Chapter 15 of Exodus is a beautiful song of deliverance to God for how He brought the Hebrews out of Egypt. The song was well-intended and well-deserved. The people had gone from a state of fear ("It's better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!" Exodus 14:12) to rejoicing at God's deliverance from the Egyptian army ("I will sing to the Lord for he has hurled both horse and rider into the sea." Exodus 15:1). They felt hopeless in the first verse and felt joyful in the second verse. It is what happens when we live and react out of feelings, but that is a story for another day.
In his song of deliverance, Moses and the people sing to the Lord. That heartens me as I think of the work done in our music to reflect Scripture, point to God and sing about our own hope of deliverance. The Hebrews are right, though. God delivers His people from the enemy in very unexpected ways. The story of the Egyptians being drowned in the Red Sea is just one of many stories where God keeps and affirms His promise to the people.
In the first service this Sunday, we will introduce and teach a new song that has only been written for a few months. It is a call to all of us to be vigilant, persistent and passionate about one of our most important tasks. The name of the song is We Bear Witness and it reflects God's requirement of His disciples to be witnesses of the truth of God's word, the certainty of God's promises and the timelessness of God's plan. The chorus of the song is "pass the promise to our sons and daughters, God most high, God our Father, we bear witness." The song is all about the nature of God, the hope we have in Him and the need to pass our faith on to our children, our families and our acquaintances. It is a song about God's power to deliver us from the enemies we face.
When I read Moses' song I was taken by two thoughts. First, how the people and Moses come together and sing praises. The song reminded me how we Methodists sing our faith and our theology in the midst of living life in this wilderness we call the world. We follow and worship a God that (and we can sing about this) has overcome the world and has already established our victory over our enemies. The end of Moses' song says, "The leaders of Edom are terrified; the nobles of Moab tremble; all who live in Canaan melt away. ((Exodus 15:15)" It reminds me that 1 Samuel 17:47 is right ... "all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the Battle is the Lord's and He will give you (the enemy) into our hands." We know this in our heads ... but do we know this deep down in our hearts?
My second thought is that the song of the people didn't match the practiced faith of the people. As often happens, they/we are emotional about faith, but when it comes to practice we let fear, doubt and other priorities sidetrack us. When the people saw the giants in Canaan, they balked. When the people saw the harshness of the wilderness, they longed for Egypt. When the people got hungry, they complained.
Our lesson? When we pass the promise to our sons and daughters, let's make sure we pass the song and the witness. For our witness affirms that we really believe those lofty words we are singing. When we sing what we believe, we follow the song with practice! I wonder what the sons and daughters of the Hebrews believed when they saw the adult singers standing at the Jordan river, afraid to cross into a place they spoke about then they said ... "You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain - the place, O Lord, that Your hands have established. ((Exodus 15:17)." What say we make our lesson better, more faithful and more true by passing the promise AND bearing witness! That's my take ... read Exodus 15:1-18 and give me yours! Randy
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