Thursday, September 1, 2011

Ex. 14:19-31, 15:1-11, 20-1

1) Both leader and rear guard is the presence of god here. That is a great preaching image, I think, also a good spiritual image.

2) waters are a mythic threat here that also become the means of escape and reversed threat. Look through this material and it seems to me we have lots of mythic religious material at play. I tend to see the sea as a symbol for death, uncertainty, fear. I personally don;t have any patience with interpretations that try to make natural sense of miracle, but many give it a go, especially by making the sea a puddle.

3) first appearance of the word, save, deliver, and it is the root for Joshua and of course Jesus

4) sight of the Egyptians leads to spiritual insight of the hand of God at work.Once again physical the gateway to the spiritual.

5) fear is a powerful obstacle here, as great as the water and the Egyptians perhaps. that too is a good theme for preaching and spiritual insight. Liberation had to be intra-psychic as well as physical release. As we saw in Shawshank Redemption, we are tempted to carry the prison with us, even when the jail doors are opened.

6) I love that we have the words of the sister of Moses, Miriam here, even if it is eclipsed by a longer speech this is poetry or song, sung speech, maybe even prayed twice as Augustine said of hymns.some think that her words are most ancient maybe even going back to the events.

7) Here it seems to me that the host is not only heavenly power but all of nature’s forces arrayed against Pharaoh.

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