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Moses
Exodus 2.1-10
Cirencester Parish Church, Sunday 9th August 2015, 6pm
Reverend Gary Grady
May I speak in the name of the Father...
Our summer sermon series on ‘Children of the OT’ continues this evening with Moses.
There are few things that bring more happiness than the birth of a new baby. For weeks before the
baby is born, the preparations are made. The parents make sure the baby will have everything it
needs. They buy clothes, baby bottles, little blankets, soft toys...and fuzzy pyjamas for the baby to
sleep in.
After the baby is born, care is taken to make sure that the baby has everything it needs to grow
into a strong and healthy child. Good parents will do everything they can to keep their baby safe.
Moses was born in a very dangerous time and [this evening] we heard about the amazing things
his mother did to keep him safe and make sure he had every opportunity to grow, learn, and have
the best of everything in his life.
There was a new king (or Pharaoh) in Egypt who knew nothing about the legacy of Joseph, of
how he and his people had helped save the people of Egypt from starving to death. All he knew
was that the Israelites were very strong and that they were growing in number...and he was afraid
that they were going to take over his country.
He said: "Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we. Let us deal with
them shrewdly, or they will increase further and, in the event of war, will join with our enemies
against us” (Ex 1. 9-10).
So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves, and appointed brutal slave masters over them,
forcing them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses as supply centres for Pharaoh.
But the harder they were made them work, the stronger they became, and the more their numbers
increased. Finally, Pharaoh issued a command to all of his people: "Take every newborn Hebrew
boy and throw him into the Nile River, but let the girls live" (Ex 1.22).
And it was during this time that Amram and his wife Jochebed (both of the tribe of Levi) had their
second son, the younger brother of Aaron. They hid him for 3 months, but as the baby got older,
they couldn't hide him any longer.
Jochebed knew how wrong it would be to kill her child, but there was little she could do about
Pharoah’s new law. So she made a basket of tall papyrus grass and covered it with tar to make it
watertight. Then she put the baby in it and hid it in the bulrushes at the edge of the Nile. Miriam,
the baby's sister, stood some distance away to watch and see what would happen to him.
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A little later, Pharaoh's daughter came down to the river to bathe, while her servants walked along
the bank. Suddenly she noticed the basket in the tall grass and sent a slave girl to see what was in
it. The princess looked in the basket and saw a baby boy. He was crying, and she felt sorry for
him. "This must be one of the Hebrew’s children," (Ex 2.7a) she said.
Then Miriam emerged and asked her, "Shall I go and call a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby for
you?" (Ex 2.7b).
“Yes do” (Ex 2.8) she said. So Miriam went and brought the baby's own mother. The princess told
the woman, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you" (Ex 2.9). So Moses’ mother
was reunited with her baby, and she took him and nursed him.
Later, when the child was old enough, she took the boy and gave him to the Pharaoh's daughter,
who formally adopted him as her own son...and she named him ‘Moses’ which means, ‘I drew
him out of the water’.
It’s an amazing story of a mother's love for her child....and we know that Moses grew to be one of
the greatest leaders the people of Israel have ever known, and it all started with a little baby hidden
in the bulrushes down by the river.
Q. Have you ever wondered [though] who Pharaoh’s daughter was?
The young woman, whom God had used, in that moment, to save a baby who would [ultimately]
lead the Israelites out of Egypt? Well, I did some research...
The popular explanation (although not the only one) is that the woman was Hatshepsut, the
daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose I. Hatshepsut had married her half brother, Thutmose, who later
became Pharaoh Thutmose II. But she was unable to have children, so her husband had had a son
by another woman.
Hatshepsut would have [therefore] considered Moses a gift from the gods, and when her brother
[and husband] Thutmose II was killed whilst pursuing the Israelites across the Red Sea, she
became Pharaoh herself...the only woman Pharaoh in Egyptian history.
Her tomb can be found at Luxor, just outside of the Valley of the Kings.
Having grown to manhood, Moses became furious while witnessing an Egyptian slave master
brutally beating a Hebrew slave, and impulsively killed him. Fearing Pharaoh's punishment, he
fled into the desert of Midian, becoming a shepherd for Jethro, a Midianite priest whose daughter
Zipporah he later married.
Later, while tending the flocks on Mt. Horeb, in the wilderness, he saw a burning bush, which was
not being consumed by the fire, and heard the voice of God speaking to him, telling him that he
had been chosen to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.
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And the rest is history...
Once again, the lives of children, and those who care for and nurture them, are significant. God
doesn’t need much from us to accomplish his plan for our lives, but he does need our availability!
By focusing too heavily on our human predicaments, we can find ourselves paralysed, because the
situation may appear [humanly] impossible.
Right now, you may have troubles which you find it hard to see through; instead focus on God and
trust him to guide you...like Moses, his mother Jochebed, and his sister Miriam did...because ‘that’
trust is all he needs to begin his work in you.
May you know God’s peace and blessing this evening, and always.
Amen.
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