D-Day: Defiance, Despair, Deliverance Series

On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily fortified French coastline to begin the fight for regaining control of northern Europe from Nazi Germany. This event is called…“D-Day.” Do you know why it’s called that? Answers commonly offered are: Designated Day; Decision Day; Departed Date; Doomsday; and even Death Day because over 4,000 Allied troops were killed in this military offensive. Experts, however, don’t agree on the meaning of the word “D-Day.”

So let me offer this meaning—not as it applies to the 1944 offensive along the coast of Normandy—but as it applies to a divine rescue operation 3,500 years ago in Egypt. As we come to the half-way point of our sermon series “Moses: Made for More,” we’ll see that the Israelite crossing of the Red Sea was a D-Day, that is, it was a day of defiance, despair, and deliverance. As we study the events of this D-Day, we’ll learn how the true God is a warrior who fights in unconventional ways to bring his people safely through every challenge. (Read selected verses from text.)

Last week we heard how, with the Tenth Plague and the killing of the firstborns, God knocked the Israelites loose from Egypt, like an icicle you might tap free from an overhang. The Israelite exodus, however, wasn’t a chaotic affair, like an icicle falling to the pavement and shattering into hundreds of pieces. No, the sacred text tells us that Israel “left Egypt in battle formation.” (Ex. 13:18 – HCSB) The Israelites even took with them the bones of Joseph, who had died some 400 years earlier. This was in accordance with Joseph’s request which highlighted his faith that God would one day bring the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. When that happened, Joseph wanted to be along for the ride (Ex. 13:19). So this was no funeral procession for Joseph, it was a march of triumph—as is the trip to the cemetery for every person who dies believing in Jesus! God will not abandon us there to simply rot and decay. He will raise our bodies and bring us to the heavenly Promised Land, even if it takes 400 years or more.

At first, everything went smoothly for the newly-released Israelites. And why shouldn’t it? God himself was leading the way by appearing as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex. 13:21-22). He directed the Israelites away from the shortest route to the Promised Land because it would have taken them past Egyptian garrisons and later in conflict with the Philistines (Ex. 13:17). God’s people weren’t ready for that kind of military action. But the Israelites must have been puzzled when the pillar of cloud and fire had them retrace their steps, as if they were confused and lost in the wilderness, which is exactly what Pharaoh surmised (Ex. 14:3). But God was no absent-minded shopper who picks up a gallon of milk and gets all the way to the checkout before remembering that he was supposed to buy half-and-half as well and so has to retrace his steps. God was baiting Pharoah. He was enticing that tyrant to chase after the Israelites. God also had in mind a specific place for the final showdown with Pharaoh: directly opposite Baal Zephon (Ex. 14:2).

In the 40 years that Israel would tramp across the wilderness, this is the only time we know of that God specified in words where he wanted his people to camp (though God had prophesied that Moses would return to Mt. Sinai with the Israelites – Ex. 3:12). Why might that be? Do you remember how in a previous sermon we learned that with each one of the plagues God humiliated a different Egyptian deity? In the first plague, for example, God derided the Egyptian belief that the Nile River was the lifeblood of the fertility god Osiris. “You want blood?” God seemed to mock. “Here you go!” And with the flick of a wrist, the water of the Nile turned to real blood when Aaron slapped the river with his staff. Now, by having the Israelites camp directly opposite Baal Zephon, God was taking aim at the then-patron deity of Egypt. Pharaoh believed that Baal Zephon (Baal of the north) was a storm god who controlled all waterways, including the waters of the Red Sea over which the Baal Zephon temple complex looked. Rather than running away from Pharaoh’s power, God was having the Israelites run right to it and through it to prove once and for all who was boss. This indeed was a D-Day, a day of defiance on God’s part against Pharaoh’s arrogance.

But it was also a day of defiance by Pharoah. Sure, he had told the Israelites to leave Egypt, but he now decided that he would like to have those slaves back. So he called out his elite troops, the Egyptian version of the US Army Rangers, who were equipped with 600 iron chariots, the battle tanks of the day. Together with regular army units who were also equipped with chariots, Pharoah pursued the Israelites. Where did the Egyptians catch up with their former slaves? Directly opposite Baal Zephon. Things looked great for Pharoah. Not only had he trapped the Israelites on the lip of the Red Sea, he also enjoyed homecourt advantage with his patron god, Baal Zephon, looking on. “How could the god of the ghetto (the Israelite slaves’ god) thwart the god of the empire (Pharaoh’s god)?” (Justin Bailey) Rounding up the runaway slaves would be as easy as picking up shells along the beach!