I think I remember first hearing the story of Moses in the bulrushes,
which was our first reading today, when I was in primary school! I
imagine you did, too, most probably. It’s one of the first Bible
stories we ever learn.
It’s an important story, as Moses
was an important person – so important, in fact, that he was one of
those who visited the transfigured Jesus on the mountain-top, along
with Elijah. God made it clear then that it was Jesus who we are to
listen to, Jesus who has superseded both Moses and Elijah, Jesus who
is God’s beloved son.
But Moses, like Jesus, wasn’t born to
greatness. In fact, rather the reverse. The Israelites, at that
time, were living in Egypt – you might recall how they moved down
there at Pharaoh’s invitation, and that of his right-hand man
Joseph. And at first they settled down, and built farms, and lived
their lives according to God’s word as it was then understood, and
all went swimmingly. They grew, and they prospered.
Meanwhile,
however, the Pharaoh grew old, and died, and a few generations later
a new Pharaoh ascended the throne, and this Pharaoh had never heard
of Joseph, and didn’t really want to, either. He was concerned,
because here was this enormous group of people who weren’t Egyptian
at all, living in the middle of Egypt and it was possible –
although not probable – that they could overturn his throne.
Pharaoh wasn’t having that!
So he got together with
his advisors, and they pretty much enslaved the Israelites, demanding
– and getting – forced labour from them to build things and carry
burdens, work in the fields, and so on. They didn’t build the
pyramids – the pyramids existed long before Joseph went to Egypt –
but they did build a couple of towns, Pithon and Rameses. But the
harder the Egyptians forced them to work, the more children they had,
and the more they prospered.
So the Hebrew midwives,
Shiphrah and Puah, were told they must kill any boy baby that was
born to an Israelite woman, although they could let the girls live.
But the midwives were not about to do that, and ignored their
instructions. And when summonsed to explain themselves, they said
blandly that all that work in the fields meant that the women had a
very easy time giving birth, and the babies in question had been born
long before they got there! And the children of Israel became
stronger and stronger and more and more numerous.
So
Pharaoh got very cross indeed, and ordered that all baby boys must be
thrown into the river, there either to drown or to be eaten by
crocodiles, or both. But it still didn’t stop the Israelites.
The
Bible doesn’t give the names of Moses’ parents; they are just
referred to as a Levite man and a Levite woman. This means they were
both descendants of Levi, one of Jacob’s sons. The Levites,
traditionally, end up being the tribe that is responsible for Temple
worship and so on – not the priests, but the worship leaders, if
you like. I don’t know if they had that role back in Egypt, but it
seems significant that Moses should be a Levite.
This
couple had two other children that we know of; a girl called Miriam,
and a boy called Aaron who was a few years older than Moses, so
presumably born before the edict to kill the male babies was made.
And then Moses arrives.
I wonder whether Moses’ mother
knew what she was going to do if she had a boy. I expect she was
praying and praying that it be a girl, and then it wasn’t.
Disaster! What on earth was she going to do? How could she give up
her beloved baby to be killed?
We aren’t told that she
prayed, but I’m sure she did. And she was able to hide the baby
for three months, but babies are not an easy thing to hide, and
eventually she realised she simply couldn’t. But she had been
plotting and preparing. Her baby must go in the river, okay. But
she wasn’t going to let the authorities throw him in – instead,
she would put him in herself, in a basket she had spent time weaving
from rushes, and covering it with pitch so it would be waterproof.
And she took the basket, with Moses in it, down to the
river herself. Her heart must have broken as she placed it tenderly
in the reed-bed. She had done what she could, complying with the
letter of the law, if not the spirit. Only God could help her baby
now.
She didn’t dare hang about to see what would
happen, but her daughter Miriam could lurk discreetly, pretending to
be playing, perhaps.
And what does happen is that
Pharaoh’s daughter comes down to the river to bathe, with all her
attendants. And she hears the baby crying, and sends one of her
women to go and see what the noise is. And the woman brings back the
baby in his basket.
Pharaoh’s daughter – we don’t
know her name, either; the Bible is so bad at giving women names –
is entranced by the baby, and even though he’s obviously a Hebrew
baby, she wants to keep him for her own, as though he were a stray
puppy or kitten. But the baby is getting hungry now, and howling,
and his sister, very bravely, comes up to the women and says “I
know where there’s a wet-nurse, if you want one for the baby!”
The
wet-nurse is, of course, her own mother, who has just that very day
put the baby in the river. And Pharaoh’s daughter says “Ooh, yes
please!” and so the family end up moving into the palace, albeit
into servants’ quarters, and Moses is brought up as befits a royal
child.
There are some obvious parallels with Jesus here,
aren’t there? The humble parents, the oppressed people, the edict
to kill the baby boys. Ironic, perhaps, that Mary and Joseph fled
into Egypt to keep Jesus safe!
Meanwhile, Moses grew up as
a child of the palace, although he obviously did know he had Hebrew
roots, as we learn later in his story. But Jesus, we hope, had a
happy and serene childhood in Nazareth, treated no differently from
other boys his age, playing with his friends, going to school, and
only very gradually learning that he was different and special as he
grew up.
I’m not sure, by the way, whether he knew what
Peter’s answer to the question “Who do you say that I am?” was
going to be, as we heard in our Gospel reading. Did he already know
he was the Messiah? He obviously knew he had a special calling from
God, that he was God’s beloved son – but, the Messiah? Peter’s
answer was very definitely God’s voice to him. Yes, you are the
Messiah. But he asked the disciples not to say anything, as he
didn’t want to be elevated to the status of a political leader,
which is what they had always imagined the Messiah was going to
be.
Moses, as we all know, led his people out of slavery
and to the very boundaries of the Promised Land; Jesus wasn’t about
overthrowing the occupying power, or really anything to do with
politics; he brings us out of slavery in a totally different way –
the slavery of sin, as the Bible calls it.
But Moses’
story has more to teach us than just the parallels with Jesus. It’s
about God’s wonderful provision for his people.
It must
have been so awful for Moses’ mother, mustn’t it? She knew she
had to put her precious baby into the river; he could be – and
probably would be – swept away and drowned, or eaten by crocodiles,
or both. But she was also placing him into God’s hands, and God
wasn’t going to let him be swept away or eaten. God saw to it that
it was just at that precise moment that Pharaoh’s daughter and her
attendants came down to bathe. And just at that precise moment that
the baby woke up hungry.
And so Moses was saved from the
crocodiles, and grew up a child of the palace.
Jesus, too,
was saved from the edict that all baby boys be killed; his parents
listened to the angel who warned them, and took him to Egypt, where
they stayed until that Herod died, and then resettled in Nazareth,
where Jesus grew up as a normal village child.
I wonder
how God provides for you and me? We are probably not going to be
leaders of our people, but we are still God’s beloved children.
And St Paul reminds us that “God will meet all your needs according
to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus”.
We didn’t
read the passage from Paul’s letters set for today, as it would
have made the service too long, but it was that bit from the letter
to the Romans where Paul reminds us that although we are one body in
Christ, we are all different, and God has given us all different
gifts, which we should not be shy about using.
I am sure
that almost all of us, looking back, can see times when God provided
for us – I know I can, several times, over the course of my life.
Sometimes it was using decisions I made; other times it was the right
person in the right place at the right time, and so on. And I expect
– although I don’t actually know and don’t especially want to
know – there have been times when I’ve been the right person in
the right place at the right time. And I’m sure there have been
times when you have, too.
Pharoah’s daughter was in the
right place at the right time. So, of course, was Simon Peter, to
tell Jesus that “You are the Messiah, the holy one of God!” I
pray that all of us may be the right person in the right place at the
right time – and I think I pray that we’ll never know it, as then
we might think it was we who did it, not God! Amen.
