We’ve skipped over centuries of history from last Sunday to now, from Joseph bringing his family to Egypt because of the famine, to the enslavement of the Israelite people by the Egyptians. More than 400 years has passed as the Egyptians progressively made Israel’s sons and daughters lives more miserable with brickmaking and fieldwork. Egypt’s Pharoah has tried to weaken the Israelites, ordering midwives to kill the sons of Israel’s women. Instead, the enslaved people have multiplied, causing the Pharaoh to fear the Israelites will side with one of Egypt’s enemies. The stage is set for something inconceivable to happen, for God to use this occasion to keep a promise.
Promises. Do you remember a time growing up when someone important to you made a promise and kept it? Maybe it was that day, but maybe it was a promise that took months or even years to keep. Or maybe a time when someone broke their promise. You remember those moments. People expect people to keep their promises.
I remember when Mike and I first moved to Arizona. It was 34 years ago today – I remember, as it was my 23rd birthday. We had driven straight through from Wisconsin, through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and finally, through New Mexico. Almost there. The sun was just coming up as we came over a rise on Interstate 40, and the horizon was FILLED with hot-air balloons. We turned on a local station to discover it was an annual event, the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival. Mike promised me that some year, we would come back and celebrate my birthday there, on the ground, surrounded with the colorful spectacle of thousands of balloons lifting off around us.
Working here in Cottonwood for the Verde Independent, my job was especially busy in the fall months, with schools and sports stories galore – we never could get away. It wasn’t until 2008 that we finally spent the weekend there, viewing the mass ascension, the balloon glows, and meeting up with a former co-worker who had moved there. Not only was it wonderful beyond our imagination, but because it didn’t happen immediately, our son was able to share it.
Promises kept are an important part of relationship building.
Imagine being an Israelite family in Egypt. As long as anyone could remember, they had been in bondage to Egypt. Despair had set in, and God’s promises to make Abraham’s children a great nation mocked them. How great was this? Their songs and stories in worship tasted bitter and empty.
But finally, God lifted up Moses to deliver them. Plague after plague, hope returned. Maybe this would be the one. Soon, Pharoah tired of the plagues. “Fine – you want to play games, I’ll keep you too busy to play games. Gather your own straw for the bricks. But keep producing the same amount.” Pharoah expected the Israelites would turn on Moses. But God was ready to keep God’s promise.
Moses gave the people God’s instructions: prepare your homes and families. Select an appropriate lamb to sacrifice, mark your doorposts, pack your things. Prepare your bread – but don’t expect to have time for yeast to rise. We need to be ready to move. It’s finally time for the Lord to deliver us.
And when the Egyptian first-borns died and the Israelite households were passed over, the Pharoah told them to go. Go! Now, before your God strikes more of us dead! Leave, now! And prepared by God’s instructions, they were ready. They were on the move before Pharoah changed his mind. Finally, God had kept God’s promise.
But were God’s people ready to live into that promise of being God’s freed people? The story of the next 40 years looked nothing like a grateful people who trusted in God’s promises to keep providing for them. Time and time again, God’s people turned away, ready to turn back to Egypt and worship idols rather than trust in God’s provision. Over and over, Moses reminded them of how God delivered them, how God provided manna and quail and water when they needed it. Every year, they took time to remember the Passover, when God passed over their homes, struck down the Egyptian’s will, and allowed them to escape bondage. When God kept a promise that they would be God’s own chosen people.
It would be a few more generations before Joshua led them into the promised land, their own land where they could live, multiply and prosper. Even then, God’s people would fail to trust, over and over, and would fall back into bondage. It was centuries later, during a period of Roman occupation, that God again kept God’s promise … this time, the promise of a long-awaited Messiah.
On that night in the upper room, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. The Passover Seder is a time when Jewish families remember God’s great faithfulness. In the centuries old tradition, Jesus reminded them of God’s promises – promises kept, from the matzah bread, the bitter herbs, the lamb. And then after supper, Jesus changed the script. He gave his disciples his own promise. As he held up that third cup of wine, the cup of redemption, he told the disciples that HE was the fulfillment of that promise, the new covenant that through his life, death and resurrection, they would be God’s people forever. And again, that word. “Remember” – Do this to remember me.
Jesus already had made them promises. He told them that he was going to prepare a place. He shared that he was going to die, but on the third day, he would overcome death. And on this last night together, he made them another promise, that he was going to bridge the chasm between them and God for all time. God’s grace was enough, and God’s kingdom was theirs.
In these days of uncertainty, perhaps promises don’t ring true to you. Maybe you’ve been hurt too often by family, friends, employers, politicians -- the world in general. 2020 has been a difficult year. Our faith in promises is shaken. The pandemic numbers keep rising. Nothing we hear sounds trustworthy. Let me assure you: you’re not wrong. The world’s guarantees have never been anything but empty words, shifting sand under our feet. In this time of hopelessness, we need to grasp God’s promises tighter than ever.
On most Sundays, we would remember God’s new covenant again in our Lord’s Supper. Today, instead, I invite you to meditate on all of God’s promises, promises we make in the confession, the creed, in our prayers, in our hymns. And next week, when you join together with Pastor Sharon in the feast, listen to the words and REMEMBER how you fit into God’s story – promises of God’s faithfulness, from the beginning, to now, and to the end of time. In that you CAN trust.
Amen.
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