Charles Gerkin in his book shares the story of Margaret and Robert Algood. This once vibrant and active couple had been suffering with increasing difficulty through a drastically altered life since Robert has suffered a stroke several years ago.
Robert had once been physically active and creative. Robert was now virtually speechless, nearly blind, and unable to get around without physical support. He needed assistance with the most elementary bodily functions and suffered from depression.
Margaret had also had a life that included a job she loved, working in her garden, long daily walks, weekly tennis games, and many extended trips she and Robert use to take together. Now she was reduced to being a twenty-four hour nursing care provider, punctuated by frequent and frantic trips to the hospital, countless doctor visits, overwhelming doctor bills and piles of insurance forms.
Margaret also shares the responsibility for the care of her aging mother with her sister. Recently a set-back in her mother’s health required her attention away from Robert. The result was that Robert became sick and dehydrated and ended up with another hospital stay.
Needless to say, this meant things at home went undone while they basically lived at the hospital. In her sixties, Margaret struggles to mow the lawn that has now become overgrown.
Margaret has questions, agonies weighing down her soul. Was it time to give up the battle of prolonging Robert’s life? Each day the physical burden was growing as her physical and emotional strength grew weaker. How could she possibly continue to care for him? How was she to deal with the exhaustion and the discouragement? What did God want her to do? What would Robert want her to do?
Margaret felt utterly and completely alone and abandoned. Was it wrong for her to feel she just had to get away once in awhile, to be by herself, to do something besides empty bedpans and force fluids?
Margaret felt imprisoned, trapped, enslaved to Robert’s growing needs, and her despair was compounded by the many happy memories she had of her life with Robert.
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Can you identify with Margaret? Can you understand that feeling of being so far down, you can get up? Have you felt that way too?
Thats how it was for the Israelites. In recent days we have explored the beginnings of the Jewish nation and faith as it grew. From Abraham, the father of this nation...to Jacob his grandson who claimed God’s promises as his own...to Joseph who brought the growing family to Egypt. Under Joseph, the family grew. By the time of our story, the Hebrew people had become so numerous, that the king of Egypt felt threatened by the sheer number of them. He enslaved them and put them to forced labor.
Their oppression was severe. They felt abandoned and forgotten. The promises of God seemed so remote and impossible. As they experienced suffering and affliction through humiliation and cruelty, the worthlessness of their lives to the Egyptians became very real.
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The people cried out to God, and God did something incredible for the life of these people - God intervened.
It began with an unexpected event...our Bible story tells us that Moses was shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep in the wilderness near Horeb, in other places and times it is known as Sinai. Moses has come to the mountain of God.
The angel of the Lord appears there to Moses as fire - a bush is on fire, but it is not destroyed as it burns.
It gets Moses’ attention. He comes over to see this marvel, and God speaks to Moses.
God tells Moses he has come to a sacred place. This is a place of transformation, a place of meeting God one on one, just as you are. This is a holy place, where there is the power to change things, to change life.
God tells Moses that he is the same God of Moses ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses knows this God. This God is constant and never-changing. This God fulfills the promises he has made. This God is faithful and just. This God has the power to deliver the Hebrew people, and he has met Moses here with a purpose for Moses and the Hebrews.
Listen to the words of God:
"I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.
So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."
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God knows how bad things have been for the Israelites. God has seen their suffering at the hands of the Egyptians. God has heard their cries of oppression and for deliverance. God is concerned for their welfare, and God has come to rescue them, to deliver them.
Like a parent comes to a child who is hurting, God has come.
God has a plan for the life of Moses and the Hebrew people, but it requires the cooperation of Moses, and the participation of the people of Israel. Moses is called to go to Pharaoh, to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. For their part, the Israelites are called to faithfully follow God through Moses to the land of God’s promise.
God has come to fulfill his promise.
God has come for deliverance and salvation of the Hebrews.
God has come to lead the Israelites out of this land of emptiness and pain to a land of plenty, a rich land, a land of abundance.
And God knows how bad things have been for you, too.
God knows those times you face when you are so down, you can’t get up. He knows how destructive our world has become.
Craig Barnes describes our world this way:
“We are living in a society where confusion and loss have replaced certainty and security. Ours is a day not known for its creativity, but for abandonment of earlier hopes. The promises on which modern society rested - education, progress, reason, the goodness of humanity, the family, science, technology - have all proven to be more limited than we thought. Today everything seems focused on the destruction of this modern world.
“Two out of every three of you here believe our country is in a serious long-term decline economically, morally, and spiritually. We lay awake at night wondering what are we leaving for our children? What are we building for ourselves?
On issue after major issue - crime, the economy, health care, poverty, homelessness - the vast majority of us believe we are losing ground.
Our children will not be able to attain as high a standard of living as we have. The marriage rate has fallen by 25% since 1960, the divorce rate has doubled, and the number of single parent households has tripled.
The two parent household is becoming a fantasy. Too many of us have been abandoned by that dream.
Abandonment has become a permanent social dynamic that is feeding off itself.”
We are a hurting people, crying out in our suffering.
Craig Barnes outlines the tragic ironies we are drowning in.
Living in one of the most peaceful times in history, we feel personal insecurity more acutely than ever. We live in one of the most scientific and technologically advanced societies, yet we act and react more irrationally in personal relationships. We live in one of the most mobile societies, but we find life more inflexible. We live in one of the most liberal and free societies, and find ourselves enslaved to compulsive behavior patterns. We search for acceptance, escape, happiness, by buying and owning more stuff. In one of the wealthiest societies, we are up to our ears in debt.
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Yes God knows how destructive our world has been, and God has done something incredible - God has entered in. Like a parent who comes to a child that is hurting, God has come to say - “I am here.”
Hear these words as God speaks to you and to me:
“I have see your misery.
I have heard your cries for deliverance.
I am concerned for your suffering.
I have come to rescue you.”
He seeks our attention in an unexpected event.
God has sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to heal our wounds, to comfort our suffering, to release us from the captivity of our sin and destruction, to be our Savior, to lead us into the land of God’s promise. Because you see, You are the land of God’s promise.
God has a plan for your life. It requires your cooperation and participation. God asks us to accept Christ as our Savior, to believe in him and to participate in a relationship with him.
God has come to fulfill his promise - his promise of deliverance and salvation in us.
Throughout our lives, God will get our attention in unexpected ways sometimes through disappointment, tragedy and trial; sometimes through unexpected joy and celebration.
We have the opportunity to meet the constant and never - changing God, one on one, on holy ground, where God has the power to transform and change us.
God has a purpose for your life. As Moses, God has mission for you. As we read further into our Bible story, we know what Moses’ answer was. What will your answer be?
