David Bahn – Reflections

Exodus 14:21-25

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. 23 The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 24 And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, 25 clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”

The great salvation event of the Old Testament is the Exodus. From the final plague of the angel of death who passed over the houses and families of the Hebrews who had the blood of the passover lamb on the door posts and lintels of their houses, to the crossing of the Red Sea, the mighty hand of God was unhidden. The deliverance was decisive, clear-cut, and the defining moment of Old Testament history. The people of God looked back on that great deliverance event as testimony to God’s love, power, calling, and their special place in his heart and in the world.

Today, as we remember the horrific attack on the people of the United States in 2001, the Grand Deliverance of God was in a much more far-reaching manner. It didn’t look decisive. It didn’t appear powerful. His Son of God hanging on the cross doesn’t appear decisive, but it was decisive. In that moment the most grave tyranny was defeated. Satan and sin were overcome. And just as the Israelites’ safe passage through the Red Sea, signaled the success of God’s Passover plan, so the resurrection of Jesus shows Jesus to be the fulfillment of all hopes and promises of God. 

As the Israelites looked back on the Passover, so we look back on the cross and empty tomb. We must not only look back, however, at what God has done, but look with anticipation toward the future and ultimate deliverance of all things at the End of Time when Jesus returns and we will experience the fullness of God’s Great Deliverance…shown in the Exodus and centered in Jesus’ death and resurrection.