Women of Faith - Jochebed - Exodus 2:1-10
I have to confess that
when it comes to watching television, Anita and I are crime show junkies. We used to watch CSI—all the variations of
them—but after they stopped, we had to decide what to watch. With Netflix on hand, we settled on trying
Criminal Minds—and that has continued to be one of our primary weekly shows. The fourteenth episode of the first season
was probably the clincher for me. It was
called “Riding the Lightning.” In this episode,
the Behavior Analysis Unit is sent to interview a husband and wife who are on
death row for the murder of 12 girls and their son, whose body has never been
found. The husband has confessed to the
murder of the girls (the number of which, during the show goes from 12 to 13 to
14 to 18), the wife has only confessed to killing the son after being directed
to by her husband, but is on death row, considered an accomplice of her
husband. As the show moves forward, it
becomes evident that the husband had succumbed fully to the lure of evil and
was guilty of all the crimes and more.
However, the more the team learns, the more convinced Gideon, a seasoned
member of the team, believes that the wife had no comprehension of what her
husband had done, and furthermore, that she had not killed her son. Piecing together evidence, Gideon and the
team discover that Sarah had found someone to adopt her two-year-old son, and
raise him as their own, completely oblivious as to who his parents were. Gideon wants to use this information to save
her from being executed…she begs him not to…to let her son live his new life in
peace without the burden of being connected to his dad…Gideon reluctantly
agrees and Sarah goes to the electric chair, offering up her life to ensure her
son has a good life, free from the burden of his father’s sins.
A mother’s love…a
mother’s sacrifice…all during the show, there were three paintings present that
were hand painted by Sarah during her imprisonment. Those paintings were key to Gideon and his
team figuring out that Sarah’s son was still alive. Among those paintings was a painting of a
river twisting and turning through some reeds…connecting her story to another well-known
story.
Through the God-given
resourcefulness of Joseph, the Egyptians, the Hebrews people, and others
survived the drought that struck the region.
The Hebrew people that had moved to Egypt during the drought remained there
and began to thrive…they thrived so well, that the new Pharaoh who rose to
power long after Joseph’s death felt that the Hebrews were overrunning the
Egyptians and so Pharaoh made the decision to enslave the Hebrew people and
then commanded the midwives to kill any male Hebrew babies they delivered. The midwives refused, lying to Pharaoh as to
why they hadn’t killed the babies, and so Pharaoh, in his anger, demanded every
male child born to the Hebrew people was to be thrown into the Nile. One of the moms, a Levite woman, gave birth
to a baby boy. She couldn't bear to see
him drowned, so she hid him, for about three months. When she realized she couldn’t hide him anymore,
she devised a plan…a plan that would rip her apart emotionally, but a plan that
would hopefully give life to her son.
This mother, called
Jochebed, took some papyrus, bitumen, and pitch and formed a basket. She placed her little boy in the basket, and
when she knew that the daughter of the Pharaoh would be bathing in the river,
she placed the basket holding her little boy into the water, near the bank,
among the reeds. Pharaoh’s daughter, as
she was bathing, discovered the baby, her heart broken with his crying, refused
to see her father’s orders carried out, took the little baby and raised him as
her own, naming him Moses. Jochebed’s
love and sacrifice not only saved the life of her son, but ended up saving all
of God’s people from slavery in Egypt.
The love of these two
mothers is reflective of the source of that love, the source of every mother’s
love for their child, the source of all love.
Sarah’s love of her son, the love of Moses’ mother for her son, is
reflective of the love of God—it fact they offer a perfect image of the love of
God.
Some may balk at this
idea for a variety of reasons.
One objection springs
from the idea, somehow, that God is male.
Why? Because the language we find in much of Scripture uses masculine
language about God and most of Church history and tradition depicts God as a man
with long, flowing white hair. We have
to remember that many of those paintings were done by men looking in the
mirror, remaking God in their image, and we forget that it is the other way
around, we are made in God’s image. While
Jesus, fully divine and fully human was male, and prayed to God the Father, the
Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is beyond being considered either male
or female. In fact there are references
to God in very feminine terms in Scripture itself, such as the words of Jesus,
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often I have desired to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings….”[i] Yes, most of us typically use male pronouns
to reference God…but even in that God is not a guy…nor is God a gal…God is
beyond that…in His Image both male and female…both fathers and mothers are
created…and that image is love…Love that is reflected in a Mother’s Love for
her child.
Others may object
suggesting that God didn’t sacrifice Himself to save His Son, He sent His Son
to die. Here’s where I am going to push
us this morning. Yes, we read Biblically,
that God sent His Son to die for our sins…and people are horrified that any
parent would send their child off to die, particularly for someone else,
someone considered the enemy of the parent.
When we get all worked up this way, we forget another truth about
God. We worship a Trinitarian God—Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit—One God in Three…the Father, Son, and Spirit are not three
separate entities, they are one acting together, though one aspect of God may
take the forefront, all are present together.
In the coming of Jesus, God decided that it was time to intervene in the
world in a way as never before. God came
to offer His very own life as God the Son, as Jesus…God did not force His Son
to come die…God offered His very own life for ours…sacrificing Himself that His
Children might not be bound to sin…that His Children might not be trapped by
their past or the past of their parents’ sin…God sacrificed Himself that each
of us might have life—that we might live into a future freed of slavery to any
sin, and freed of the threat of death. This,
my brothers, this, my sisters, is a mother’s love outpoured. The love that God has for each of us…the love
that God has placed within all of the women here, whether they sacrifice
themselves for their biological children or for other children…the love that
God actually places within each of us…
In the Name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…Amen.
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