The Mind of Moses
Of all the characters in the Bible, I relate most to Moses.
Mostly because Moses struggled his entire life with an identity crisis. He was raised by the slave-master Egyptians, but ethnically he was one of the enslaved Hebrews. One day, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. What was that like for Moses? Before him he sees a manifestation of the war raging within himself; one part of his story fighting another part. He wanted freedom! So he enacted his God given desire for freedom, his way. He killed the Egyptian and hid what he did.
Moses must have felt a renewed sense of peace.
“I did my part and fought the enemy of my people. I am now a true Hebrew! My actions have given me a sense of belonging!”
But the next day, he hears two Hebrews fighting. He confidently goes over because he feels like he can empathize with his fellow Hebrews struggles. But the two slaves turn to him and say, “Look who wants to be a Hebrew when it’s convenient?! We saw what you did. Do you think that changes anything?” Moses ran for his life. He just wanted to belong somewhere. He was too Egyptian for the Hebrews. He was too Hebrew for the Egyptians. Now, he flees into a wasteland of wilderness looking for purpose.
Moses struggled with an identity crisis. He ran away from Egypt into a wasteland and found himself by a well in Midian. There, he sees the daughters of Jethro drawing water for their flocks. All of a sudden, shepherds from another camp descend upon the well and attack the daughters. But Moses fights them off. This desire to bring deliverance is growing in him.
Moses ends up marrying one of the daughters and his name is changed to a Midianite one.
Moses goes to work as a shepherd. He sits in the silence by himself. He tends the flocks that aren’t his. (Hindsight would call this “training”.) One day, he notices a brush fire. Only this brush fire is different. The bush that is engulfed in flames isn’t burning up. The silence of the wilderness has sharpened his eyes. Moses has become enlightened. Moses became aware. But God was calling Moses. This desire to bring freedom was going to be led by God this time. God is prepared to bring confusion to the Egyptians but he asks Moses to give Pharaoh a choice first.
This is because God isn’t at war with individuals, but institutions. God knows all about Moses’s identity struggles. But he doesn’t reassure Moses of how Moses should identify. Instead, God empowers him with a revelation of who God is.
Whose deliverance is the Book of Exodus talking about? There are so many layers of freedom in this story. Moses is trying to find freedom through his identity. He flees into the wilderness, finds God, and returns to bring the children of Israel through the same process. God wages physical warfare on Egypt to free his people. God sends specific plagues to challenge the religious system in Egypt that condones slavery. You know, the many gods that place Egyptian lives as more important than Hebrew lives.
Pharaoh's firstborn son. This happened to Pharaoh to show that often the biggest obstacle standing between you and your own liberation is yourself. But, even after the children of Israel flee, they still spend 40 years in the desert going through the same process Moses did. Many Sunday school teachers would point out that the trip could have taken 11 days. But they had just escaped 400 years of slavery. That’s 400 years of seeing Egyptian gods as more of a spiritual reality than Yahweh.
They weren’t ready. They NEEDED all that time to have an Exodus of the mind, body, and soul! As Jason Upton says, “they were called to the wilderness where there was no audience”
