Scripture Reader:

Exodus 15:1–21 (NIV)

¹ Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

“I will sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
he has hurled into the sea.
² The Lord is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
³ The Lord is a warrior;
the Lord is his name.
⁴ Pharaoh’s chariots and his army
he has hurled into the sea.
The best of Pharaoh’s officers
are drowned in the Red Sea.
⁵ The deep waters have covered them;
they sank to the depths like a stone.
⁶ Your right hand, Lord, was majestic in power.
Your right hand, Lord, shattered the enemy.
⁷ In the greatness of your majesty
you threw down those who opposed you.
You unleashed your burning anger;
it consumed them like stubble.
⁸ By the blast of your nostrils
the waters piled up.
The surging waters stood up like a wall;
the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.
⁹ The enemy boasted,
‘I will pursue, I will overtake them.
I will divide the spoils;
I will gorge myself on them.
I will draw my sword
and my hand will destroy them.’
¹⁰ But you blew with your breath
and the sea covered them.
They sank like lead
in the mighty waters.
¹¹ Who among the gods
is like you, Lord?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?
¹² You stretch out your right hand,
and the earth swallows your enemies.
¹³ In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.
¹⁴ The nations will hear and tremble;
anguish will grip the people of Philistia.
¹⁵ The chiefs of Edom will be terrified,
the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling,
the people of Canaan will melt away;
¹⁶ terror and dread will fall on them.
By the power of your arm
they will be as still as a stone—
until your people pass by, Lord,
until the people you bought pass by.
¹⁷ You will bring them in and plant them
on the mountain of your inheritance—
the place, Lord, you made for your dwelling,
the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established.
¹⁸ The Lord reigns
for ever and ever.”
¹⁹ When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. ²⁰ Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her with timbrels and dancing. ²¹ Miriam sang to them:

“Sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
he has hurled into the sea.”

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.

Bart Garrett:

I give myself about a 5% chance of not hearing the outcome of the hockey game here, but do your part and please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I’m watching it later. If I haven’t met you yet, I’m Bart Garrett, the lead pastor here, and this past Thursday, I was with a group of church planters and we were sharing our greatest present joy. And I said, it sounds cliche, but I want to say my church. I’m receiving so much joy in serving this church, and it’s just delightful to serve God with you here. Yeah, that’s worthy of a clap.

As you know from our title sequence, we’re spending one year in one story, in one book. Yet in another sense, we’ve said this is actually 66 books. So this is our eighth Sunday in this series, and we spent seven weeks in Genesis. So if you do the math, at this rate, that’s 7 times 66 books, 462 Sundays divided by 52. So it’s actually going to take us 8.88 years to get through the Bible. So buckle up. But even with these seven lessons in Genesis, we’ve missed a lot. We didn’t even talk about Esau or Jacob, who became Israel, who had 12 sons that became 12 tribes. And one of those sons was Joseph with his amazing Technicolor dream coat. And he becomes the second in command in Egypt, and then he delivers the people of God through a famine. But here they are after 400 years of being enslaved to the Egyptians. So God raises up Moses to lead the people of God out of Egypt. And Rachel Ingram talked about this at our Ash Wednesday service. She alluded to the 10 plagues. And that number 10 in Scripture represents the wholeness of God’s created order. So these 10 plagues represent this uncreation or this de-creation of evil. And then we’re going to talk all throughout the Lenten season of these 10 commandments, which is really a recreation, a new constitution for the people of God.

In this book, Exodus means in Greek, ex hodos, out of the way, so the way out. And just like Genesis, if we’re not careful, we can start tripping up on how we read this book, because we can superimpose our contemporary genres on a book like this, whether that be science or history or psychology or journalism. It would be akin to treating your Facebook or your Instagram feed like news instead of the propaganda that it is. So we’re not familiar with this genre in scripture, but it’s actually the theological historical narrative. And I would talk about it this way: it’s real events told in story form to help us find our purpose and place in every era. And if you don’t treat it as such, what happens is you end up getting tangled up in all sorts of needless debates.

Now, this is going to be insider baseball for just a second. Some of you might not know what I’m talking about here, but a question has been posed: Did God deliver Israel by parting the Red Sea or by finding a shallow ford in the sea of reeds? How deep was the water really? Was it more like a marsh? Was this a miracle or was it a magic trick? And I would say if you’re exploring Christianity, the first thing you should do is beep, beep, beep, back up. Start with Jesus. If God could raise Jesus from the dead, then God can part any size body of water. So start there. But secondly, in the Hebrew translation, we have the sea of reeds, the Yom Suf. And when the Hebrew scriptures became the Greek scriptures and what was called the Septuagint, the word there became the Red Sea. But again, in theological historical narrative, patterns are so important. So if you hear Yom Suf, you would be reminded of Moses being delivered, rescued out of the reeds, just like the people of God are delivered, rescued, drawn out of the sea of reeds. God rescues one to rescue everyone. Notice the pattern. So is this history or is this theology? The answer is yes.

There’s some amazingly cool stuff here, and I want to talk about it under two headings. So here’s the big idea, and I’m going to spend most of our time today on the first heading, and then the conclusion is the second: Liberation and Salvation. That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning.

And let me point out something that’s so obvious, it may not be obvious. Our text today is a song. So isn’t there something captivating and compelling about a song? You’ve been to a concert where the artist is telling a story, and then she says, I wrote a song about it, and it goes like this. And it immediately draws you in. And in theological historical narrative, stories are often wedded to songs. So later in the Hebrew Scriptures, we have Judges Chapter 4, which is the story of Deborah, and then we have Judges Chapter 5, which is the song. And I chose the song as our text this morning because it condenses and summarizes a much larger story, but also because it is beautiful and inspiring. And in scripture, songs are often the meaning. They bear the weight, they hold the gravity. They say to us, stop, listen. Don’t leave this song unchanged.

So in the lyrics of this song, we learn at least a couple of things about God. One of them is this: God is holy. Over and over and over again. Look at verse 11: Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you? Majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders. In Scripture, holiness means to be set apart—that God is not just in the pantheon, that he’s above and beyond all the other gods. And we’ve been talking week to week about how God, in that day, there were gods for all sorts of things. There were gods for the crops or the rain, or for military victory or for health. Gods were created for every situation and every circumstance. But holiness means that this is a God who created every situation and circumstance. And if I may interject for just a moment, some of us are inclined to say, you know, how cute that these primitive people had gods for every occasion to do their bidding. But today, if we think about God as our Uber driver to get us where we need to be, or as our DoorDash driver to get us what we want when we want it, are we really being that different? That’s another sermon, but something to think about.

God is holy. But a second thing we learn is God is a divine butt kicker. Lest you liken God to a bowl of Jello who’s kind of squishy and squishy, check out these lyrics in the song. Verse 1 and 2 appear 13 times, so we’ll get the point: Both horse and driver are hurled into the sea. Verse 3: God is a warrior. Verse 6: Your right hand shatters the enemy. How does God deal with boasting? Look at verse 9: The enemy boasted, I will pursue, I will overtake them, I will divide the spoils, I will gorge myself on them. I mean, imagine a time in our world where world leaders would advantage themselves to the sake of the marginalized. I know it’s hard to imagine. I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them. Verse 10: But God, you blew with your breath and the sea covered them. Or my favorite verse, verse 7: In the greatness of your majesty, O God, you threw down those who opposed you. You unleashed your burning anger. It consumed them like stubble.

And if you know the story, backing up a bit, there was a moment where the Israelites were complaining because Pharaoh was giving them brick or calling them to make bricks without straw. And there was a fermenting chemical quality to that straw which would allow the mud to bond. But that straw, the word for it, is actually stubble. So God is saying, you give them no stubble. Fine, I’ll make you stubble. God is a divine butt kicker. And the nations hear of this in verse 14 and they tremble. Why? Because God is a liberator and God’s people will be liberated.

Now let me pause for a moment and take this occasion to say the Bible has been used to condone slavery and the Bible has been used to condemn slavery. The staunchest supporters of slavery used the Bible. The staunchest abolitionists used the Bible. But I want to offer this story of scripture as an appeal to an objective anti-slavery standard that is beyond any circumstantial morality or situational ethic. So what is that objective standard? Here it is: The one true God depicted in this song abhors slavery.

Significant problems arise when we try to determine our morality without God. Someone says something like, well, we all know now that slavery is wrong, but who is we and how do we know? And when did the now start? In fact, there are still slaves and every single civilization on the planet. Those who are exploited, those who are trafficked. And how do we establish right from wrong? Slavery has been practiced in all human civilizations, every single one of them—from ancient Egypt to ancient Greece to ancient Rome to indigenous peoples in America to China to India to Africa. And I think the most long-lasting appeal that has resulted in a fast, final abrogation of slavery is this: the equality of human beings made in the image of God. This is the only true and final way of getting to abolition without relying upon some sort of circumstantial, culturally constrained majority opinion, which can and does change, by the way. You want to ensure that a minority will never be enslaved again? Appeal to a God who desires it never be so.

This story, the true center of redemptive history in Hebrew scripture, is liberation of slaves. And here’s the cherry on the top: Pharaoh sends them away with the plunder. This is deliverance, complete with reparations for all of their work. This is God as divine butt kicker. This is God as chief abolitionist. This is God declaring release of the captives. God breaking every shackle and breaking every chain. And what’s more, liberation is not just for the Israelites. In fact, if we back up to Exodus Chapter 12, we hear of in Egypt the mixed multitudes—other ethnic groups who are also enslaved in Egypt. And they say to the people of God, we want in on getting out. And because the people of God, as we learn through Abraham, are blessed to be a blessing, they brought the mixed multitudes out with them through the Red Sea. Why? Because their God is in the liberation business. Amen.

Frederick Douglass is captivated by this in his famous July 5, 1852 speech entitled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” And he calls out both the political and the religious establishment with an argument from the true religion of God, which is a reference from the book of James, which is a book in the New Testament. And this is what he writes or says:

These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers and thugs. It is not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy, but a religion which favors the rich against the poor, which exalts the proud above the humble, which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves, which says to the man in chains, stay there, and to the oppressor, oppress on. It is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind. It makes God a respecter of persons. And God is not a respecter of persons because he creates and commands equality, denies the fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man.

— Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

And then his concluding sentence quotes Exodus 15: The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. I therefore leave off where I began with hope.

So, before we move on, is liberation solely about race? Oh, no. See, at least 50% of the people in this room are women. And if I’ve eaten roughly 10,000 meals around our family table with my wife and three daughters, then I have been in the 20% gender minority for every single one of those meals. And I’m pleased to say this and to say it with conviction: the God of Scripture is a liberator of women. And when one begins to recognize in studying history that every single culture, save one or two, has predominantly existed as a patriarchy, then one has the eyes to see that Adam and Eve are created side by side in Genesis 1 and as equals in God’s intent. Yet patriarchy starts fomenting in the fall in Genesis 3, as Adam and Eve turn away from God and they fight for gender supremacy for the rest of their days. Yet there are patterns like this in Exodus 15 that press back against that reality.

Here is Miriam, Moses’ sister, who is, like her brother Aaron, considered to be a prophet, a religious leader of the day. In a patriarchal culture, it is not insignificant. In fact, it’s revolutionary that Miriam is called a prophet. And in a patriarchal culture, it is not insignificant, and in fact, it’s revolutionary that this is not just Moses’ song. It’s Miriam’s song too. And later, there’s Deborah’s song and Hannah’s song and Mary’s song. And in this narrative, all throughout the Exodus story up to this moment, the women have been speaking in hushed tones in a perpetual state of walking on eggshells. The Hebrew midwives are whispering liberation over the Hebrew newborn babies as they secretly whisk them away from the Egyptian massacre. The women who rescue Moses from the reeds as a baby are speaking quietly. Here’s Miriam. Remember, if you know the story, the lone witness to Moses’ rescue, she whispers to the Pharaoh’s daughter, shall I get a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you? And she gets her own mother, who gets to nurse her own son. This is spectacular liberation, too. Don’t miss it. Finally, the women can beat their timbrels and dance and sing and shout for joy.

But before we move on from liberation, what’s the chief problem with God’s liberation? Timing. It seems so slow, doesn’t it? Where is God? Why is God taking so long? The Psalms in the middle of our scriptures ask the question more than any other question: How long, O Lord, how long? The people of God waited as slaves for 400 years in Egypt. Frederick Douglass waited as slavery in America lasted for 246 years from 1619 to 1865. Martin Luther King Jr. waited as black people were given the right to vote in 1870, but it was mostly suppressed and denied for 100 years until 1965 in the Voting Rights Act. Women waited from 1776 to 1920, 150 years for the right to vote. So why is God so slow in bringing liberation?

Well, there’s really no quick and easy answer to this question. Isaiah the prophet does go on to say that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways. And that’s certainly true. I could avoid this question slightly by reminding us that God exists outside of place and time. So even past, present and future are merely constructs to help us understand something. So to say that God is early or late is actually our feeble attempt at understanding. To call God slow would be like calling an apple fast. But that’s a bit of a cop out.

So we do gain a clue, I think, from Peter, who walked around with Jesus. Then he wrote two letters to the early church. And at the end of one of those letters, this is what he says:

2 Peter 3:8–9 (NIV)

⁸ But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

Peter is saying that God is not wanting anyone to perish apart from him, but for everyone to come to repentance. And we’ve been talking about that word. It’s a military term. It’s an about-face. It’s turning around from life without God and turning back to God. So what Peter is saying is God’s slowness is actually patience because God’s liberation in this world is connected to salvation in the next one.

Which leads me to the second point that we conclude on: Liberation and Salvation. And before that word sprouts wings and flies away, which it has a tendency to do, but let me also say it can be translated as rescue, as healing. And Frederick Douglass went on to say this:

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at least finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

— Frederick Douglass

What Douglass is saying is there’s bondage beneath the bondage we need to be healed. There’s slavery beneath the slavery. We need to be rescued. It’s not a popular thing to say at this moment, politically speaking. I suppose I’m about to get skewered from both directions. I’m an equal opportunity offender for sure. But I’m going to say it: Oppressed people can be doubly oppressed by victimization, shackled to assumptions that there may never be full release from anger or rage or bitterness or contempt or trauma. And oppressors are doubly oppressed by degradation. There’s a decimation and a dehumanization of the self that turns you into a self-pitying, self-shaming sloth of a sap more vile than you ever imagined yourself to be. And what Frederick Douglass is saying and what these scriptures are teaching is that liberation and salvation belong together. That they are both essential for all people, whether they be wearing the chains or holding the whips.

And I’m not suggesting that both parties are equal offenders. I want to bring it back into this room. I’m simply suggesting that for every single person here, the bad we do is probably far worse than we think it is. And the good we muster is probably far more paltry than we could ever imagine it to be. But I have some good news. You want some good news? All right. It’s not good advice. If it’s good advice, I just say, stop it. Do better. Pull yourself together. But that’s not going to help you in the long run. That’s not going to help you tomorrow morning at work.

So remember what I said about songs in the genre of the theological historical narrative. They carry the meaning, they carry the weight, they carry the gravity. And this song is a song of creation, de-creation and recreation. It’s all here. Genesis 1:2. The Hebrew word tehom, deep waters, whereby God used to create the heavens and the earth. Verse 5: The deep waters have covered them. Same word, de-creation of evil. Verse 19: But the people of God passed through the walls of water on dry ground. It’s the same word for dry land in Genesis 1. Why? Because there are patterns of creation and de-creation and recreation.

So good advice for you today would be do better. But good news would be God saying, you can’t. Instead, I must de-create evil in your life and recreate good in your life. It’s my work. Would you be open to it? And wait, there’s more. You want some more good news before we come to the table? Look at verse 13:

Exodus 15:13–18 (NIV)

¹³ In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling. ¹⁴ The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will grip the people of Philistia. ¹⁵ The chiefs of Edom will be terrified, the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling, the people of Canaan will melt away; ¹⁶ terror and dread will fall on them. By the power of your arm they will be as still as a stone—until your people pass by, Lord, until the people you bought pass by. ¹⁷ You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance—the place, Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established. ¹⁸ The Lord reigns for ever and ever.

This is the story we’ve been talking about. God’s never-stopping, never-giving-up, always-unbreakable and forever love. In your unfailing love, you will lead the people you have redeemed. You’ve paid for with your life. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling. You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance. The place, Lord, you made for your dwelling. The sanctuary, Lord, your hands established. The Lord reigns forever and ever and ever.

See, these people have never rested. They’ve always been on the move here. God is saying, I’m moving you toward rest. I’m bringing you into my rest. I will plant you and establish you. You won’t be on the move anymore. You won’t be ruled by others anymore. You’ll have an opportunity to establish yourselves. Most of us know what it’s like to move, don’t we? A new apartment, a new house, a new city, so much stress and dislocation. I’ve heard it takes at least two years to feel settled in a new place because the peanut butter is on a different aisle in the new grocery store. And that’s one of thousands of things that feels out of sorts. Salvation, rescue, healing is ultimately about a final home, a final resting place, finding your home in God forever.

And this is why Jesus said to his wandering band of followers, I have come to prepare a place for you. And Jesus expands the idea of home beyond mere location, to relationship, to being with God, to belonging with God’s family, to dwelling with God forever. This is not an eject button to heaven, nor is it a consolation prize for a hard life here on earth. This is why I say liberation and salvation go together. This is Jesus speaking of heaven coming to earth, a completed recreation where we dwell with God and God dwells with us. Liberation is extracting slaves and repairing broken systems, preparing earth for heaven, if you will. And salvation is heaven’s intrusion. It’s heaven showing up ahead of schedule. And as we work for liberation and we wait for salvation, Jesus says, come rest in me. Find your home in me.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, we pray. Amen.