000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

Proper 19 [24]/Year A 87
to his disciples, as in the storm-tossed boat on Galilee: “Why are you
afraid? Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:40).
Moses shifts the people’s attention from Pharaoh to God: “see the deliverance
that the LORD will accomplish for you today” (v. 13). Fear can make
us move out of danger. But sometimes we are so gripped by it that we freeze,
trapped in hopelessness. Moses gets his people to “see” things differently.
Like many of us—parents, pastors, or people responsible for others in a
frightful situation—Moses too has to hear “do not be afraid.” Faith in God
is the answer to pathological fear and anxiety; it is courage (from the French
coeur, heart) in the middle of a problematic situation. That situation might
be Pharaoh’s army or Pilate’s executioners or the emptiness felt after the
crucifixion. In all such cases the word is: take heart in God the deliverer.
God tells Moses to say to the Israelites “go forward” (v. 15), that is, into
the sea! And they did, which shows that they had taken heart (which in this
situation is itself something of a miracle), because the parting of the waves
is not yet known to them. So they do, and the angel of the Lord and the
pillar of cloud move behind them, blocking the Egyptian army from catching
up with the Israelites. Was this an obvious miracle, visible to all, or the
way the Israelites and Moses felt about the situation? We do not know, of
course, but we do know that when someone describes the day a loved one
died as “a dark, cold day,” we are not just getting a weather report.
Moses “stretched out his hand over the sea” (v. 21) and the waters were
driven back, enabling the Israelites to cross “on dry ground” (v. 22). The
Egyptian army rushes into the parted waters; their chariot wheels bog
down, Moses stretches out his hand again, and the waters close upon the
Egyptians. Of the entire army, “not one of them remained” (v. 28). Here
we recall part of the Haggadah for the Passover Seder where the story is
told that the angels laughed at the slaughter of the Egyptians and God
reprimanded them: “My children are dying, and you laugh?!” This story
testifies to the Jewish affirmation of life and blessing for all. Liberation
should not have to be at such a cost.
The story concludes saying that in this way YHWH “saved” Israel
(v. 30) and Israel saw the “great work” (hoshia), a term related to the name
yehoshua, “Joshua” in Hebrew, yeshua (“Jesus”) in Aramaic. The term
means “YHWH saves.”
After these events, “the people feared the LORD and believed in the
LORD and in his servant Moses” (v. 31). Fear of God is not dread, but awe;
it is tensively related to belief, trust; Israel stands in awe of a trustworthy
God. Fear has been transformed.