It's Time to Move On!

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to me?

Tell the Israelites to move on.”

Exodus 14:15

Its one of the most dramatic moments in the Old Testament.  Pharaoh had let the people of Israel go.  Now they were camped by the waters of the Red Sea.  They thought they were free at last.  But then, quite literally their past came back to haunt them.  Pharaoh changed his mind.  The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea…  As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.  Suddenly it seemed to Israel that they would never be able to escape their past.  The enemy that they thought was behind them was pursuing them… They had no place to go.  Behind them were the armies of Egypt.  Ahead of them lay only the Red Sea.  How could they ever escape their past, their slavery in Egypt. 

Does your past ever come back to haunt you?  Do you ever worry that it might?  Do you find yourself plagued by some sinful habit or addiction – alcoholism is one example.  There are other “isms” and addictions.   Maybe you are in recovery.  Maybe you have left it behind.  Yet the temptation is always there.  Like Pharaoh’s armies it pursues you, hoping you will fall again.  Are there thing you have tried to keep hidden in your past… things that you have done, things you don’t want anyone to know about.   I don’t mean to be political but I am pretty sure that President Trump never wanted that recording of his lewd conversation to come out.  Is there anything in your past that you hope no one ever finds out about?    Lies we’ve told are like that.  You tell one lie, then another to cover the first.  Before you know it, your past lies… your first lie comes back to haunt you.  Talk to any family that has been through a divorce. You will learn how the things that led to that divorce keep following them around – in having to still work with other parent as the kids grow up… in the children of divorce who have problems with relationships when they grow up…  The fear of the past can immobilize us. It can stop us from moving forward.    

That’s how it was for Israel, trapped between Pharaoh and the Red Sea.  But then the Lord speaks to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.” How could they move on?  Because our God makes a way where there is no way!  The Angel of the Lord positions Himself between Israel and Pharaoh.  At God’s command Moses lifts his staff.  God parts the waters of the Sea.  The people of Israel walk through on dry ground.  Oh the Egyptians followed them into the sea.  But then Moses lifted his staff again.  “The water flowed back and covered the entire army of Pharaoh… Not one of them survived.”  In those waters of the Red Sea, God washed away their past.  He delivered the Israelites.  He brought Israel through the water and set them on a new shore.   

God has done the same for the whole world.  He has made a way to escape the past where before there was no way.  That way is the cross and empty tomb of His Son Jesus.  Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification.  By His death Jesus paid sin’s debt for the whole world.  By His death He destroyed him who holds the power of death, that is the devil.  He conquered death itself.  Then on Easter morning Jesus rose again.  He reached the far shore… the shore where sin is no longer master… the shore where death has lost its sting… where the enemy greater than Pharaoh –  where Satan has lost all power to threaten us. 

Thus God would say to you and me today, what He once said to Moses.  “It’s time to Move on!”    You need not fear your past any more. God has opened the way to a new shore.  That way leads through the cross and tomb of Jesus.  That path was opened when the angel announced, “He is not here!  He is risen!”  That path became your path at baptism.  There “we died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.   As in the waters of the Red Sea, even so in the waters of Holy Baptism He washes away your past.  He raises you up with Christ… He takes you to a new short – safe and free.  Your past can threaten you no more.  He’s made a way where there was no way.  Now He says to us, “Do not fear.  It’s time to move on!”  For Christ is risen!  And in Him We also are risen indeed!  Amen!