The book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible is a sobering look at the difficulty in bringing about peace. Starting with a new king, to heading into the wilderness, nothing is easy for these ancient people.
And here we are over 2,000 years later still seeking peace. Maybe walking humbly alongside them in their struggles, we can see more clearly our own.
What Exodus shows is needed to bring peace
The Bible reminds us of this simple truth. What one sees and hears changes the possibility of peace. Whether ruler or minion, God or mortal. And Exodus, the first story in the Bible about empire, is a master class.
There is a new king in Egypt as the book of Exodus opens. And the first thing he does is to tell the Egyptians to see.
“Look, [says the king to the Egyptians], the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.” Exodus 1:8
And this is where the story begins. Not with the miracles or the plagues but with the simple choices we make about what we hear and see.
Pharaoh tells the Egyptians to see a threat by focusing their sight on the Israelites’ growing numbers. And immediately the Egyptians “set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor.”
There is fear and violence, not peace.
Close your eyes and block your ears
Bringing peace to Egypt will elude the pharaoh. Hope is lost. Fear and violence grow.
But the Lord, hidden from sight, has heard and seen. And the Lord says to Moses,
“The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.” Exodus 3:9
As the story unfolds, you will see what happens when rulers do not rule wisely. Their eyes and ears blocked by the fear of losing power, or, trying to gain it. You will see how difficult it is for their subjects to see and hear for themselves.
You will also see the Israelite people turn to an unseen power as they sink lower into powerlessness.
For when you are powerless, miracles and signs that a force unseen is on your side corrects that imbalance of power.* It makes visible the power of the unseen for those who plug their ears and shut their eyes to reality.
Miracles and signs are utilitarian, amazingly, in order that all God’s people are at the table. Pharaoh and slave.
Bringing peace is a journey in Exodus
I did not expect Exodus to so richly tell of bringing peace through the simple acts of seeing and hearing. Nor did I expect to see miracles in a new way. There is so much to experience here. But it needs to be an experience shared.
Only when people with different world views sit down to speak of what we see and hear can peace come. So come, grab a group of friends to journey through this story of Exodus. You will travel a lot of ground, politically, personally and theologically. So, when you finish Chapter 15, rest for a while. As did the Israelites. For this is still the beginning for those ancients and we moderns. The road to peace is long.
First though, remember, as the Israelites remembered, of what must happen to bring peace. To listen carefully to the voice of the Lord and do what is right in the Lord’s sight. “For I am the Lord who heals you.”
In the last verse of the fifteenth chapter of Exodus, we are reminded of the universal desire for peace. We catch a glimpse of the garden in Eden.
Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the water. Exodus 15:27
We too will catch glimpses of peace, even if briefly before journeying on, when we turn to look towards it together.
Peace be with you.
*A loving shout out to a faithful book group discussing Yangsze Choo’s book, The Fox Wife, and the author’s thoughts on writing it. Thank you all for helping me see.
Postscript: Bringing hope for peace
Check out More Perfect, a non-profit partnership formed as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
It may bring you hope. It did me. Here is their statement.
“At a moment marked by dysfunction and division, More Perfect – a campaign to align America around a shared vision for democratic renewal – is our reminder that our finest moments come when we set big, bold, long-term goals that capture our imagination and then rally across our differences to achieve them.”
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