Exodus 7:14-10:29, Selected Verses Then the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Say to him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness, but until now you have not listened. With this staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile and it shall be turned to blood. The fish in the river shall die, the river itself shall stink, and the Egyptians shall be unable to drink water from the Nile. Say to Aaron, Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt so that they may become blood. Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded, but the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them. Seven days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile. Then the Lord said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh and say to him, if you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs. So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up. Then Pharaoh said, Pray to the Lord to take away the frogs and I will let the people go. Moses said to Pharaoh, Kindly tell me when. And he said, Tomorrow. But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart. Then Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and stuck the dust of the earth, and gnats came, but Pharaoh s heart was hardened. Then the Lord said to Moses, say to Pharaoh I will send swarms of flies. This sign shall appear tomorrow. Then the Lord said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, and say to him, The hand of the Lord will strike with a deadly pestilence your livestock in the field: the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. The Lord will do this thing in the land tomorrow. Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Take handfuls of soot from the kiln and throw it in the air, it shall become fine dust all over the land of Egypt and cause festering boils. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh s heart, and he would not listen. Then the Lord said to Moses, Say to Pharaoh, By now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But I have let you live to show you my power. You are still exalting yourself against my people. I will cause the heaviest hail to fall that has ever fallen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now, and I ll do it tomorrow. Then the Lord said to Moses, you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians. 1
Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and said to him, Thus says the Lord, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go. Then the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow Who knows where I pulled the title of my sermon from? Macbeth. It s one of my favorite plays due in part, I m sure, to the fact that I had the chance to play the title role while I was in seminary. It is one of Shakespeare s most violent, bloody, and uncompromising plays, where the line between fate and free will is blurred, and where Macbeth s desire for power constantly blinds his better judgment, resulting in a kingdom where lives are needlessly lost and families, including children, are slaughtered. The play ends spoiler alert with the gruesome image of Macbeth s severed head surrounded by those he sought to dominate, as they pledge their allegiance to a new and rightful king. Near the start of the play, Macbeth is irked by the fact that the king hasn t named him as the heir to the throne and so, goaded by his wife, he kills the king and usurps the throne. A lot of bloodshed ensues, but then near the end of the play, Lady Macbeth, who prided herself on her unswerving determination to make her husband king (all in an effort to give herself power), is subconsciously wracked with guilt for the role she played in the murder. She begins regularly sleep-walking and washing her hands in the air. Then when she is finally unable to bear what she has done, she takes her own life. When Macbeth hears the news, his first thought is that they are too busy with their violent work for her die. Macbeth says: She should have died hereafter. There would have been time for such a word. Tomorrow (V.v.17-19) But there s something in that word, tomorrow, which gradually reveals to Macbeth the futility of everything they ve done. 2
and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life s but a walking shadow; a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. (V.v.19-28) Macbeth comes to a point where he realizes that he and his wife have set into motion a series of tomorrows which will amount, for all their sound and fury, to absolutely nothing, because they will end in his death, too. The brief power he has had will come to a violent, bloody end and amount to nothing. A futile series of tomorrows which will only end in death. That is the position in which Pharaoh finds himself in our scripture this week. After the Israelites dismay that Moses and Aaron s first visit with Pharaoh didn t go as they d hoped the scripture we looked at last week Moses and Aaron returned again in the first scripture which Meg read for us, where God finally turned the staff into a snake. Of course, it didn t have the desired effect because Pharaoh s magicians did the same thing. Even after the Nile is turned to blood and not just the Nile, but all the water in Egypt Pharaoh isn t convinced. Not until the land swarms with frogs does he say, Alright, fine. I ll let you go! But this is where Pharaoh makes his tragic mistake. He knows he should let them go even if only to convince God to get rid of the frogs. But instead of immediately acting on his impulse to free the Israelites instead of wasting no time in doing the right thing he hesitates. Moses asks Pharaoh when would he like them to pray to God to get rid of the frogs, when will he allow them to leave and worship God? And Pharaoh says the wrong thing: Tomorrow. By the time tomorrow comes, he s thought of a million reasons not to let them go. Once they pray for the frogs to be removed, and they are, Pharaoh forgets the urgency he felt at the start to do what was right, and he changes his mind. 3
So God sends the next plague, gnats, but nothing changes. And oh, I told you Exodus was going to be full of bitter irony so God says, Fine, I ll send you another plague. I think I ll do it tomorrow. That sound good to you? And when tomorrow comes, God says, How about a plague over your livestock. That sound good? How about I do that one tomorrow? Then there were boils, and after that God decides to send hail and lighting, and says, How about I give that to you tomorrow. And after the boils, Still nothing. Okay how about locusts...when would you like them? How about tomorrow. Is Pharaoh getting the point yet? The book of Proverbs says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and we do all kinds of acrobatics trying to define fear as reverential awe, or a sense of total dependence, but sometimes fear means fear. And if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then Pharaoh is a fool, which is exactly what God said to Moses and Aaron you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians. I think one of the best understandings of sin which we have in scripture is that sin is anything and everything that seeks to tear apart creation and I m not just talking about creation as in the physical world, but everything in creation, and most importantly our relationships with one another. That s a part of creation. We were created to be in community with each other, and not just each other here but with everyone. And so anything that damages our relationships with each other is sin it amounts to tearing apart of creation. This has led some Christian theologians to say that hell is something far more terrifying than a place of fire and brimstone. When sin and evil are brought to their farthest extreme, the result, literally, is nothing. When creation is torn apart, there is nothing left. And so as Pharaoh s sin compounds upon itself, time and time again, what we are watching in these plagues is effectively the de-creation of Pharaoh s Egypt. Okay, so last year we looked at Genesis. Here s a pop quiz. What were the first words spoken by God in the first creation account in Genesis 1? Let there be light. So now in Exodus, what was the ninth plague, the last one we heard about in our scripture this morning? Darkness. 4
Egypt has now been swallowed up in this terrifying pre-creational darkness. The nothing that results from sin tearing away at God s good creation. This is a pretty cheery sermon, isn t it? Alright, well, there s something I want us to remember, even in the midst of the plagues and especially next week when we look at the death of the first-born. The Exodus story, is a story of salvation of the people of God transitioning into a new era of God s care. And though the end result of salvation is wonderful, the journey is often pretty dark and full of disheartening moments. Just watch the Empire Strikes Back or The Godfather Part II or The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I ve used those as examples before, and I m sure I ll do it again. But they help to remind us that the most inspiring stories necessarily take us to the darkest places even to the pre-creational darkness of Egypt - because our own lives are not free of darkness. But what we will continue to see is that Exodus takes us there because it proves that even when we feel overwhelmed by the dark, God is with us even there, and is still able to pull us all back into the light. - Nick Preuninger 5