A Challenge from Exodus
“. . . go straight to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord has met with us. Let us go on a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord” (Exodus 3:18).
When God gave this instruction to Moses at the burning bush, was he trying to play a trick on Pharaoh, fooling him into thinking the Israelites just wanted a brief religious holiday? I used to think so, but I’ve come to believe that there was much more to this direction—repeated multiple times in the next chapters of Exodus--than a superficial reading communicates. I now understand that the three-day journey into the desert to worship God is at the very heart of God’s desire for relationship with his people. He longs for us to trust him, to look to him with confidence even when we ourselves see no solution at all to our problems. The quality of the relationship he wants with us is reflected in the tenderness of words like these: “I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them” (Ex. 3:7-8).
But what happens when you walk into a desert for three days? Well, first of all, you run out of your own resources. You can’t carry enough water with you to last much longer than that. An element of alarm begins to intrude, especially when you walk—and walk—and walk—without any hint of drinkable water. You’re tired, you’re thirsty, you’re grimy and sweaty, you’re sunburned, you have painful blisters where your sandals rub the wrong way. You’re starting to think you weren’t cut out for camping. You miss your own bed. The gifts you were given at the beginning of the journey feel now like excessive weight. You start thinking about throwing away anything that can’t be eaten or drunk, just so you don’t have to lug it with you.
What started out as a lark (especially if you’re getting away from an awful situation and have had the chance to see God do spectacular things!) begins to grow tedious, and a bit threatening. The desert seemed to have its own attraction and beauty at first, but you’ve already seen the occasional flowers and desert creatures, you’ve already noticed the play of sun and shadows on the sand; nothing seems novel or fascinating anymore. The thrill of escape from an unbearable situation, and the anticipation of a brand new life in new circumstances, have faded away, just like the boisterous singing and talking that typified the first couple of days of the trek. Three days! Now you just want to get there, and rest, and soak your feet, and have someone else figure out something for you to eat.
But what if you get “there” and there’s nothing there? Nothing except more sand, more glaring sun, more chilling cold when the sun sets? What if by the end of your three days you don’t even remember the point of the journey, the mega-worship service that seemed so enticing when God was flinging aside walls of water and drowning the enemy army? What happens then?
The book of Exodus in the Bible tells some stories about what happened when the Israelites came to the end of themselves and their own resources. Anyone who has grown up with those stories has probably learned to look down on those people as weaklings, fickle grumblers.
But have you been in a situation like theirs? Oh, not a literal desert, probably, but a situation that pushed and pulled you into circumstances that sucked from you your strength, your confidence, your physical, emotional, and spiritual resources? Have you ever felt that terrible things were happening and there was absolutely nothing you could do to stop them? Have you seen members of your own family suffering and felt completely helpless?
I think it’s quite likely that many of those gripers among the Israelites simply couldn’t handle seeing their little children frantic with thirst. And no sign anywhere of any source of water.
Why would God put the Israelites, or you, or me, into a situation like that? And how could he, then, expect that our response would be to worship him? What happens when we do—or when we don’t?
As you’ll see in this book, I’ve been struggling with these questions for a long time. When life reaches out and grabs you in unexpected ways, the quest to understand is no longer theoretical. It becomes urgent and very personal--a matter of survival.
As I’ve thought about the story of the Israelites in the desert, I have remembered another story about a three-day trek into the wilderness, which God also ordered. This one too was to end in worship. Abraham was told to go to Mount Moriah and sacrifice his only son there upon an altar he was to build. Abraham’s obedience to this bizarre instruction, and the provision God made for him, earned him a unique place in the hall of faith-fame in Hebrews 11, where we’re told that Abraham believed God was capable even of raising his son back from the dead in order to fulfill his promises.
That amazing scene, which took place about two thousand years before Jesus was born, points us forward to the time and place in history when God himself sacrificed his only son (yes, Mount Moriah many years later became Jerusalem, where Jesus died!). It was another three-day ordeal, only this time there was no other provision made: Jesus went all the way to the agonizing end, all the way to death.
God doesn’t ask of us anything he himself has not experienced. He knows what this is all about. He understands our confusion, our grief, our anger, our pain. He feels it with us. He knows. He’s been there and done that. That’s solid comfort, when things are really tough. But the heart of the story, the climax, the event that all of history points to, the reason we can have hope, the anchor for our faith when we’ve hit bottom, is what happened to Jesus on the third day. That’s the Story at the heart of the universe, which gives sense to the instruction to worship on the third day into the desert. It’s the joy of the Resurrected Christ that we celebrate when we worship, that gives us hope for the journey.
Perhaps by now you’re thinking something like this:
So that’s the challenge? Well, I might as well tell you right now that it’s too hard for me, and all of those pretty words are making me really angry. No way I’m any better than, or different from, the people of Israel.
Does God really know how tough things are? How weary I am? How much it hurts to see people I love suffer? How endless this desert seems to be, how pointless? Where IS God when it hurts, beyond anything I think I can endure? Does he even exist? Does he care? Does he really have power or sovereignty? If so, how could he possibly let all these things happen?
Does God get some kind of pleasure out of playing with me, twisting up my insides, flinging me around, taking delight in seeing just how much weight I can carry before I collapse? Does he know how desperately we mortals really NEED water, and food, and sleep, and relief from pain? Has he any idea how hard it is to be uprooted, split away from family and community, to watch innocent children suffer and even die? Does he understand the torture of nightmares, the agony of the unknown, the helpless vulnerability that comes from having dreams shattered, boundaries violated, and injustices from all sides piercing the heart?
Yeah. I know. Your struggle has been mine . . .
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