By Tom Wiles | For The Times-Post
“I am God, the God of your father,” the voice said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your family into a great nation. I will go with you down to Egypt, and I will bring you back again. You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your eyes.” — Genesis 46:1-34
I was just as surprised as everyone else.
All my years growing up in his home and all through college when life direction decisions were made, he said nothing.
Until that moment.
On the eve of my wedding day, my father told us all how he had prayed for God to lead me into the ministry ever since I was a kid.
He had remained silent not wanting me to feel pressured by him.
He spoke only to God about it.
Now, decades later, I get to be his pastor.
Hard grief had filled Jacob’s life for years.
Life’s most difficult burden had fallen on him, the death of a child.
He had no escape from his sadness, no comfort for his aching arms.
His son was dead.
And then, he was hit with news so shocking he simply couldn’t process it: “Joseph is alive!”
When Jacob’s other sons told him Joseph was alive, it confirmed the reality of Jacob’s dream.
God knew but kept silent.
All those years he intentionally kept silent.
If I were Jacob, I’d probably be mad and say, “God, why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”
His silence is never without purpose as God never says or doesn’t say, does or doesn’t do anything without purpose.
At the very least, he’s inviting us into a dialogue with him.
However, he’s under no obligation to answer our ‘Why?’ demands.
So, now what? Hmm…I think there’s someone waiting to talk to us about that question.
A new first month
“From now on, this month will be the first month of the year for you. …Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for it will remind you that I brought your forces out of the land of Egypt on this very day. This festival will be a permanent law for you; celebrate this day from generation to generation.” — Ex. 12:1-27
I’m not sure what my problem was. It just didn’t seem right, but circumstances as they were with everyone’s schedule, the Thanksgiving dinner was moved to a different day.
It was ground into me before I was even aware of it. We celebrate the holiday on Thursday not Saturday. We watch the Cowboys and the Lions.
We eat too much and take naps. It’s interesting how the repeating of an activity makes it so much a part of our thinking, that we cannot even imagine it being different.
As God was preparing to deliver his people from the bondage of brutal slavery, he began by establishing a plan to keep this deliverance fresh in the minds of his people forever.
He did this by first changing their calendar. He gave them a new first month to further deepen their remembrance of this pivotal moment in their history. Next, he established the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the middle of the new first month so they would never forget the Passover.
Fast forward thousands of years, there Jesus sat with his disciples at a Passover meal.
There, he laid out a new meal of remembrance, the Lord’s Supper.
The bread, his broken body. The cup, his shed blood. Healing and forgiveness.
He did not want us to forget the moment of our deliverance either.
If we do, we’ll drift right back in line with the disastrous thinking of this world that we can somehow be our own little saviors.
They saw
Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel climbed up the mountain. There they saw the God of Israel. — Exodus 24:1-18
Immediately, I glanced over at my sweetheart who was next to me in the car.
Her eyes were as wide as saucers.
“You saw it too, didn’t you?” I said. “Yes! I was sure we would see it pop out again after we turned that last corner.”
The shooting star we saw that night was so bright for so long, we were convinced for just a moment that we had seen something extra-terrestrial.
Moses and the gang climbed the mountain that day at God’s command.
The covenant from God had been read to the people. They had agreed to it.
There were offerings, sacrifices and the sprinkling of blood.
The only thing left was…dinner. A covenant meal shared by the two participants in the agreement.
In this case, God and the Israelites represented by their elders.
What they saw that day is the subject of much debate.
However, the significance of it isn’t.
How about that, God sharing a fellowship meal with his people.
Images from early in the Bible of Adam and Eve walking with God in the garden flash through our minds.
Centuries later, we see God the son sharing the last supper with his disciples before his death.
There he instituted a new covenant.
There he told them that a time would come when he would once again share a meal with them in the coming Kingdom.
Today, we see by faith that which we will one day see face to face.
Tom Wiles is senior minister of Fall Creek Christian Church in Pendleton. He can be reached at 765-778-3166.
