Appearances

It was faith that made Moses leave Egypt without being afraid of the king’s anger. As though he saw the invisible God, he refused to turn back. It was faith that made him establish the Passover and order the blood to be sprinkled on the doors, so that the Angel of Death would not kill the firstborn sons of the Israelites. (verses 27-29)

Read Hebrews 11:23-31

On the face of it, Moses and the Israelites who followed his lead were indulging in a great deal of bizarre and dangerous behaviour. They defied the commands of Pharaoh, painted their doorposts with blood and marched through the waters of the Red Sea. They did each of these things as an act of faith, against the dictates of common sense and conventional wisdom. In the end it meant an end to slavery and escape to freedom.

We too do strange and irrational things when we take God at his word. We ignore the dictates of popular wisdom and receive the body and blood of Jesus in the eucharist and subject ourselves to the waters of baptism in order to gain a new life as God’s free people.

While the natural tendency is for people to keep up appearances which will not bring them to public notice, we Christians continue our strange behaviour which is folly to human beings but is the wisdom of God.

Dear God, keep me in the faith. Even when the voices are ringing in my ears that your way is nonsense, please preserve me to the end in my precious saving faith. Amen.

by Richard Hauser, in ‘New Strength for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 1998)

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