Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, October 9, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I suppose if it’d witness such a miracle as the parting of the Red Sea, I’d believe, too. I imagine it would have been spectacular to see. And all those dead Egyptians rolling into shore—it would have been sobering to think how small and fleeting my own life was. I would have been terrified of God after that.
Maybe this is the God that the Israelites needed—a warrior God to deliver them from their enemies. But this is not the God I need. I do not need a God who drowns an army who, by the way, God sent running after the Israelites in the first place.
On the other hand, I’d sure like a God who would act according to my will in the world, punishing a whole host of folks who to my way of thinking are downright evil, whose actions go against everything I believe Jesus taught and stood for. Would I go so far as to want to see them drowned in a crashing sea? Well…I would hope not.
For me, today, I think this passage might just be a reminder to let God be God and let myself trust that the God of my understanding is a God of peace and reconciliation, not war.
How do I feel about violent and war-like images of God?