I invite you to connect with the voices of the Bible. Today we’re listening to the most famous rescue in the Old Testament, the crossing of the sea, in the book of Exodus. And to a command in the middle of it that sounds like the opposite of faith.
Exodus is the book of the going out. It tells how God brought a nation of slaves out of Egypt after four hundred years. By chapter 14 they are out. Free, days into it, camped near the water. And then the story turns.
Listen to what happens: “When Egypt’s king was told that the people had run away, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about the people. They said, ‘What have we done, letting Israel go free from their slavery to us?’” He sends six hundred elite chariots after them. Freedom, it turns out, is not something you get granted once and then keep without trouble. The thing they came out of comes looking for them.
Now watch the people. “The Israelites looked back and saw the Egyptians marching toward them. The Israelites were terrified and cried out to the Lord.” Notice those two things sit in one sentence. Terrified, and crying out. Not calm first, then prayerful. The fear and the prayer arrive in the same breath, which is worth remembering the next time you think you need better words before you pray.
And then they turn on Moses, and Exodus does not clean it up: “Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt that you took us away to die in the desert?” And this, which is the hardest line in the chapter: “Leave us alone! Let us work for the Egyptians!” These are people who were slaves, days into freedom, asking to go back. It’s easy to hear weakness there. I don’t think it is. Slavery at least had a shape. You knew what every day would cost you. Freedom was unmarked country, and the desert ahead looked a great deal like dying. Familiar suffering can feel safer than unfamiliar hope. Most of us know something about that.
Then Moses answers, and his answer is strange: “Don’t be afraid. Stand your ground, and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Lord will fight for you. You just keep still.”
Stand your ground. Keep still. With an army closing in, that sounds like doing nothing. But hold two things about it. First, holding your position while something bears down on you is among the hardest things a body can do. It costs more than running would. Standing still is not the absence of action; it is action that refuses panic. Second, look at what the standing is for: “watch the Lord rescue you.” The standing is not the rescue. The standing is how you end up positioned to see it. Run, and you miss the one thing you most needed to witness.
And here is where the chapter does something people miss. Eight verses after “keep still,” this happens: “The Israelites walked into the sea on dry ground. The waters formed a wall for them on their right hand and on their left.”
So which is it? Keep still, or walk into a sea? Both, and in that order. God does what only God can do: the wind, the water pushed back, dry ground where there was none. And then the people put one foot in front of the other and go in. Nobody waited on the bank for a written invitation. The sea did not part because they walked. They walked because it parted.
So what does this ancient story say to us? Three things. First, God fights for people who cannot fight for themselves, and God does not wait for them to be composed about it. Second, there are seasons when the faithful move is to stand still, and standing still is not giving up. It is admitting whose battle this actually is. And third, when the way opens, you have to walk in. That’s what giving yourself to something usually looks like. Not heroics. Walking in.
One last detail. Exodus says, “The Israelites, however, walked on dry ground through the sea.” They went through together. Nobody crossed that water alone, and the way through was never a private path.
So wherever this finds you, at the edge of something with an army at your back, hear both halves. The Lord will fight for you. And when the ground appears, go. Thanks for connecting with the voices of the Bible.
This is part of the Voices of the Bible series from Andrew Conard. Each week we explore the scripture passage for the upcoming sermon, helping you encounter the text before Sunday morning.