Contributed by Brett Ahern
When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, God offered to Passover the sin of Egypt and the sin of Israel.
Hundreds of years before, Israel was invited into Egypt as an honored guest, because of Joseph’s good work. As Israel increased in numbers Egypt grew phobicly fearful and thought Israel would side with their enemies in a someday war. They enslaved them, tried killing off their males at birth, and tried to destroy the nation’s identity in one generation.
But Israel resisted and found ways to keep their babies alive. God said, “Amen,” to this act of righteous rebellion with Moses’ birth, pulled right out of the river he was supposed to die in; an Israelite child miraculously raised in Pharaoh’s house. While Moses grew up with an Egyptian identity, as a man he chose to side with his people Israel and was chased out of the land.
But God had a plan. He brought Moses back to Egypt 40 years later. God offered to heal the broken relationship between the two peoples. He told Egypt to let His people go. They needed to travel three days into the wilderness, all their people and animals, to worship the way God would instruct them.
Egypt mocked and resisted, God responded with plagues, and everyone learned God was serious. Then Egypt tried to negotiate, maintaining Israel’s owned-as-slaves identity; instead of letting them be a people with their God, freely worshiping.
God resisted Egypt’s stubbornness with more plagues. With the 9th plague, God plunged the land into utter darkness for three days. Unable to see their own hands in front of their faces, they had to sit, wait and consider what had transpired since God’s request weeks earlier. How should we respond to God’s request now?
Then the judgement plague was issued. The firstborn of every family in the land, people and animals, would die, Egyptian and Israelite.
Identity is irrelevant when it comes to judgement. Judgement looks at a deeper level of life, deeper than actions, addressing the sin nature that keeps rising and poisoning our lives. It culminates in that first birthed resource of our strength, maturing into our hope; that we mistake for the needed Messiah, relying on it as if it can handle all of life’s challenging issues.
We see sin differently than God does. After all, we had a good reason for it. It made sense at the time. But after those choices, we see more than we understood before. We see why standards matter, why we needed God’s wisdom at that point in time, and why it takes a personal relationship with God to trust His care for us. He wants to help us obey His wisdom standards, no matter what we see and fear in our world. His world is so much bigger than we can imagine! Fear doesn’t work here. We can’t live under the influence of fear, phobic about what others might do, enslaving them to our desperate point of view. We have to release them to walk with God and worship Him as He directs.
You would think after all Israel went through as the recipients of this abuse and God’s restorative rescue, they understood and gladly chose to live the faith life. When they left Egypt, they spent three months walking under God’s guidance, provision and protection. They reached Mt. Sinai, made an agreement with Him, and built the Tent of Meeting. The core of our existence is living with the integrity that allows us to meet with Him.
They left Mt. Sinai after 9 months, on their way to live in God’s Promises, in God’s Promised Land. And the first test they ran into, they failed. Nine months of building a new life and it turned out stillborn. This showed humanity sin-nature is more powerful than we can handle. We need a new Passover, one that resurrects the dead, enslaved spirit out of the self-centered life. A Passover that enables us to pass through the baptism that makes us born again for the love-centered life. This life lives in God’s kingdom, at liberty to walk in all of God’s Promises.
Have you made this decision yet? Or are you still reinforcing lies, resisting your integrity’s attempt to get you to come clean? Will you end up stillborn or born again? Will you let his Spirit inside? Only you can decide.