“It Is I, Be Not Afraid”

Pentecost 9, July 29, 2012

Trinity Chapel, Kennebunk Beach, Maine

Fr. Leander S. Harding, Ph.D., Vicar

 

John 6: 1-21

 

The primary story about salvation in the Bible is the story of Exodus. The Hebrew people – the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — have gone down to Egypt because of a great famine. God providentially prepared the way for them by sending ahead of them Joseph. His brothers meant to kill him but instead they sold him into slavery and Joseph became the governor over all Egypt – saving both the Egyptians and his own people from starving. God turned an evil deed inside out and brought good from it.

 

And there arose on the throne of Egypt a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph and he oppressed the people of Israel – causing them to make bricks without straw and ordering that all the boy babies be put to death. God providentially protected one of those babies and caused him to be saved and brought up in Pharaoh’s house as a prince of Egypt. (If you have children in the house, I heartily recommend the video of Disney’s Prince of Egypt.) This child grows up to be Moses – the prophet of God – the first Messiah and Savior of his people.

 

God says to Moses, “go down Moses, way down to Egypt land, tell old Pharaoh, to let my people go.” With a mighty and an outstretched hand God working through Moses delivers the people from their hard bondage and when the army of Pharaoh is on one side and the Red Sea is on the other – God makes a way out of no way and the people pass over from death to life and from slavery to freedom. Then God leads them to Mount Sinai and he gives them a holy and righteous way of life – the 10 Commandments. He leads them towards the promised land. God is present to lead and to guide – to correct and protect.

 

God speaks to them through Moses and he leads them with a column of fire by night and the cloud by day. He instructs them to build a tent of meeting and the glory of God fills the tent and the dwelling place of God is in the midst of his people.

 

Despite all these signs and wonders the people doubt God. They accuse Moses of bringing them out into the desert to die of thirst and hunger. God tells Moses to strike the rock and water pours out, and God sends the manna upon the face of the wilderness. It is something that looks insubstantial like frost but it is their daily bread and sustains them on their way. And don’t try to take more than a day’s worth or it will rot in your hands. So God leads them and guides them and feeds them supernaturally and brings them at last to the promised land. As they approached the promised land, God parts the Jordan for them just like he parted the Red Sea.

 

And when my task on earth is done

when by thy grace the victory’s won,

e’en death’s cold wave I will not flee

for God through Jordan leadeth me

 

Everything that God did through Moses for Israel is done again for us but more profoundly in Jesus Christ. He has come to set us free from slavery to the service of false gods – the idols of this world that promised so much and deliver so little and whose service is a more cruel slavery than that to Pharaoh of old. He has come to rescue us from hatred and sin and evil. He has come to make a way out of no way by a sacrifice of love, and to lead us from slavery to freedom and from death to life. He has come to reassert the holy and righteous way of life given on that mountain, all those years ago, but also to give us grace and a new spirit to live that life.

 

And as he has promised, he has not left us orphans. The promised Spirit has come: the one who is Himself the love that the Father and the Son share with each other. The Spirit leads and guides us, and in and through the power of the Spirit the Lord himself is present in His Word – His sacraments – in our midst when two or three are gathered in his name and when we minister to Him in His distressing disguise amongst the poor and those that suffer.

 

When Jesus feeds the multitudes in the wilderness it is a sign that one more powerful than Moses is here. When He appears to them in the midst of the storm when the rowing is hard, it is a sign that the Savior can be trusted to make a way out of no way and to bring us safely through the waves that threaten to undo us.

 

So the Scripture confronts us with the opportunity and a challenge to say with the crowds, “surely this is the one God has promised to send.”

 

There is something about the human heart. It needs constant reassurance. Though the deliverance at the Red Sea were yesterday, we ask today; “Is God real? Can he feed us in this wilderness? Can he be any practical help in the midst of this storm?”

 

It is natural to look for a sign. There is a wonderful image going around the Internet. It is the picture of the signboard outside of a Baptist church somewhere in the South. It is the kind of signboard with movable letters where the message changes week to week. The sign says, “If you are looking for a sign from God, this is it.”

 

The whole Gospel of John is in fact a series of signs which people mostly don’t perceive. The greatest of all the signs is of course the cross which in the world’s eyes looks like folly and defeat.

 

Here there is a paradox – God provides us with signs of His love and providential care but in such a way that we are not overwhelmed but left free to respond freely in love. Like Moses of old, Christ continues to be present to lead and guide, to correct and protect – to help us live holy and righteous lives that are worthy of the human dignity for which we have been created and to bring us at last to the promised land.

 

If we want the answer to the questions “Is God real? Can God do anything today?”, if we want the reassurance for which the human heart longs, if we want to answer our natural craving for a sign, then we should look in those places where the Lord has promised to meet us and where he hangs out the sign–by Bible reading, by continuing to gather week by week so that he might be made known to us in the breaking of the bread, by seeking him in prayer and in the fellowship of his followers, and in acts of service and charity.

 

This is not always easy. This persistent and consistent life of faith is sometimes hard rowing against the night wind. But we may in good faith expect to hear him say, “Be not afraid; it is I .” Amen.