Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Exodus 13:17-22
May 14, 2017
It’s just around the corner. Soon another school year will draw to a close. Soon, summer vacation will begin. Soon, it will be time to pack the bags, load the vehicle, lock up the house and head off for a time of rest and relaxation at the vacation site of your dreams—or perhaps something close to that. And, you won’t leave without first doing at least a little planning. You may have already begun the process: checking out resort websites, scanning through lists of vacation rental properties, checking out Google Earth to see what that beach really looks like, making reservations, and setting aside funds. There’s a lot to do to plan your journey—your escape from St. Louis. So, with summer vacation on the horizon, and planning for the next trip already underway, a text from Exodus about the exodus is rather appropriate. For Moses, though, things were certainly not relaxed or leisurely as he worked to get his people out of Egypt and on their way. He didn’t have the luxury of detailed arrangements and preparations in place ahead of his actual departure. There were no carefully-orchestrated plans—no maps, no reservations, no routes selected in advance. For Moses, everything was rather hastily thrown together with one simple objective: get out of Egypt forever. When it was time to leave, it was time to leave…ready or not. And so, Moses and the people left. The journey began.
Actually, Moses didn’t need much advance planning, maps, or carefully selected travel routes. Moses had a pillar. It was pretty simple: go wherever the pillar went. Cloud by day, fire by night, if the pillar moved, Moses moved; if the pillar stopped, Moses stopped. Nothing to it. Well, that’s not entirely true. Moses didn’t have to worry about exactly where he was going, but he did still have to make sure that everyone, the whole nation of Israel, was going with him. It was complicated. There were tribes to organize and weapons to secure. He had to provide for the young and the old and the livestock. He had to consider the threats and the dangers that would be encountered. And, he had to haul along the bones of his long dead ancestor, Joseph.
It’s not one of the more prominent Bible stories, but you may remember that, on his deathbed, the great patriarch Joseph had looked ahead with the eyes of prophecy and faith and seen a deliverance that at the time of his dying wasn’t even necessary. And, on that deathbed, Joseph had made his survivors promise that when at last, that deliverance came, his bones were to make the trip home to Canaan—home to the plot of land where he was raised in Shechem. Moses had to keep the promise—along with everything else he had to keep track of. Moses left Egypt with Joseph’s bones, maybe still in the Egyptian sarcophagus in which Joseph’s embalmed body had been placed 400 long years before the time of the Exodus. The dying wish of Moses’ great uncle would be honored. That, of course, is what you do in families: you bear one another’s burdens, sometimes literally. Moses had plenty to bear as he set out for Canaan. But, at least he didn’t need directions. He had the pillar.
Even that part of the plan was not without complications, though. The ancient home of Israel was less than 200 miles away from Egypt off to the northeast. The pillar, though, led them southeast into the wilderness. Still, there was a practical reason for this course. The northeast route was direct and pleasant running along the Mediterranean, and running through the Philistines who were a notoriously war-like and disagreeable people. God knew his own people of Israel, and he knew that they weren’t ready for warfare, not yet. It was better, then, to avoid confrontation at least for now. So, the pillar led them out and into the wilderness and right to the shore of the Red Sea—which was the perfect place for hard-hearted, flip-flopping Pharaoh, who changed his mind one more time, to set off to pursue, surround, and entrap the entire group.
It’s almost like God set Moses up to be trapped. It’s almost like he wanted Israel to be hemmed in and desperate with absolutely no avenue of escape available. Of course, as you know very well, there is no “almost” with God. The people of Israel were exactly where God wanted them to be. The pillar led them to the precise place he had selected—a place where they were trapped between Pharaoh and the Sea. It wasn’t the place they would have chosen. But, God was doing the choosing. He boxed them in. He did it not out of cruelty or spite, but because he knew what he had planned. With Israel pinned down by the sea, the stage was set for the Red Sea deliverance. The stage was set for the Gospel.
Where is God leading you, today? Right, there’s no pillar hovering over the parking lot or descending down onto your garage ready to lead you forth into places of God’s choosing. But, the path that lies before you is, just as certainly, one chosen for you by God. And I suspect that some of you sometimes find yourselves being led into places that you would not have chosen for yourself. But, off you go—following where God leads—whether it’s off to vacation, off to work, or just off to another routine day of life. Off you go, lugging all that you have been burdened to carry along. You do have your own box of bones, don’t you? What bones are you carrying with you as you travel along the way? What responsibilities have been bound to you along with the bonds of your family and are now going with you to complicate your journey? What tired old heritage and habits accompany you as you travel through life? What old bones of past failures and defeats are part of your luggage? What box of regrets and embarrassments will you shoulder as you set off to follow the way that God leads? What skeletons will you have to work to keep out of sight as you make your way to where God wants you to be? How does the sordid heritage of your first-father-Adam’s ancient, catastrophic failure, what we now call original sin, still rattle around in your life and weigh you down? We all travel with bones in tow. You can’t get rid of them. They are simply part of your reality; and they serve a critical purpose. They keep you humble. They keep you dependent. They keep you broken and open to God’s giving.
Don’t blame your ancestors for the bones. Regardless the source, they are yours, now. Today, of course, we rightly celebrate mothers and thank God for the gifts he delivers through those who give life and who nurture us as we grow. We owe much to our mothers. But, what they give us is also the human legacy of sinfulness. They give us bones to carry. Of course, it was not intentional. There was never a formal event or “swearing ceremony” transferring the “burden of the bones” to you; but you’ve inherited them nonetheless. They are an inheritance from your sinful mother and father. But, the bones you carry are also the product of your own thoughts and choices, words and silences, actions and inactions. Yours and theirs, you’ve got bones that you’re dragging along. Don’t pretend that they aren’t there. We are all the children of Adam and Eve, and we are all shameful sinners in our own rights; by inheritance, by our own doing, we each bear our own box of bones. There’s no hiding the fact. But don’t misunderstand, the bones you’ve been burdened to carry through life don’t need to be displayed…and certainly not celebrated; they just need to be carried along the way. And knowing that others carry their own heavy loads of bones can kindle, perhaps, a bit of empathy, and concern along with the humility and dependence that those bones should already generate in you. Shoulder the load. Get ready for the journey. Follow where God leads, and take the bones to the place where they belong. They belong where God wants them to be.
God led Moses where he wanted him to be—hemmed in and desperate, impossibly burdened with nowhere to go. And then God did the impossible: he opened the sea. He delivered the gospel. The Red Sea spread apart, the people marched through on dry land; Pharaoh’s army followed…and was drowned. God’s people were delivered. When they could do nothing to save themselves, God saved them. That’s the gospel. Safely through the sea, the pillar kept leading. Moses kept following. Through the wilderness, through trials and failures and sorrows and joys, Moses followed God’s lead all the way to Canaan. And, there, in the Promised Land, the pillar stopped. There in Canaan, the long journey came to an end. There, at last, Joseph’s bones were buried—in Shechem, Joseph’s home, just as Joseph had requested…just where God wanted them to be.
God is leading you, just where he wants you to be: to a new undertaking, perhaps—a new adventure in a new city, or away from St Louis for a while, for a time of vacation, or just back home, back to your Shechem to carry out the routine of life, there, with your to-do list and the burden that you carry. Pillar or not, God leads, and puts you where he wants you to be. And regardless the details or circumstances, God always arranges a similar situation. He leads you to a place where you are boxed-in, a place where your need is real, your situation is eventually desperate, and your only hope is what only he can give. That’s where he wants you to be. That’s always where he wants you to be, longing and eager for his grace. And he gives it—he gives his grace. When your situation is impossible and the bones are too heavy to move, he does the impossible and forgives your failure, tears away the sin, washes away the shame, and relieves you of the bones. He gives you a place to dump them and bury them forever. No, you don’t bury them in a grave in Shechem. You bury them in a grave in Jerusalem. It is God’s great mercy to you: you don’t lug the bones around forever. Those bones get buried in the grave, buried in Jesus’ empty tomb. There’s plenty of room there for all the bones that you, or anyone else, have been hauling around. The old bones stay there; you step, at last, into the Promised Land—no, not the perfect vacation paradise of your dreams, but the real, eternal paradise of God’s presence that will surpass any dream you could ever have. That’s the place that he wants you to be forever. Amen.