Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 14:15–18
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.”
CONSIDER THIS
I absolutely love this moment. Moses had just given his best Braveheart speech:
“Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (14:13–14)
Then, in an apparent contradiction of Moses’s uber-cinematically spiritual message to the Israelites, God says this:
“Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.”
Based on what he said, it appears Moses expected God was going to hurl bolts of lightning and destroy the Egyptian army. He expected God would slay the Egyptians as the Israelites stood by and watched. Clearly, the notion of parting the waters of the sea would not have crossed even their wildest imaginings. There was no category for such a thing. Even more surprising than this is how it would happen.
Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.
God called Moses to part the sea. God would give the power, but he wanted Moses to exercise it:
“Raise your staff and stretch out your hand.”
So why didn’t God just do it by himself? Why Moses and his staff and his outstretched hand? God desires to work through human agency. Clearly, God did not need Moses’s staff and hand in order to part the Red Sea. No one thinks Moses parted the Red Sea. We all know God did it. But what if we only know God did it (and not some phenomenology of nature) because Moses raised his staff and stretched out his hand?
Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.
We see this all over Scripture—God working through human agents and agency. From prophets, priests, and kings to shepherds, fishermen, and expectant mothers—anyone willing to raise their staff and stretch out their hand in his stead and on his behalf.
So often in our praying, we pleadingly ask God to act on our behalf. I often wonder if God is looking for a mode of prayer whereby we are acting on God’s behalf and at his behest. I think, in fact, this is the whole point of sending his ultimate agent—his Son—to redeem the whole creation and to reconcile the lost. As he stretched out his hands on the cross, it became the divine staff of heaven lifted up over all the earth—parting the seas of sin and death—paving the pathway from Eden to Eschaton, from exile to eternity, from wasteland to Graceland; from slaves to beloved sons and daughters.
As we look upon his Son, he intends for us to behold the image in whom we are made and meant to become like—stretching out our hand and raising the staff of the cross over the swirling seas of chaos surging all around us.
“Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.”
One more bit. We hear this sentimental sap about God having no hands but our hands to do his will on earth. Malarky! God has his own hands. He does not need my hands or yours. He chooses to put his staff of authority in our hands. He awaits a generation who will again raise the staff of the cross and stretch out our hands in the face of impossible things; who will declare what he decrees and demonstrate what he desires; who will raid the gates of hell and raise the dead.
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
And yet I hear you calling me to raise my staff and stretch out my hand over the sea to divide the water so that your people can go through the sea on dry ground. In the face of sickness and sorrow, of depression and death—to raise the staff of the cross and stretch out my hand as your agent to do your will, even on earth as it is in heaven. Would you lead me beyond the metaphor here and into the literal active truth of it? You said we would do even greater things than these because you go to the Father. Show me how to raise the staff of the cross and stretch out my hand over my life, my home and family, my church, my neighborhood, and town, over the sick and the poor and the downtrodden.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen. Amen.
