For freedom Christ has set us free
The Lord is my strength and my might;
And he has become my salvation. Exodus 15:2
Read Exodus 14:21—31
This is Israel’s big one, its grand miracle, the story of deliverance, the release from the burden of slavery and oppression under a foreign power, its liberty. It’s Israel’s freedom to be the people of God, to follow where God will lead, into the Promised Land. It’s the forerunner of Jesus passing through the waters of baptism. The forerunner, breaking the power of slavery, oppression and death as it does, the forerunner of Jesus’ resurrection. The forerunner of my own baptism. Of my own deliverance to walk in newness of life. One thing I could especially focus on as I read this tonight: part of the deliverance is that God put his angel and cloud between Israel and Egypt. This whole story, if I let God address me through it, is an invitation — no, it is a directive — to not go back. To not go back on the freedom God has won for me.
Lord, you have triumphed gloriously. You declare, ‘For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.’[1] I have a past. You know it. I have shames I could return to if I chose to. Block my way. Put your intervening angel between. That part is all dead and buried with Christ’s death.[2] You hold my future: good works, good, good ways for me to walk in.[3] I will be doing the most ordinary things tomorrow, and, when I remember this, I will find them anything but ordinary. I have a wonderful promised land to explore. So I finish this day with an expectant hope for tomorrow.
[1]Galatians 5:1
[2]Romans 6:6
[3]Ephesians 2:8—10