Sermon Tone Analysis

Hoping in Anticipation

I’m a fairly big baseball fan and Rangers fan.

Now my fandom has calmed down in recent years, not because I don’t care but because I’ve decided that there’s nothing about any sport so important as to allow its outcome to ruin my day.

Now I learned this the hard way- and there was one of those miniature souvenir wooden baseball bats that died an unfortunate death on our living room floor after Nelson Cruz allowed a catch-able baseball to go over his head, costing the rangers a world series- but i digress.

I think that’s one of the things that I love about sports though, one of the things that makes being a fan of a team so enticing is that, no matter what has happened before, each season is a new season, each game is a new game, each play is a new play, and at any given moment, anything can happen.

And we’re at that unique time of year as football kicks off that that hope is still there for fans everywhere- beit OU, OSU, or Texas- wait- maybe just the first two, and now I’m going to go cry into my pillow.

I think that’s one of the reasons when I played baseball I enjoyed pitching so much- the anticipation that existed between each throw, the hope that I could get that leather-and-thread sphere to go where I wanted it to go and move how I wanted it to move- that excited me and still does.

Sometimes though as a sports fan, as much as you want to, its hard to hope.

I got the chance while I was in East Texas to coach a junior high baseball team for a private school.

And to say that we were terrible that first year doesn’t even come close to describing it.

We had 5th graders on the team to have enough and we got lost every game- didn’t win a game that whole season.

Let me rephrase- we got demolished every single game.

Our leadoff hitter was our leadoff hitter not because he could hit but because his 5th grade frame was so tiny pitchers could hit his strike zone consistently.

He couldn’t hit a ball to save his life, had strict instructions not to swing until the count went full, but he got on base which automatically made him a better option than all but two other players who we had to bat after him just so we had a prayer at getting a run in- which happened only very occasionally.

And we had two decent pitchers, but no defense, so any ball in play was a base hit- minimum.

The number of soft singles that became in the park home runs because of errors we gave up that season would have been comic if it weren’t so disheartening.

It wasn’t very far into the season before kids didn’t want to play, didn’t get excited for games, and started talking about quitting.

When you experience defeat over and over and over, it starts to tear you down.

Waiting for Freedom

Waiting for Freedom

We’re jumping forward from last week to this week several chapters, but its not because the intervening chapters are unimportant.

Between last week’s calling of Moses and this week’s Passover sit 8 chapters where Moses continues to fight against God’s call, ultimately accepts his role with his siblings’ help, fights with the Pharaoh, argues with the leaders of the people of Israel, performs numerous signs , and then God begins laying down plagues on the land of Egypt.

Insects and critters and blood, oh my, and yet after 9 plagues, after several times of Moses asking Pharoah to allow the people to go to the desert and worship, after Pharoah coming close to letting them only to change his mind, we reach today’s text.

And I want to take a moment to point out that Moses isn’t asking Pharoah to let the Hebrew people Go free forever.

What Pharoah is rejecting is a 3 day weekend for the Hebrew people to go and worship God in the desert.

And yet Pharoah refuses to allow it.

And the plagues are more than just inconveniences for the Egyptian people- swarms of insects destroy crops, skin is covered in painful rashes and boils, animals and people are killed as hail falls from the sky- these are painfully costly experiences for the Egyptian people and yet each time, as soon as the threat of disaster is over, as soon as the plague is withdrawn, Pharoah reasserts his desire to dominate the Hebrew people and keep them under his thumb.

I try to imagine what it would be like to be a Hebrew slave taking all of this in.

You’ve been crying out for rescue for years and years- those cries to God started before you were born and have been going your whole life and during that time your work conditions have only gotten worse.

And then Moses shows up, someone who says God has heard your cries and is about to rescue you.

And this Moses knows God’s name, God’s identity, and is able to speak powerfully and perform signs in front of Pharoah and you get excited, right?

Except that it begins to feel as if every time he goes in front of pharoah, your life gets worse- pharoah makes your work harder, your slave drivers become even more forceful, and the God who has heard your cries, who you’ve been told has come to rescue, still seems far away.

If you’re one of the Hebrew slaves during this time, you are stuck between pain and hope- the misery of your everyday life and the hope that God has come.

And I wonder what it would have been like each time Pharoah tells Moses, “ok, Go worship” only to change his mind.

Does word spread?

To people hear they’re about to get to go worship God freely only to have those hopes dashed when Pharoah changes his mind.

How frustrating would it be to keep getting your hopes up only to have them dashed time after time after time.

So 9 plagues down by the time we get to chapter 12, which means there’ still one, the final one coming.

But before this one, the Hebrew people are given specific instructions.

They are being required to visibly place all their hope in a God who has been denied by a pharaoh now over and over again.

3 Tell the whole Israelite community: On the tenth day of this month they must take a lamb for each household, a lamb per house.

4 If a household is too small for a lamb, it should share one with a neighbor nearby.

You should divide the lamb in proportion to the number of people who will be eating it.

5 Your lamb should be a flawless year-old male.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

6 You should keep close watch over it until the fourteenth day of this month.

At twilight on that day, the whole assembled Israelite community should slaughter their lambs.

7 They should take some of the blood and smear it on the two doorposts and on the beam over the door of the houses in which they are eating.

8 That same night they should eat the meat roasted over the fire.

They should eat it along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

9 Don’t eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over fire with its head, legs, and internal organs.

10 Don’t let any of it remain until morning, and burn any of it left over in the morning.

11 This is how you should eat it.

You should be dressed, with your sandals on your feet and your walking stick in your hand.

You should eat the meal in a hurry.

It is the Passover of the LORD.

12 I’ll pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I’ll strike down every oldest child in the land of Egypt, both humans and animals.

I’ll impose judgments on all the gods of Egypt.

I am the LORD.

13 The blood will be your sign on the houses where you live.

Whenever I see the blood, I’ll pass over you.

No plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

Tell the whole Israelite community: On the tenth day of this month they must take a lamb for each household, a lamb per house.

4 If a household is too small for a lamb, it should share one with a neighbor nearby.

You should divide the lamb in proportion to the number of people who will be eating it.

5 Your lamb should be a flawless year-old male.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

6 You should keep close watch over it until the fourteenth day of this month.

At twilight on that day, the whole assembled Israelite community should slaughter their lambs.

7 They should take some of the blood and smear it on the two doorposts and on the beam over the door of the houses in which they are eating.

8 That same night they should eat the meat roasted over the fire.

They should eat it along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

9 Don’t eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over fire with its head, legs, and internal organs.

10 Don’t let any of it remain until morning, and burn any of it left over in the morning.

11 This is how you should eat it.

You should be dressed, with your sandals on your feet and your walking stick in your hand.

You should eat the meal in a hurry.

It is the Passover of the LORD.

12 I’ll pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I’ll strike down every oldest child in the land of Egypt, both humans and animals.

I’ll impose judgments on all the gods of Egypt.

I am the LORD.

13 The blood will be your sign on the houses where you live.

Whenever I see the blood, I’ll pass over you.

No plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

Common English Bible (Nashville, TN: Common English Bible, 2011), .

So 9 times the people get their hopes up.

9 times Moses goes before pharaoh seeking the freedom to worship God uninhibited.

9 times they come away empty.

At some point hope becomes unwarranted right?

And this time, after this ongoing cycle of disappointment, Moses is asking them to invest even more, to hope more fully in their coming release- the very thing that has resulted in their disappointment up until this point.

But they are being instructed to act on hope.

They haven’t seen this freedom that they’re being promised.

They haven’t seen God overcome pharoah.

They’re essentially being told to act as if they are free before the chains have come off.

How do you do that when your experience up until this point is has told you that you have no reason to expect things to be different?

There are a few things I think worth noting in this passage

They are being called to act from a belief that God will act and act soon.

Even though they have had decades, perhaps centuries, of feeling as if God hasn’t acted, and even though they have seen Pharoah dictate their freedom in the face of God now 9 times, they are being asked to function as if the rescue of God is a guarantee, and the price tag for disbelief is high.

They have to act out their faith that God will save them.

They offer a sacrifice, their very best livestock, to God in worship and thanksgiving for acts God has not yet carried out.