David Bahn – Reflections

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These devotions are part of the Follow the Word Bible reading program at St. John Lutheran Church in Cypress, Texas. This year we are reading through the Scriptures together, listening for how God speaks through his Word day by day. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Today’s readings are Exodus 14-16; Psalm 48.

Exodus 14:26-31

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” ²⁷ So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. ²⁸ The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. ²⁹ But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

³⁰ Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. ³¹ Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

In Exodus 14–16, the Israelites are delivered from Egypt as the Lord parts the Red Sea, allowing them to cross on dry ground while the pursuing Egyptian army is overwhelmed and drowned. After their rescue, they sing a song of praise led by Moses and Miriam, but soon encounter hardship in the wilderness when they find bitter water at Marah, which the Lord makes drinkable. As hunger sets in, the people grumble again, and the Lord provides manna from heaven each morning and quail in the evening, instructing them to gather only what is needed each day, with a double portion on the sixth day in preparation for the Sabbath, thus sustaining them throughout their journey.

Every step along the way of the Exodus is filled with God’s steadfast love in the face of Israel’s fear and doubt.

They complain at the first sign of trouble, and say to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” Then again when they arrive at Marah they can’t drink the water. “And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” Further along their trek, “the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and God and say, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” There will be more grumbling. They will long for the leeks of Egypt. They will fashion an idol and worship it. But the passage ends with this amazing comment: “The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan” (Exodus 16:35).

We dare not deliberately test the patience and kindness of God. But how often do we lose sight of his faithfulness? How often do we take his steadfast love for granted? How often do we enslave ourselves again in habits and patterns of doubt and faithlessness?

Thank God his grace is greater than our sin. Thank God is love is steadfast. Thank God that he showed it thousands of years ago in the Exodus, and most decisively in the cross and empty tomb of Jesus. He loves us so much!