Exodus and Me

Well, imagine this will you, other people before me have already made all the connections I was ready to make with Exodus! My first hint was in my constant riffling through the early church fathers I came upon The Life of Moses. Next came with the current issue of The Bible Today, the entire edition is devoted to Exodus -- and guess what -- they are developing same themes I thought I was so clever to discover.

The point here is not to denigrate me, but to show that no matter how familiar we think we are with a story, we know nothing until God reveals it to us through Lectio divina and careful study. I used to wonder why do we have to go through this same old story again and again and again, yeah the Red Sea is a kind of baptism, so what? Yeah, the bread from heaven, so what? But now! The so what is replaced by "my Lord and my God."

The rabbis have a story about how when the Egyptian forces were drowning, the Angels were rejoicing, God hushed them saying, "The Egyptians were my children too." That gives a whole different cast to the "rejoicing as their bodies washed up on the shore." It shows how God acts and how we perceive and interpret those acts, and sometimes has nothing at all to do with God's real purpose or intention.

Exodus was written during a violent phase of the history of humanity. You got nowhere and nothing without a serious fight. If your enemies were defeated, well, clearly God did it for you. "The Lord is a mighty warrior, YHWH (Blessed be God's Holy Name) is his name. At least he was in the eyes of the Egyptians and the Israelites.

Avoiding discussions about how our times are violent and we justify victory by saying God is on our side, I want to focus on the spiritual lessons that are daily landing like a 747 in my Lectio. A friend of mine wrote to me after the first Exodus installment and said,

I think Exodus is the story of our souls... We are liberated of all that is not of God and his divine nature ( bondage, sin, fear, traumas... )
to attain the "promised land" which is healing, which is our true nature and identity. "Let my people go, so they can worship me in the
desert..." to me is an allegory to the fact that until we SURRENDER and give up the slavery of depending on everything that is not God
for fullfillment we will not be able to worship Him because we will not understand His love and His power. Also, all that is not of God will
take so much effort and time that will rob us the strength needed for true worship. And yes, we worship Him in the wilderness, when is
hot and ugly. And yes, whining and praising do not mix well.

What more can I add to that?