Lesson from the Frogs

Passage: Exodus 8:1-15

One of my favorite jokes goes like this:

A scientist says to God, “God, we don’t need you anymore. We’ve figured out all the mysteries of life, including how to create a human being using nothing but dirt.”

God says, “Oh yes? I’m impressed. I can’t wait to see how you do it.”

The scientist, excited to demonstrate his discovery, bends down and starts to scoop together a pile of dirt.

“Not so fast,” says God, “Why don’t you start by getting your own dirt?”

God’s plan for delivering the Israelites out of slavery involves striking Egypt with a series of plagues. The plagues are intended in part to wear out Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and in part to demonstrate decisively the power of the one true God. Pharaoh and his magicians respond to the first displays of God’s power by responding in kind. When Moses’ staff is turned into a snake, the magicians turn their staffs into snakes. When God turns the water of the Nile into blood, the magicians turn pots of water into blood. So far they seem to be keeping pace with God fairly effectively.

Then comes the plague of frogs. The nation of Egypt is overrun by frogs – they’re in people’s houses; in their beds; in the land’s finest hotels and restaurants. Pharaoh’s magicians, once again, replicate God’s miracle by making frogs appear out of nowhere.

The problem is that Egypt doesn’t need more frogs. No one cares whether Pharaoh can make more frogs. They care whether he can make the frogs go away.

Pharaoh finally summons Moses and Aaron and says,

Pray to the LORD to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go…

Pharaoh momentarily admits defeat. He can approximate some of the mighty acts of God. But Pharaoh is not God. Whether or not he cares to admit it, he needs God.

This is the human dilemma. We have been given godlike faculties of ingenuity, creativity and intelligence. These in turn cause us to believe, at times, that we have every godlike quality. The difference between us and God is that all our faculties have limits. There are places our intellect can’t take us; times our wisdom sends us down the wrong path; moments at which our strength runs out; interactions in which our goodness is shown to be sorely lacking. We are not God. We need God. Everyone does –celebrity or nobody; president or panhandler; saint or sinner. We share this quality with all people and all created things. We need God.

Send Someone Else

Passage: Exodus 4:1-17

Exodus 4 falls in the middle of an extended conversation between God and Moses. Moses is living in Midian after having fled Egypt. He’s settled into a comfortable middle-class life: wife; kid; steady job. He’s working said job one day when he happens across a bush that’s engulfed in flame. He stops for a few minutes to watch, and realizes that the bush isn’t being consumed by the fire. At about this moment, the bush starts talking to him. It appears this is no ordinary bush.

As it turns out, the bush is perfectly ordinary. However, it is being used as the instrument of someone extraordinary: the one true God. God tells Moses that he plans to send him back to Egypt in order to talk the king of Egypt into letting the children of Israel go. Moses immediately identifies a few problems with this scenario. First, Moses left Egypt precisely because the king has a death warrant out on him. Second, the children of Israel currently constitute the bulk of Egypt’s cheap labor force – Pharaoh’s not going to be that interested in letting them go. Finally – and Moses emphasizes this point – Moses has problems verbalizing when under pressure. Stage fright; stuttering; call it what you will. When the heat is on, Moses can’t get his mouth to work.

Now picture the scene. Moses is having an actual conversation with God. God proves that he is who he says he is by turning Moses’ staff into a snake and giving him a quick case of leprosy. God tells Moses that Pharaoh will let the Israelites go; that the Egyptians will be overcome; even that the Israelites will plunder the Egyptians as they’re leaving town. There’s no ambiguity in God's stated intentions.

And yet Moses says, “Send someone else. I’m not up to the job.”

Moses is talking to a God who is, at this very moment, using shrubbery as his mouthpiece.

From the bush God says,

Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.

Is God or is God not able to accomplish what he has set out to do? That’s what Moses is calling into question. The basis of his doubt is, of course, not God per se. It’s Moses himself. He can’t see how even God Almighty could overcome the limitations of an ordinary guy like him.

But this is precisely why God has chosen Moses. And this is why God chooses any of us. As God enacts his plan of redemption in our world, he uses people like us – people who might seem too ordinary to do God's work. This is God’s M.O.: recruiting those whose flaws and limitations make God’s own hand unmistakable when people see it at work.

Signs

Passage: Matthew 15:29-16:20

In this passage Matthew records a series of stories in rapid succession that deal with the debate about Jesus’ true identity.

In the first story Jesus is surrounded by a crowd of people longing for his healing touch. We’re told that people have brought their sick and disabled loved ones, and Jesus has healed them. At a certain point the practical matter of feeding all these people comes up. Jesus gathers what food they have (seven loaves of bread and a few fish) and distributes it. Miraculously more than four thousand people are fed abundantly.

Immediately following this story we’re given the account of a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees (two parties that together represent the local authority on all things religious). They demand that Jesus give them a demonstration of his power. He refuses. This raises two questions. First: Why doesn’t Jesus just give them a sign? I mean, how easy would it be for him to put their questions to rest once and for all? This leads to the second question: Why do Jesus’ opponents need a sign? If they’ve spent any time around Jesus, they’ve either encountered witnesses, or witnessed his miracles themselves. Chances are at least a few of them were there when he fed the four thousand. How much more do they need?

This is precisely why Jesus refuses to cater to their demands. His argument is that they’ve seen all they need to see. He can’t do anything that will convince the Pharisees and Sadducees that he is who he says he is: the Messiah; God in the flesh. They have already seen ample evidence to support this. But they have been unwilling to accept the conclusion indicated by the evidence. They are unwilling to entertain the possibility that Jesus is the Christ.

Throughout the Gospels we see two things happening. The first is that Jesus is either unwilling, or unable, to perform miracles in the presence of unbelievers. A stunning example is found in Mark 6, when Jesus pays a visit to his hometown. The second is that Jesus almost invariably waits to administer healing until people have demonstrated faith in him. Some great examples are his healing of the woman with the flow of blood; his healing of the Canaanite woman; and his healing of the centurion’s servant.

The net testimony of these passages is this: Jesus is not primarily concerned with healing people’s physical maladies. He’s not primarily concerned with improving people’s lives here and now. Jesus is preoccupied with people’s ultimate salvation. No one can enter into a saving relationship with God the Father except by believing in Jesus Christ.

What Jesus communicates in his conversation with the Pharisees and Sadducees is that he can’t help them. He cannot change their minds. They’re already convinced that he can’t possibly be God in the flesh. Any evidence he offers to the contrary, no matter how miraculous, will be dismissed or explained away.

In the final story of this passage, Jesus asks his disciples what conclusion the evidence has led them to draw. Only one of them – Peter – answers: “You’re the Christ!” Even among those who have spent every day with Jesus, few are ready to come to this conclusion.

The question we’re left with is this: What evidence do you need? What do you have to see and hear to believe that Jesus is who he says he is? If you’ve already decided he can’t be the Savior; can’t be God in the flesh, then nothing is going to change your mind – even a personal visit from Jesus himself. If you already believe, then you don’t need more miracles than those he has already shown you.

Walking on Water

Passage: Matthew 14:22-32

Perhaps one of the most famous accounts of Jesus, this passage begins with the disciples taking an evening boat ride. Several of the disciples are fishermen by trade, so their trip across the lake is a familiar exercise. However, darkness sets in, the wind picks up, and the water gets choppy. The disciples get a little jumpy. Even experienced mariners in their day acknowledge the awesome and untamed power of a large body of water. Superstition abounds regarding the supernatural forces that seem to inhabit the deeps. Lakes and seas are a sort of no-man’s land between the realm of the living and the dead. The water represents chaos – the embodiment of the disciples’ worst fears.

Their worst fears seem confirmed as they witness a ghostly figure walking toward them on the surface of the lake. Their shouts of terror, silenced first by the wind and the waves, quickly subside as the figure identifies himself as Jesus, their master and friend. Peter, always impulsive, says, “Jesus, if that’s really you, let me walk out to you.” Jesus says, “Go for it.” And he does.

Now for Peter, stepping out of the boat is like stepping into the jaws of death. It’s like walking out onto the highwire strung between skyscrapers; like jumping out of the plane. Peter is able to do so because he has his eyes fixed upon Jesus. Seeing that Jesus is in the midst of the chaos – above the chaos, really – gives Peter the confidence to step out. Of course, as soon as he’s out on the surface of the water, Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus. He looks around and says, “This is impossible! I’m a goner!” It’s at this point that Peter begins to sink.

Much of our life is spent in the safety of the boat. We create solid, secure spaces to keep the chaos out: homes we’re paying for; families we’ve nurtured; jobs we’ve acquired. Periodically, however, we find ourselves outside the boat. Job loss; divorce; the death of someone we love; forced relocation – any of a number of unexpected events can force us from the safe and familiar into chaos. Sometimes these circumstances are self-imposed: a change of career; leaving a steady job to start a business; choosing to go back to school; pursuing a life of professional ministry. The movement is still from security to chaos.

When we make this move, we look for some reassurance that we’re going to survive the chaos. As Christians, we look to Jesus, who conquered the wind and the waves; who conquered death itself. We believe, like Peter, that if our Lord can do it, so can we. And like Peter, we find ourselves riding safely above the chaos that surrounds us, so long as we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. It’s not until we look down, and recognize how serious the chaos is that we start to get sucked down. The uncertainty of being self-employed, or unemployed, begins to terrify us. The pain of what we’ve lost begins to overwhelm us. Where we once saw potential for adventure and new life, we now see only impending failure.

If this is where you’re at, look up. Look to Jesus, whose love conquers all things, even the things we fear the most. Look to Jesus, who goes before us, and offers us a hand even as we’re sinking. Be reminded of the promises of Jesus, the Living Word of God:

I will never leave you or forsake you… (Hebrews 13:5)

I am with you always, to the very end of the age… (Matthew 28:20)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)