Presence and Promise

Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Debbie: Well, welcome everyone. Grateful to be part of this community. I think, Cody, you mentioned last week about our value of being unapologetically human, and that's who we are. And we are in a series that we are calling "Experiencing God and the Wilderness." You know, in our Christian tradition, the wilderness is not always this literal geographical location, but it can represent a season of difficulty, a season of transition, a season of isolation and loneliness. And Cody mentioned this last week, and it's true. It's the hard reality of, and beautiful reality of our life, that that season of wilderness is both risk and revelation. And the road ahead in the wilderness always has that aspect of uncertainty. It's in that space. I think that the divine shows up unexpectedly for us. And it reminds us, the wilderness experienced, that God is present even in the most challenging of circumstances. And the big both and, is that it's a place of both hardship and opportunity. It's a space where often we're tested, we're transformed and ultimately brought into closer relationship with God.

And I imagine that you're all thinking right now about different seasons or moments of wilderness, because there's not one person in this room that hasn't been in that season, that space of wilderness. And sometimes our choices, that's what brings us there. Sometimes it's the words and actions of other people, but oftentimes it's things beyond our control that bring us into the wilderness. But it's there that there's no distractions, there's no place to hide. We face the truth of who we are, and we face the reality of our circumstances there. We face the reality of what's happened to us. And it's in that space where we feel our deepest longings, that we hunger for something, and sometimes we don't know what it is yet. And in the wilderness we face our breakups and our breakdowns, our losses, our grief, our failures, our disappointments. It's in the wilderness that we confront our brokenness, our addictions. And this is what we all know is that time in the wilderness, it's not fun, it's never comfortable. It's always hard. There's no quick fixes. There's no way around the wilderness. We have to go right through it. But there's this strange beauty in it, because it's in those spaces that we're most likely transformed. It's a place where we're changing it, we can be changed. It's a place always of healing and growth. And most importantly, it's a place that we experience our belovedness, that we are claimed by God. Because hidden in the wilderness is the divine presence.

So last week Cody kicked off our series, and he took us through the story of Hagar. He started out in Genesis, and the story of Hagar, a runaway slave who'd endured trauma, been abused by her mistress. No voice, no choice. She was thrust, and I love that word Cody as I was re-listening to your message. She was thrust into the wilderness. And in that space where she thought her life was over, if you remember the story, she set her son aside over here to die, and she thought she was gonna die, but it was in that space that she encountered God. If you had a conversation with God. And living a life beyond anything, I imagine any of us could experience, or have experienced or could imagine, she realized, she recognized God, and she realized that she was not alone. And that changed everything.

Well, this week, we're gonna continue on, and we're gonna be in another wilderness story. I'm gonna give you guys all a little hint, a little clue of where we might be going. And so we'll see if by this short little video, you might know the text we're gonna be in: [video playing, children’s voices singing] I said, "Pharoah, Pharoah." Oh, I better let my people go. Huh! Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, "Pharoah, Pharoah." Oh, baby, let my people go. Huh! That's awesome. I said, "Pharoah, Pharoah." Okay, you wanna do it too? You can.

(Laughing) Yay! Okay, who knows where we're going?

We are in the book of Exodus today, and I'm sorry I couldn't resist it for those who are newer every now and then, you're gonna get a little clip of my grandkids. And oftentimes, we have a couple of them that are, what would be the word for the Schmiesing kids? They love the camera, they love to perform, and the best part of this is when I sent it to Patti, her response back to me was, "Those Schmiesing kids are just the gifts that keep on giving." (Laughing) But we are, we're in the book of Exodus, second book of the Bible, it's a foundational text to both our Christian faith and the Jewish faith, and it continues the story from Genesis. And what Exodus, the book focuses on the liberation of the Israelites, the establishment of God's covenant with them, and the giving of the law.

Now, our context today is the Israelites have multiplied in Egypt, but they're enslaved by a Pharaoh who fears their growing numbers. God raises up Moses, who's a Hebrew that was raised in the Pharaoh's palace, and he raises him up to lead his people out of bondage. Moses has his own wilderness encounter, he encounters God in the burning bush, where he's commissioned to deliver Israel from slavery. Now, we know the story, that's what the song was about, Pharaoh won't let his people go, so what God does is he sends 10 plagues, if you remember those stories, but still, Pharaoh refuses to let him go until the 10th plague, where the death of the first born children happen, and it leads Pharaoh to release all the Israelites. They leave in haste, and the first Passover is instituted.

So here we are in our text this morning, Exodus 13:17-22:

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer, for God thought if the people faced war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt. So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness bordering the Red Sea, the Israelites who went out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle, and Moses took them, took with him the bones of Joseph, who had required a solemn oath of the Israelites, saying, God will surely come to you, and then you must carry my bones with you from here. They set out from Sukkot and camped at Ethim on the edge of the wilderness, and the Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

So there's some interesting things to look at in this text. So Pharaoh's let his people go. Moses had been demanding that of Pharaoh since the beginning of their confrontation, and God had also been predicting that that would happen. And here we are, we're at the threshold of God's deliverance of Israel. And what happens right out of the gates? The story takes an unexpected twist. God leads Israel, and you can see, Patty, he wanna throw that map up there. He could have gone that shorter route right across, right across the northern. That's the northern route, I think they said, but instead he takes them through this circu-, circuitu—Maggie? [Maggie: circuitous] Thank you, Maggie. Route, unexpected, uncertain, they didn't know.

But the reason stated is that the shorter route would bring them into military conflict with the Philistines, but the question is why? Because God didn't want the Israelites to turn back like it had been too soon, because what about all that power we had seen earlier in Exodus? You're led through the desert to avoid war, but again, why? Because two months later, they would see war. And on top of that, the alternative route lands them hemmed in by the sea with Pharaoh's army coming at them, and he'd talk about a test of faith. And you can look at all the commentators and read all the discussions around it. There's a lot of guessing, but at the end of the day, what's important is that they're taken on an unexpected route. They're taken on a journey that they didn't expect. It's longer, it's uncertain, it's harder.

I think the other piece in this text, you sort of wonder, what are we talking about with bringing the bones of Joseph, but it's significant to the text, because it shows that as they move forward, they're also looking back. What they're doing is they're looking back, they're keeping the promise made to the patriarch from Genesis, God delivers Israel from Egypt, not because they deserve it, but because he's making good on his promise that he made to Abraham, to the other patriarchs. And that's important in this story. It reminds all of us, it reminds the reader that God makes good on his promises, that he is faithful. And that the departure of this leaving Egypt is so much bigger.

Thirdly, and I think what's important and that's really important in this text, is that God's guidance and providence and protection. The Lord went in front of them in the pillar of a cloud by night and fire, or cloud by day, excuse me, to lead them along the way and a pillar of fire by night to give them light as they traveled. Now, while it's the first time that we encounter, the reader encounters this pillar of light, this pillar of fire to guide them, it is reminiscent of the burning bush. Because the burning bush was the manifestation of God's presence to Moses. But here, it's taken to a whole ‘nother level: God is present with them day and night on the journey, never leaving them.

And now here they are, their journey in the wilderness, the unknowns, the uncertainty, the challenges. And although the Israelites, they're liberated from slavery, they've left a lot behind. That's the norm they knew. And now they're in this space where there's huge challenges. They're hungry, they're thirsty, they're doubting. Yet through it all, God faithfully provides. He doesn't just deliver them out of slavery, He sustains them through the wilderness. And here's what I think is important is that the Israelites, they don't just wander aimlessly. God provided clear, visible guidance in the form of this cloud by day, the light by night, and His presence was constantly with them. And we think when we're in those seasons of wilderness, whether we feel it in the moment or not, what we can trust is that God does not abandon us, that God makes good on His promises.

And God's promise is this, not that it's gonna be good, not that it's gonna be easy, not that you're gonna end up where you want it to all end up because we all know hard and painful things happen. But what He promises is His witness, that He will be with us always. The Israelites, they followed that cloud by day and that fire by night with obedience, even then when they weren't quite sure where they're going and what was ahead. And trusting God, I think is key in moving forward, trusting God.

The Exodus event, which was certainly about delivering the Israelites from slavery, but it wasn't just about that. I think the big story here is it was about transformation. It was about changing people's heart, changing people, giving them new beginnings. And that's what happens in the wilderness. Oh, a decade and a half ago, there was a big book going, not a big, it was actually a little book, but going around. And a lot of us, it was given to me as a gift, were reading this book, and it was by a pastor/author, Jeff Manion, and the book was called The Land Between: Finding God in difficult transitions. Some things I didn't love about the book, but there's some things that really spoke to me. And here's what Manion says about this Exodus event:

Through the events of the Exodus and wilderness journey, God intends to manifest himself, to reveal his presence and his character. Though Egypt was the land of slavery, suffering and agony, it was also brimming with lush vegetation. The rich waters of the Nile caused Egypt to flourish agriculturally. Keen into the people's future home was notable for its prosperity. It was as God described it, the land of milk and honey. But as the Israelites moved from the lush, fertile home of their past to the lush, fertile home of their future, they pass through the wilderness. They're stuck in the middle, in the desert, the undesired space between more desirable spaces, the middle space, the land between will serve as a metaphor for the undesired transitions we too experience in life.

I like thinking about that, the wilderness as this sort of in-between space. It's neither here nor there. We've left something behind and we're not quite clear of what's ahead. And oftentimes in all, many of you know that a lot of my life in ministry has been pastoral. And over and over again, the hardest space to be in pastoral ministry, or in the lives of the people I'm ministering to, I should say, is not even necessarily when they have a definitive diagnosis or they have a definitive plan, it's the in-between space. It's the wilderness where they're not sure what's next. They're not sure what's gonna happen. It's that space that transforms people. It's that space story after story, again, that you experience God in a way that changes you. And I've shared this before, but I haven't met anyone, friend, family, in ministry, who has experienced something painful, whether it's divorce or death or loss or illness, and haven't said these words: “I wouldn't wish this on anybody, but it wouldn't change who I am now because of the experience of God that I have had through what I walked through.”

So that land between where life is not what it was, the future’s in question, where everything's, everything normal is interrupted. And it looks a whole lot of different ways, doesn't it? It could be that memo that your position's been canceled. You have no job. You don't know how to pay your bills. You're running a company and you have to let people go. Those words, I don't love you anymore. I don't wanna be in this relationship anymore. The divorce you're navigating, the broken family relationships, the tumor is malignant, your cancer is back. It's time for hospice. Those seasons of infertility, of miscarriage, of loss of a baby, of a loved one, maybe it's the wrestling with your mental health that brings you into that season of wilderness and that land in between that's profoundly disorienting, but at the same time, it can provide God with the space to do some of his deepest work in our lives.

And I wanna say this upfront because I think this is something we wrestle with as people of faith. I absolutely do believe that God works on us and changes us and challenges us and we're tested in all those things that God doesn't cause the suffering. God doesn't cause the pain, the sorrow, the hard, hard places we're in, but God does show up in those spaces. And God does show up in those spaces. God does make beautiful things out of hard. And I think the ultimate message today is one of trust. Trusting God is there, even if we can't feel it and transformation. That's how we're changed. That's how we move forward.

Martin Luther King Jr. back in 1956, it was the height of the Montgomery bus boycotts and he had his own wilderness experience. He called it that even. He had gone—after everyone was in bed, he had couldn't sleep—he went into his kitchen, sat alone at a table. He was exhausted. He was terrified. He'd been getting death threats. You can imagine, you know this, his story. But one night after the angry phone calls, he sat down. And this is what he said,

"I bowed down over that cup of coffee. I will never forget it. I heard the voice of Jesus saying, still fight on. He promised to never leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone."

He didn't experience a burning bush or hear thunder, but he felt the undeniable presence of God in that moment. And it strengthened him. It brought him comfort and it gave him courage. Cammy, that's your story. You got courage to keep going. It gave him courage to keep going. And that moment for him in the wilderness, in that silence was a turning point for Dr. King. He rose from that table with new resolve. And it was a few days later that his house got bombed. Fortunately, his family was not there. But again, he shows that the wilderness is not always this physical place, but it is this emotional and spiritual isolation that we can feel, that we can experience in a crisis. But even in that, God's voice breaks through.

I could go on and on. I could talk about Mother Teresa and her call to open up her orphanages and love people and how Jesus spoke to her. And then for 50 years, didn't hear a word. But it was trust. She kept the faith, even though she never heard a word and she kept giving and loving and serving, no matter what.

And then you heard the story about Mandela in prison for decades because he was fighting for apartheid. And he says this, that in this quiet place, this wilderness of prison, the divine spoke to him. He calls it his long walk inward, a spiritual journey forged in silence and suffering. He read scripture, he recited poems. He listened not for the inner clamor of politics, but for the still small voice that reminded him, you are more than a prisoner. And it's in that wilderness that he experienced, encountered a presence that was unmistakably divine. And he wrote this, I came out mature. I came out more generous. I came out understanding human beings more. I came out having grown spiritually. That's transformation. Trust and transformation. And it's not just these big things. It's the stuff that goes on in all of our lives, trust and transformation.

Important to the story is that the desert is not the final destination. It's not ours either. And this is the hard part. That wilderness space, it's necessary. It's a necessary part of our lives as we are formed as people and establishing a connection with God. It's a hard space. The journey, the path you're on might be longer than you anticipated. It may jog left and right and places you never thought of. But what you can know from this text is that God is good on his word. He will be with you always. That he will protect and provide. And in that process, we will continue to grow in our trust and our faith. And we will be transformed and continue on that journey of the coming.

Would you please pray with me? Holy and gracious God. There's a reality in our lives that can be hard. That there's loss and grief and sorrow. Unexpected things happen that put us in places and spaces on a journey that we never dreamed we'd be on. But on that journey, God, our prayer is that we might experience your presence. Whatever that looks like, because it can look a whole lot of different ways. We pray God that we can continue to keep our eyes focused on you, our ears listening for you. That we might know somewhere deep inside, no matter what's happening in our lives, that we are your beloved children and beloved we belong. We belong to you and we belong to one another. We belong to this world. Give us the strength. Give us the courage to share our stories, to share our lives, to move forward. To take the next step, even when we don't know what's right and from us, but to trust that you do. And sometimes that's hard to do. But hopefully God together we can do that. We can do that as we experience your presence, your love, the hope we have in you. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.