path. While plausible, such an explanation has no Hollywood technicolor. Besides, that the wind blew on that particular day, and at that particular hour, when the Israelites needed to cross, certainly points to something miraculous. But this passage doesn't want us to ponder the parting of waters; rather, it wants to tell us something more wondrous. Namely, that God is at work here. The only true explanation for what took place is the presence and power of God, who brings life and overcomes evil, leading His people to a new way of life. The really profound miracle here in crossing the Reed Sea is God's faithfulness to Israel. How it all happened is another question, but who made it happen is what the Exodus is all about. Crossing the Reed Sea is a witness to God and one that calls us to faith.
Here we have Israel, almost lost and forgotten in the world. As the expression goes, "How odd of God to choose the Jews." They had become slaves in Egypt -- nobodies with no status, or nation, or power. All they had was the memory of a promise to Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation, from a God whose name they could not even remember. Yet this God, Yahweh, remembered. Yahweh remembered His people and His promise. The time had now come for God to fulfill His promise, to set the descendants of Abraham free, and establish them as a people with respect and honor for His name. God, who remembers His promise and acts to make it real, explains this passage.
Knowing this witness to God and this calling to faith, the Christian church has also made use of this scene as readily as Hollywood. Crossing through the waters of the Reed Sea, leaving behind an old way of life and embarking on the other side to a new way of life, cannot help but remind us of water baptism. It reminds us that God is the One who is graciously at work in our lives, the One who makes it possible to be rescued and gives us life, new and fresh.
In the Christian faith the act of going through the baptismal waters proclaims and gives witness to the gracious presence and work of God. In the baptism of our members, we remember the crossing of the Reed Sea. Our baptism points to God's act of setting us free from our slavery to sin, crossing over to a new life, the old enemies destroyed.
When Jesus met his disciples for the last time, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that the last words he spoke to them were, "Go and make disciples ... baptizing them" (Matthew 28:19). Ever since that time, going through the waters has meant freedom, newness of life, the past left
behind, a new future straight ahead. Going through the waters has not meant something we dreamed up, or something we achieved. No, it has meant only this: the power of God's presence and redeeming work to give us life.
To witness clearly to our new lives we distinctly baptize "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Never in the name of Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or the name of some dearly beloved preacher. No, we go through the waters, we baptize, in the name of God, to bear witness to God and the call for faith in God.
And so in baptism we are given God's name to live by. God's name gives us an identity; it declares that we are somebody. Just as the Israelites were nobodies before going through the water, before our baptism we were nobody. But after going through the water, God made us somebody. This is what we testify. God made us; God led us through to new life.
A man describes how one day he said to his mother that one of the most useful courses he took in high school was typing. Everyday he is grateful that he knows how to type. Typing is a skill he uses nearly everyday of his life.
In response to that comment his mother responded, "Aren't you glad I made you take typing?" And he said, "You made me take typing? I don't remember you making me take typing." She said, "Oh, yes, I remember you saying that you didn't think you needed to learn to type. You thought it would be a waste of time. But I told you that you needed to know how to type so you wouldn't have to depend on someone else to do your typing. You hated it at first, but I made you stick with it."
There he was congratulating himself on his own wisdom and foresight in deciding to learn typing, only to be reminded that it was not his idea at all. In fact, he had little to congratulate himself for. His typing skill is a gifted power. It was the power of someone else's care and direction that has provided him this useful and valuable skill.1
The same is true of our presence here in the church. We often congratulate ourselves for being here, but the truth is, someone else cared enough about us to direct us here. We might think we get up out of our own decision to be here, but chances are it is a habit that was instilled in you by someone else. And I would add that it is definitely the Spirit that keeps us coming. In our baptism we profess our relationship to God, but we cannot take the credit. We have been claimed by God. We cannot take the glory for our inheritance.
Normally, our lives are not nearly so dramatic as crossing the Reed Sea. For the most part we come to church to learn about God, to speak to God, to get spiritual support to make it through a typical week, to receive insights on how to live in the image and grace of Jesus Christ. As the bumper sticker says, "Rough week at work? See me in church." Indeed, I agree wholeheartedly.
But what about those big, earth-shaking, fundamental human situations we sometimes find ourselves in that can't be solved by anything we say or do? What then? Here at worship is the court of last appeal, because all other avenues are exhausted. Here we identify with Jesus on the cross when he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34).
The doctor comes and tells you the illness is terminal; there's no cure. You receive word that the company you work for is closing. Everything you worked for, your home, and your dreams are pulled out from under your feet. You are betrayed by someone you trusted. You watch the evening news of starving children, poverty, and civil wars. The earth shakes and you are powerless to stop it, powerless to right the wrong.
In crossing the Reed Sea we are reminded that in every life dark forces threaten to overtake us. But in going through the waters we are also reminded that finally our lives are in the hands of God. When the stars fall and the sea roars -- and everything comes loose -- what then? Only the tenacity of faith and hope.
Jesus says, "Raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:28). Salvation isn't coming because we're optimistic, or because we work our way out of it, or think positively about it. Salvation comes because God acts, because God does something, because God leads us through. The Christian hope is set on what God will do when we can do nothing. God gives us the victory when we are utterly defeated.
In 1525, Martin Luther was besieged with threats and surrounded by enemies on all sides. He was excommunicated from the Roman Church. Utter despair and discouragement infected him. His friends tried to get him out of his depression, but couldn't. One day he came home and found his wife Catherine wearing a funeral dress and weeping in grief. Luther asked her, "Catherine, who died?" She said, "God is dead, and I can't bear it; all his work is overthrown." Luther was shocked at hearing what could only be described as blasphemy from his wife's mouth. To which Catherine responded, "Well, you've been going around acting as if God were dead, as if God no longer was here to keep us. So I thought I should join the funeral and your bereavement."2
Catherine's remark struck home. Luther realized he had taken his eyes off the Redeemer. He had to be reminded that it is God who gives the victory. To be reminded that the future belongs to God. It is a gift given to us to the glory of God.
When we were baptized, when the water was parted and splashed on our heads, we were given a name and told we are somebody. It was a gift; the past was put behind us; all our excuses were washed away; we were given a future.
What kind of future? A totally new and different future. One that embraces life in new and startling ways. I am reminded of what this future looks like from a story Fred Craddock told that he said is found in Jewish writings. The story is that one day the Almighty heard some angels whooping and hollering, squealing with delight. The Almighty asked, "What's all the excitement about?" And the angels said, "We got 'em, Lord. We got 'em. When the water tumbled in, we got those Egyptians!" And the Almighty said, "You are dismissed from my house. For you have not seen that the Egyptians are also my children."3
When the water was parted and ran down our foreheads, we were declared to be free people. It was a gift and a great honor, but also a great responsibility. It is our responsibility to share the joy and grace of God to the world, to speak words of encouragement to others, to show compassion and mercy, to have patience and love towards others. These are not easy things to do by any means, and our past failures in these matters haunt us.
But the question is: What will we do now? We have received this gift: the water of baptism and the Spirit. Jesus took this gift and lived the good news, rejoicing in and sharing the grace of God. What will we do now? We have the gift -- the gift of God's power and presence in our lives. May we rejoice in it and share it.
Curtis Fussell
____________
1. Adapted from William Willimon's sermon, "The Gifted," in Pulpit Resource Vol. 23, No. 1 (Logos Productions: Inver Grove Heights, Minn.), p. 10.
2. Adapted from C. Douglas Weaver, A Cloud of Witnesses: Sermon Illustrations and Devotionals from the Christian Heritage (Macon, Ga.: Smyth & Helwys, 1993), p. 73.
3. Source unknown.
I understand that nowadays a lot of people see this scene reenacted several times a day at Universal Studios in Hollywood. It could well be that more people know about this scene from Hollywood than they do from the Bible. But it's not surprising that Hollywood has made use of this dramatic Biblical event. It speaks to us on many levels: escape to freedom, miracle of God, water that saves the good guys and destroys the bad guys.
Biblical scholars have attempted to explain the crossing of the Reed Sea as a natural event. They point out that in that region the area is flat and marshy and occasionally covered by shallow water driven in at high tide by the wind. When it is covered by water, this same wind can blow in, push the water aside, and open a path. While plausible, such an explanation has no Hollywood technicolor. Besides, that the wind blew on that particular day, and at that particular hour, when the Israelites needed to cross, certainly points to something miraculous. But this passage doesn't want us to ponder the parting of waters; rather, it wants to tell us something more wondrous. Namely, that God is at work here. The only true explanation for what took place is the presence and power of God, who brings life and overcomes evil, leading His people to a new way of life. The really profound miracle here in crossing the Reed Sea is God's faithfulness to Israel. How it all happened is another question, but who made it happen is what the Exodus is all about. Crossing the Reed Sea is a witness to God and one that calls us to faith.
Here we have Israel, almost lost and forgotten in the world. As the expression goes, "How odd of God to choose the Jews." They had become slaves in Egypt -- nobodies with no status, or nation, or power. All they had was the memory of a promise to Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation, from a God whose name they could not even remember. Yet this God, Yahweh, remembered. Yahweh remembered His people and His promise. The time had now come for God to fulfill His promise, to set the descendants of Abraham free, and establish them as a people with respect and honor for His name. God, who remembers His promise and acts to make it real, explains this passage.
Knowing this witness to God and this calling to faith, the Christian church has also made use of this scene as readily as Hollywood. Crossing through the waters of the Reed Sea, leaving behind an old way of life and embarking on the other side to a new way of life, cannot help but remind us of water baptism. It reminds us that God is the One who is graciously at work in our lives, the One who makes it possible to be rescued and gives us life, new and fresh.
In the Christian faith the act of going through the baptismal waters proclaims and gives witness to the gracious presence and work of God. In the baptism of our members, we remember the crossing of the Reed Sea. Our baptism points to God's act of setting us free from our slavery to sin, crossing over to a new life, the old enemies destroyed.
When Jesus met his disciples for the last time, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that the last words he spoke to them were, "Go and make disciples ... baptizing them" (Matthew 28:19). Ever since that time, going through the waters has meant freedom, newness of life, the past left
behind, a new future straight ahead. Going through the waters has not meant something we dreamed up, or something we achieved. No, it has meant only this: the power of God's presence and redeeming work to give us life.
To witness clearly to our new lives we distinctly baptize "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Never in the name of Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or the name of some dearly beloved preacher. No, we go through the waters, we baptize, in the name of God, to bear witness to God and the call for faith in God.
And so in baptism we are given God's name to live by. God's name gives us an identity; it declares that we are somebody. Just as the Israelites were nobodies before going through the water, before our baptism we were nobody. But after going through the water, God made us somebody. This is what we testify. God made us; God led us through to new life.
A man describes how one day he said to his mother that one of the most useful courses he took in high school was typing. Everyday he is grateful that he knows how to type. Typing is a skill he uses nearly everyday of his life.
In response to that comment his mother responded, "Aren't you glad I made you take typing?" And he said, "You made me take typing? I don't remember you making me take typing." She said, "Oh, yes, I remember you saying that you didn't think you needed to learn to type. You thought it would be a waste of time. But I told you that you needed to know how to type so you wouldn't have to depend on someone else to do your typing. You hated it at first, but I made you stick with it."
There he was congratulating himself on his own wisdom and foresight in deciding to learn typing, only to be reminded that it was not his idea at all. In fact, he had little to congratulate himself for. His typing skill is a gifted power. It was the power of someone else's care and direction that has provided him this useful and valuable skill.1
The same is true of our presence here in the church. We often congratulate ourselves for being here, but the truth is, someone else cared enough about us to direct us here. We might think we get up out of our own decision to be here, but chances are it is a habit that was instilled in you by someone else. And I would add that it is definitely the Spirit that keeps us coming. In our baptism we profess our relationship to God, but we cannot take the credit. We have been claimed by God. We cannot take the glory for our inheritance.
Normally, our lives are not nearly so dramatic as crossing the Reed Sea. For the most part we come to church to learn about God, to speak to God, to get spiritual support to make it through a typical week, to receive insights on how to live in the image and grace of Jesus Christ. As the bumper sticker says, "Rough week at work? See me in church." Indeed, I agree wholeheartedly.
But what about those big, earth-shaking, fundamental human situations we sometimes find ourselves in that can't be solved by anything we say or do? What then? Here at worship is the court of last appeal, because all other avenues are exhausted. Here we identify with Jesus on the cross when he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34).
The doctor comes and tells you the illness is terminal; there's no cure. You receive word that the company you work for is closing. Everything you worked for, your home, and your dreams are pulled out from under your feet. You are betrayed by someone you trusted. You watch the evening news of starving children, poverty, and civil wars. The earth shakes and you are powerless to stop it, powerless to right the wrong.
In crossing the Reed Sea we are reminded that in every life dark forces threaten to overtake us. But in going through the waters we are also reminded that finally our lives are in the hands of God. When the stars fall and the sea roars -- and everything comes loose -- what then? Only the tenacity of faith and hope.
Jesus says, "Raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:28). Salvation isn't coming because we're optimistic, or because we work our way out of it, or think positively about it. Salvation comes because God acts, because God does something, because God leads us through. The Christian hope is set on what God will do when we can do nothing. God gives us the victory when we are utterly defeated.
In 1525, Martin Luther was besieged with threats and surrounded by enemies on all sides. He was excommunicated from the Roman Church. Utter despair and discouragement infected him. His friends tried to get him out of his depression, but couldn't. One day he came home and found his wife Catherine wearing a funeral dress and weeping in grief. Luther asked her, "Catherine, who died?" She said, "God is dead, and I can't bear it; all his work is overthrown." Luther was shocked at hearing what could only be described as blasphemy from his wife's mouth. To which Catherine responded, "Well, you've been going around acting as if God were dead, as if God no longer was here to keep us. So I thought I should join the funeral and your bereavement."2
Catherine's remark struck home. Luther realized he had taken his eyes off the Redeemer. He had to be reminded that it is God who gives the victory. To be reminded that the future belongs to God. It is a gift given to us to the glory of God.
When we were baptized, when the water was parted and splashed on our heads, we were given a name and told we are somebody. It was a gift; the past was put behind us; all our excuses were washed away; we were given a future.
What kind of future? A totally new and different future. One that embraces life in new and startling ways. I am reminded of what this future looks like from a story Fred Craddock told that he said is found in Jewish writings. The story is that one day the Almighty heard some angels whooping and hollering, squealing with delight. The Almighty asked, "What's all the excitement about?" And the angels said, "We got 'em, Lord. We got 'em. When the water tumbled in, we got those Egyptians!" And the Almighty said, "You are dismissed from my house. For you have not seen that the Egyptians are also my children."3
When the water was parted and ran down our foreheads, we were declared to be free people. It was a gift and a great honor, but also a great responsibility. It is our responsibility to share the joy and grace of God to the world, to speak words of encouragement to others, to show compassion and mercy, to have patience and love towards others. These are not easy things to do by any means, and our past failures in these matters haunt us.
But the question is: What will we do now? We have received this gift: the water of baptism and the Spirit. Jesus took this gift and lived the good news, rejoicing in and sharing the grace of God. What will we do now? We have the gift -- the gift of God's power and presence in our lives. May we rejoice in it and share it.
Curtis Fussell
____________
1. Adapted from William Willimon's sermon, "The Gifted," in Pulpit Resource Vol. 23, No. 1 (Logos Productions: Inver Grove Heights, Minn.), p. 10.
2. Adapted from C. Douglas Weaver, A Cloud of Witnesses: Sermon Illustrations and Devotionals from the Christian Heritage (Macon, Ga.: Smyth & Helwys, 1993), p. 73.
3. Source unknown.
