Tuesday, Ordinary 21, Proper 16, Aug 26

Israel in Egypt

(1867 painting by Edward Poynter); Wikipedia CCL

Meditation

Tuesday, Ordinary 21, Proper 16 skipped forward to a fully grown Moses, a prince of Egypt out on a walk. He saw a man—one of his own Hebrew people—being abused and beaten by an Egyptian. He stepped up to fight on their behalf and ended up killing the soldier and burying his body in the sand.

The next day, while walking again, he encountered the same guy he saved fighting with another. He asked why they were hurting each other. They turned on Moses and accused him of interfering, asking who made him their prince to rule over them. Furthermore, they asked if he was going to kill them like he had the Egyptian the day before.

This made him afraid and he rightly deduced that if the word was out, Pharaoh would learn of it and he would be in trouble. Moses fled Egypt before Pharaoh could kill him and ended up across the Sinai Peninsula in the Arabian Peninsula. He encountered the daughters of a Midian priest at the local well.

The New Testament lesson in Romans addressed the sovereignty of God—which had been a pervasive theme through the story of Joseph and his rise in Egypt to a young Moses who will be a new leader for the subsequent generations of the Hebrews.

Paul noted that no one can understand all the aspects of the mind of God. Believers could study as much as they could, but the mind of God was not always clear. After all, Joseph spent so many years with his life in the pits (literally and figuratively)…only to be catapulted to become Governor of Egypt. My mom had an expression, “Who’d have thunk it?” when things didn’t make sense.

The mind of God wasn’t and isn’t always easy to understand, because sometimes believers and uon-believers don’t ‘get it.’ But the past taught that the work of God worked things together for the good of people.

The Psalmist concurred.

8 O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

David would look at the heavens and it would bring the awe out in him. How could the creator who set in motion the stars in the heavens be interested in human beings? Believers can see glimpses of the mind of God, but we don’t see clearly yet.