Easter Bunny Spared, Goose Cooked, Lamb Slaughtered, Israelites Painted Town Red, Dough Failed to Rise to Occasion (Exodus 12)

For years, the assumption was that the first Passover consisted of tasty meat - like sweet tender rabbit. This probably contributed to the tendency to draw bunnies with a big chomp taken out of the back of their necks. I blame the juvenile conflation of Passover, Easter and the so-called Easter Bunny for the confusion. This was despite the Children's Bible referring specifically to lamb rather than rabbit.

By simultaneous free association on the subject of cute farmyard animals, there was the notion that the animal to whom the meat recently was recently attached was somewhat small. It was only until I was cooking confit d'oie for dinner that it actually hit me that a whole lamb would not fit into any sort of cast-iron pan and the entire carcass would have had to be thrust through a spit outside the house and roasted on an open fire. (No, please don't sing that Christmas Song.) (The Cold Storage-Les Amis Catering partnership can now do this for your dinner parties.)

There would certainly have been no running commentary on the satisfactory crunch of the goose skin as a metal utensil cut through into the slip-and-fall-off the bone flesh beneath, or on the goodness of baby potatoes sprinkled with salt and roasted in the goose fat, or on the role of naked spinach leaves sparsely adorned with cold red pomegranate jewels in balancing the richness of the dish.

(For how to confit a goose, refer to Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie or be lazy and grab a jar/can from Culina.)

When the psalmist urged people to "taste and see" that the LORD was good (Psalm 34), he probably had more in mind than the umami-ness of one-year-old organic grass-fed roast lamb, accompanied by unleavened bread and bitter herbs. But just what God had in mind has been the subject of much late-night/early-morning wrestling over the last week or so. And it'll probably take much more time, revelation, brainpower to hope to suck all the marrow out of Exodus 12.

Still this is the little that has been gleaned:

Wedding Festivities
The Passover and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread were not to be mere celebrations of liberation from oppressors or the birth of a nation like those marked by every country. The people weren't to be rallied amidst mass dances and patriotic song sessions to take pride in and fight for their country. They were celebrations that looked outwards and upwards to Israel coming into relationship with the one and only God – he becoming their God and they becoming his people.

But God is not someone you call up on a whim and cast away when something more interesting comes along. As someone politely put it, God was redeeming a people for himself not for a night's fling but for a long-term marriage relationship. So no one could celebrate the beginning of this relationship (ie, the Passover) if they had not demonstrated their commitment to this relationship by the act of circumcision (Exodus 12:48-49) regardless if they were Israelite or foreigner.

Groom God's Self-Revelation
And who was this God to whom they were to commit themselves?

God had been building up to this rescue from Exodus (or even Genesis!) not just as escape from Egypt but the event by which the Israelites and the Egyptians would know who he was and what it meant for him to be the I AM (see Exodus 5 - 7:7).

The divine self-revelation afforded by this rescue was so earth-shakingly important (it should be!) that God not only instituted the Passover celebration and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread to commemorate it (Exodus 12), he also stipulated severe penalties for failing to keep its ordinances (eg. a nibble on leavened bread during that special set-apart time would result in the offender being cut off from the congregation of Israel, and by association, from the promises of God and a relationship with God - the only thing that would matter to any Israelite or indeed any human. Exodus 12:19). This celebration was so important that there would be no exceptions for the unclean or the journeying (Numbers 9). To highlight, bold, double-underline and frame with dancing zenon-lights how marvellous it really was for Israel to come into relationship with God (to be his people, to serve and worship him), and because Israel was completely clueless about the immense privilege they were about to receive, God decreed that the Hebrew new year would henceforth commence on that very month of rescue (Exodus 12:2).

What else did God intend to reveal about himself in the rescue from Egypt? Perhaps we are tipped off by the specifically-ordained elements of the Passover/Unleavened Bread festivals:

Passover
(1) the selection of a firstborn male without blemish (Exodus 12:5) - oh the cuteness overload (see, eg, Farmgirl's 2009 lambing season)! must have made the next step all the more horrific for the kawaii-kult.)
(2) the lamb:household ratio (Exodus 12:3-4)
(3) the killing of the lamb (Exodus 12:6)
(4) the painting of the blood on the doorposts (Exodus 12:7)
(5) the roasting of the lamb "its head with its legs and its inner parts" (Exodus 12:9), that is, roasting the lamb whole (Exodus 12:46). Roasting and not boiling it. And no raw lamb sashimi either (Exodus 12:8-9, 46).
(6) the eating it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Exodus 12:8)
(6) the burning of the remains (Exodus 12:10)
(7) the eating in haste with all one's travelling clothes on (Exodus 12:11)

Feast of the Unleavened Bread
(1) will last seven days from the fourteenth day of the first month of the year, fourteenth evening and twenty-first evening inclusive (Exodus 12:15,18)
(2) no leaven may be found in any house and no leavened bread may be eaten during the feast (Exodus 12:15,19,20)
(3) on the first and seventh day, a holy assembly is to be held and no work is to be done but food prep (Exodus 12:16)

God the Absolutely and Completely Sovereign
The statutes were instituted while the Israelites were still sitting in their little houses in Goshen, Egypt and no one could ascertain, using any definable human measurements, that what God had said would happen would actually occur. But God did not instruct Moses to put out tentative party balloons which could easily be taken down if the outcome was not as positive as expected; he was so certain of victory that he instructed him to commemorate this every year unto eternity (Exodus 12:17). What a great demonstration of God's absolute and complete control over events.

And it came to pass that God's prior commands worked out "naturally" in subsequent events so that the later annual commemoration of those events was both obedience to those prior commands as well as a re-enactment of the actual events that took place: eg, God's prior command to Moses was for unleavened bread to be included in the festive meal (Exodus 12:8) and a whole week of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:14-20). Actual events were such that the Israelites were chased out so urgently that they had to grab their dough before it was leavened and had to exit with their kneading bowls in their cloaks on their shoulders (Exodus 12:34) and subsequently, as they journeyed from Rameses to Succoth (Exodus 12:37) baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt. "It was not leavened, because they had been thrust out of Egypt and could not wait" (Exodus 12:39).

Grand stuff and of course, God had already demonstrated his sovereignty in the plagues and Pharaoh's coronary problems – hardening Pharaoh's heart just as Pharaoh was said to have hardened his own heart.

God the Trustworthy Promise-Keeper
Absolute power didn't corrupt absolutely. Despite having no higher authority to crackdown on his failure to keep his promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and despite most if not all the Israelites having already forgotten about the existence of such promises, God insisted on keeping them, starting with taking Israel out of Egypt (Deuteronomy 7:8). This was the sort of steadfast God it would be good to be in a long-term relationship with.

Again, the bunny-like multiplication of people in their 430 years in Egypt (in Fibonacci sequence or not) from a cosy 70 person party to Pharaoh's nightmare of a host of 600,000 men (excluding women and children and foreigners) (Exodus 12:39-41) should have already informed the alert that God's promises were being kept.

God Who Loves
The self-revelation of an infinite perfect creator to finite imperfect creatures would surely be limited to the capacity of the latter to fully comprehend what was being communicated. So the rest of the Bible keeps coming back to the Exodus adding layer upon magnificent layer of meaning to the event.

We are told later that God's rescue also showed his love for the Israelites:

And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power (Deuteronomy 4:37)

but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:8)

to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
and brought Israel out from among them,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
with a strong hand and an outstretched arm (Psalm 136)

When Israel was a child, I loved him,and out of Egypt I called my son. (Hosea 11:1)

God Who Judges Those Who Do Not Acknowledge Him As God
Most importantly however, the "tenth plague" or the horror movie mass killing of the first-born of every living thing in the land of Egypt: from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the slave girl who was behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle (Exodus 11:5) was a judgement on the Egyptians and their gods (Exodus, Numbers 33:4) whom they claimed existed and were powerful and therefore worshipped. It was a judgement that was partly penal (but not completely since that would have resulted in the death of every single person in Egypt) and partly revelatory – it showed them who's God.

Unfortunately for the Israelites, God was/is not primarily a God of Equal Rights For All, or a God of the Emancipation of Slaves (Begone Ye Evil Oppressors). He was/is a God concerned primarily about himself and his own name (which was/is quite right if he was/is the God of the world).

So the Israelites, after 9 plagues' worth of sitting on the sidelines with their munchies going kekeke at their Egyptian oppressors being beset by bloody water, slimy frogs, itchy gnats, swarming flies, dead livestock, painful boils and sores, hail and rain and thunder and fire at the same time, nibbly locusts (Exodus 7 – 10), find themselves coming face to face with the tenth which they were to avert with lamb blood (Exodus 12:13,23).

Why were they too subject to the tenth plague? It seems that God had not laid his hand on them previously not because they did not deserve the same punishment as the Egyptians but because he wanted to show that he made a distinction between Egypt and Israel, the people to whom he had given his promises and commitment, to demonstrate to the whole world that he was a God unlike any other.

We are told that the Israelites in Egypt had forgotten God's steadfast love and like the Egyptians and the immensely blind and stubborn Pharaoh, did not consider God's wondrous works (Psalm 106:7). Like the Egyptians, they too worshipped the false Egyptian gods (Joshua 24:14) rather than the LORD.

In Ezekiel 20, the LORD explains:

On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the offspring of the house of Jacob, making myself known to them in the land of Egypt; I swore to them, saying, I am the LORD your God. On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands. And I said to them, Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. But they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me. None of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.

"Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. (But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt. So I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness.

So their eagerness to kowtow to Pharaoh as his servants and their terrible treatment of Moses and God in Exodus 5 had probably less to do with their oppression and more to do with their acknowledgement of Pharaoh as god!

God Who Is Merciful
This was why the killing of the lamb was termed as a "sacrifice" (Exodus 12:27), the lamb being substituted in death for the firstborn of the households of Israel. And the LORD is commemorated in the Passover not only for rescuing them from Egypt but also rescuing them/sparing them from his wrath (Exodus 12:27).

The option of the sacrificial lamb was given as a way out from under the rightful judgement of God on the Israelites. That God did not decree an automatic passing over of a household if a critical number of members were God-fearing is interesting. God had previously demonstrated that he was quite capable of aiming his plagues in the right direction and at the people they were meant for so the blood-painted door frames were hardly for marking the right houses in bright colours so the LORD might know which houses to protect from destroyer (Exodus 12:23). Nor was the blood an effectual talisman in itself that kept death at bay. It was, God said, a sign for the Israelites (Exodus 12:13). God knew their hearts so he didn't need this as a sign of their trust in him and faith (Hebrews 11) in his words through Moses. It was a sign to themselves that they trusted in God and had faith in him.

This then, at least, is the God revealed by the Exodus – a God who is all powerful and all mighty, yet is faithful and trustworthy and stands fast on his promises, who judges those who do not acknowledge him as God yet chooses to loves a community of these sinners and gives them a way out from his wrath.

God Who Is Jesus Who Is Israel and Passover Lamb
It would be too much to try to trace the immense wealth of ways in which all the elements of the first Passover was paralleled and fulfilled in Jesus the Christ.

Suffice to say that he was/is the God who rescued the Israelites (Jude 1:5), Israel (Matthew 2:15) and also the Passover lamb – firstborn, male, without blemish or guilt (1 Corinthians 5:7). And this is not even getting started on the mindblowing-ness of God's directing the whole of history towards this Son with eg, the setting apart of the firstborns (Exodus 13:11-16, Numbers 3:11-13, Numbers 8:9-19, etc), the promise of the servant who would bear the sins of many (Isaiah 53), the sacrifices (Hebrews 9-10)). Or even the eschatological framework of the Passover.

However, this should alert us, who stand looking back after the cross, to the fact that God was not destructiveness and grumpiness in the Old Testament and love and softness in the New Testament. God then as now continues to be concerned about his name and that people worship him and him alone.

Jesus the Passover Lamb should not so much be associated with meekness and mildness (though there is that connotation in relation to his submission to God) as the lamb in Revelation standing at the centre of the throne, looking as if it had been slain (Revelation 5:6). And he had to be slain for the same reason the Passover Lamb had to be killed – for the sins of others, that the judgement of God might pass over them. We are these guilty sinners.

As it was with the Israelites in the past, we have a way out from God's wrath through the blood of the lamb. Will we acknowledge that God is God, that there is coming judgement for refusing to worship him, that there is salvation from his wrath if we trust his words and take hold of the blood of his Son?

And thereafter, will we clear out the leaven, the old false gods, and continue to worship him alone?

Not sure if there is much coherence (or proper grammar) in this post. Too much for the human mind to comprehend all at once. Good thing Jesus left the Spirit to help explain things. Still, shall adjourn for a drink to collect bits of grey and red matter strewn across room.

Current Read/Think-through of Exodus

• Convalescent Food, Lemon Poppyseed Yoghurt Cakelets and Exodus and the People of God
• Not the Physiology of Taste x Exodus 1
• Moses the Non-Rescuer and Exodus 2 - 4
• Rescue Plans Hit Brick Wall. Israelites Draw Short Straw. (Exodus 5 - 7:7)
• God Shows Hand, Gives Egyptians the Finger (Exodus 7 - 10)
• Easter Bunny Spared, Goose Cooked, Lamb Slaughtered, Israelites Painted Town Red, Dough Failed to Rise to Occasion (Exodus 12)
• Egyptians Sink To New Depths, God Gets Gobs of Glory (Exodus 13-14)
• Hallelujahs for the Hell-bound, Verses for Vengeance, Jumping for Judgement By Beach Boy & Co (Exodus 15:1-21)

God Shows Hand, Gives Egyptians the Finger (Exodus 7 - 10)

Last weekend, when the Klasse W came into my life from Tokyo thanks to E, we started on rather tentative footing, mostly because she spoke only Japanese. She (the Klasse W not E) behaved herself at the New Harbour Cafe and Bar along Tanjong Pagar Road where the finger-lickin' fried chicken wings, yummy bangers and mash, surprisingly decent sliced roast pork knuckle with applesauce and a good amount of crackling, all washed down with Guinness stout, German beers and Bulmer's cider, were greeted with cries of oishii!

She started to warm up at Mei Heong Yuen on Temple Street where shrill oishiis echoed through the shop after an ice mountain! of! sweet! mango! and another of yummy durian pulp. After much late night chatting and laughing and a Cantonese dumpling and a bowl of 杨枝甘露 (mango, sago and pomelo), the bottomless pits appeared finally to bottom out...

brunch burger: chargrilled wagyu and US chuck pattie topped with fried egg, crisped bacon, onion ring and melted cheesy provolone on a toasted sesame seed bap served with pickle and tomato on the side and fries

Then after Sunday brunch-turned-lunch-turned-tea at PS. Cafe, Palais, though, the Klasse W looked to be a real keeper. While the flesh-and-blood lunch companion concluded yet again that PS. Cafe's food was always reliably good.

double chocolate blackout cake accompanied by a scoop of vanilla ice-cream

In-built in the human mind is the ability to come to conclusions and make decisions based on measurable facts. Unsullied by the academic nit-pickiness of Descartes, Berkeley, Hume et al, there has always been enough understanding that eg, tough meat can be made edible in stews and that no, O 628th son of Pharaoh, it would not be wise to construct a giant zen balancing pebbles structure out of those pyramid blocks.

God, who after all made the human mind, knew this. And he also knew how much fallen men had neglected to use his faculties. So even though God's invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, should have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made, man suppressed this truth (Romans 1:18-20).

Even his own people, the Israelites, did not know him. So he promised the Israelites back in Exodus 6 that by his rescue of them from Egypt, they would understand the essence and character of their God. He will take them out of Egypt through signs and wonders (Exodus 3:20, 7:3, 8:23, 10:2). Signs, being not the sort of thing to exist just for the sake of hanging around street corners looking cool, tend to point to some thing and carry some meaning.

God states explicitly that his signs are so that Pharaoh ("you" in the singular in Exodus 8:22, 9:14, 9:16) and the Egyptians would know that he is the LORD (Exodus 7:5, 17). Specifically, that there is no one like the LORD (Exodus 8:10) in all the earth (Exodus 9:14), that he is not just a feudal localised god or an absent watchmaker who left the world to run on creational mechanics but the LORD in the midst of the earth (Exodus 8:22) and actively concerned with it, that the earth is the LORD's (Exodus 9:29).

God also states that his signs are to reveal himself to the Israelites, not in judgement as it would be for the Egyptians (Exodus 7:4), but so they might tell their sons and grandsons of about person who was/would always be their God (Exodus 10:1-2).

Given these repeatedly stated aims, the ink and paper wasted on attempting to explain away the miracles as natural phenomena, eg. that the Nile didn't really turn to blood but actually, the red colouring was a function of erosion further upstream or of red algae or of the setting sun(!)) completely miss God's point. Not only were the Egyptians scientifically advanced enough to know "natural phenomena" when they saw it, God meant for all these to be "wonders" (or "miracles") to demonstrate his unique greatness over all of creation.

So Pharaoh's magicians attempt a few miracles of their own, but like pirated branded goods from a back alley in Bangkok or Suzhou or copycat molecular gastronomy menus, the counterfeit is never as good as the real thing. The magicians too turn their staffs into serpents (Exodus 7:11-12) but they aren't able to prevent Aaron's staff-serpent from swallowing their staff-serpents up (Exodus 7:12); they are able to turn water to blood as well (Exodus 7:22) and produce frogs from their hats (Exodus 8:7) which might be mildly entertaining, but this means nothing since they don't have to power to reverse the process. Illusionists know a real thing when they see it and by the fourth plague the magicians acknowledge that God is the real deal (Exodus 8:19) but their expert advice falls on deaf ears.

God's control over matter, over the bonding and character of molecules, over each frog, gnat and fly (so that they harm Egyptians not Israelites), over the life and death of livestock, over the skin and immune systems of all humans, over the weather - a simultaneous storm of hail + rain + fire being not very natural, over the sun and light and darkness was unsurpassed. It would have to be for him to claim that there is no one like him in all the earth.

In fact, God's control over everything is so complete that he controls the timing of coming and lifting of plagues (see, eg, Exodus 8:10ff). He has at his command every potentiality and power and person and element, every thing.

So it is difficult to see how or why anyone would be embarrassed by this and try to explain the events some other way. If God is as he claims, the God of the universe, if he created every little thing in it, and controls every thing in it, who is any one to neuter him by trying to squeeze his self-proclaimed mighty works into little boxes called "science" or the like? He is the reason why there are predictabilities that humans call science. But he himself stands outside its so-called laws and regulations. He sustains everything and is the reason why there aren't gnats in Pharaoh's pants all the days of his life.

This God is not a false god that you can put in a box of false gods and pick out at will - oh, this one? This one does sunshine on rainy days, this other one does fertility but only specialises in livestock, this one used to give victories in war but due to prevailing circumstances of peace, has diversified into victories in love as well. These are gods we make up so we can control them. But we waste our lives manipulating non-entities, figments of our wishful thinking.

He who is lord over creation and lord over order in creation is also lord of history too. Pharaoh might think that he is Ozymandias the smartest man on the planet or he might just think he is in some position to outwit, outlast, outplay this God. But throughout the plague narrative (Exodus 7 - 11), we are told that events occurred "as the LORD had said" (Exodus 7:13, 7:22, 8:15, 8:19, 9:12, 9:35 etc). The LORD who directs the course of history does not cover his mouth in surprise that the dastardly Pharaoh has yet again reneged on his promise to let the Israelites go (Exodus 8:15, 8:32, 9:35, 10:20, 10:27). God not only predicts this would happen but he directs that this happens. It is he who raised Pharaoh up for this purpose (Exodus 9:16); it is the LORD who also hardens Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 7:3, 9:12, 10:1, 10:20, 10:27) as Pharaoh hardens his own heart (Exodus 7:13?, 7:14?, 7:22?, 8:15, 8:19?, 8:32, 9:7?, 9:34, 9:35?).

Are we affronted by this just as we are by the patent predestination present in the New Testament texts (more here and here)? We know that we bear personal responsibility for our actions, yet we also know that God cannot be God of the universe unless he is also Lord over our lives and the choices we make. Those two things are true and just as we cannot explain miracles with our finite sciences, so we cannot hope to understand how these two things can be true and right with our finite theology and logic.

At present, what is of even more importance to us is our reaction to God's revelation of himself. If this is the all mighty God we are talking about then there is a certain patience in all he is doing since we (and the Israelites, Pharaoh and the Egyptians) ought to have known about him and acknowledged him as Lord without him having to do any of this stuff. God says as much when he warns Pharaoh that by now, he could have put out his hand and struck him and his people with pestilence and they would have been cut off from the earth (Exodus 9:15). He really doesn't need to go through ten plagues just to bring his people from Egypt. Heck, he could just have teleported them out but this is how God is choosing to reveal himself to the world.

Why the long-suffering? Well, there aren't divine Joneses in the next universe that God has to one-up: oh look, I brought my peeps out of bad old Egypt with mighty works, what have *you* done lately, neighbour? He doesn't need affirmation from his people of how good he is because then he could have uncreated this lot and created another lot to do just that for all eternity. God's concern for his glory is in a way concern for us puny things; to show us his glory so that we will respond rightly to him.

So later, when Jesus comes and demonstrates power over storms, sickness and even death etc, Jesus articulates the demonstration of his power not because verbal communication is the best way of getting through to God but on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that God sent Jesus (John 11:41-42). But like Jesus' own resurrection, we try to explain this away with our sciences or conspiracy theories so that we will not have to acknowledge that Jesus is lord and requires our worship.

God and Jesus make big claims, and they must. Either believe them or no. Don't try to wriggle out of it by alleging natural phenomena or David Copperfield-like tricks. There can be no patronising fence sitting, not only because they hadn't invented fences back in Ancient Egypt.

Why didn't Pharaoh let the Israelites go even after seeing the might of God?
He was in denial (de Nile)

Bearing in mind a God like this, Pharaoh is really in over his head (not a rude pun on his allegedly watery end in the Nile) in his refusal to let the people go. God is going to bring them out. They are his people, he promised to do so, and since this world including Egypt is his, there is nothing a powerless Pharaoh can possibly do about it. He himself owes his very existence to God. God isn't just another one from the parthenon come to negotiate the release of captives. But Pharaoh is too proud to acknowledge that God is really in charge (Exodus 10:3) and defeat, a forgone conclusion. He sends Moses, not just God's messenger but also Pharaoh's only mediator before God, away (Exodus 10:28) thus cutting off any hope of being saved from what was to come.

Thousands of years later, commoners like us are mired in the same stupid sin when we refuse to acknowledge God as God. Whilst beholding the utter greatness and bigness of this God, we still daily scheme to deny this when we sin against him and disobey his commands, or to appear contrite and righteous when our hearts are not, or when we try to tame him to be our personal genie and convenient pretend invisible best friend on rainy days - we can accept his imagined hugs when we are downcast but cannot accept his unabashed sovereignty in hardening the heart of Pharaoh and others. We refuse to see that it not us vs God with the odds at 50:50. God's universe is moving toward judgement and sure condemnation for those who do not know him or obey him as master. YHWH is not the pet poodle whose fur we can trim like topiary and then dye cotton candy pink to match our outfit for the day. YHWH is a roaring lion whose wrath we have provoked. Fall down and plead the blood of his son our only mediator so that he does not devour us. We aren't going to stop his judgement by denying his existence or claiming that he can't do this or that, or that oh! he's such a horrid meanie to harden the Pharaoh's heart and predestine some to be saved. He did it, he does it and he is perfect, and we are not and will never completely understand one who is. So deal with it, and fall down and worship, and obey. Worship him alone. For we know that God makes a distinction between others and his people, though neither of them deserve this.


New Harbour Cafe and Bar
114 Tanjong Pagar Road
Tel: 6226 2657

Mei Heong Yuen 味香园
65-67 Temple Street

PS Cafe
Level 2, Palais
390 Orchard Road

Current Read/Think-through of Exodus

• Convalescent Food, Lemon Poppyseed Yoghurt Cakelets and Exodus and the People of God
• Not the Physiology of Taste x Exodus 1
• Moses the Non-Rescuer and Exodus 2 - 4
• Rescue Plans Hit Brick Wall. Israelites Draw Short Straw. (Exodus 5 - 7:7)
• God Shows Hand, Gives Egyptians the Finger (Exodus 7 - 10)
• Easter Bunny Spared, Goose Cooked, Lamb Slaughtered, Israelites Painted Town Red, Dough Failed to Rise to Occasion (Exodus 12)
• Egyptians Sink To New Depths, God Gets Gobs of Glory (Exodus 13-14)
• Hallelujahs for the Hell-bound, Verses for Vengeance, Jumping for Judgement By Beach Boy & Co (Exodus 15:1-21)

Rescue Plans Hit Brick Wall. Israelites Draw Short Straw. (Exodus 5 - 7:7)

Estimating the Platonic Ideal of the Chocolate Cake Taste/Texture** FTW.

Riff on Alice Medrich's Queen of Sheba cake from Bittersweet
70% Valrhona chocolate, coarsely chopped
unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Australian smoked salt
vanilla extract
ground almonds
all-purpose flour
large eggs, separated, at room temperature
light muscovado sugar
lemon

Jewish reference for a Passover-ish meal? Tick. Medrich promised an ugglee cake and it sure was craggy but almost rightly dense and moist inside. But whither Chocolate Cake Taste and Texture Ideal etc?


Suffice to say it embarrassed the lovely dinner that preceded it. Well worth the 1 Michelin star (unauthorised) bestowed by D. I still think fondly of certain truffle-laced raviolis from time to time.

But anyway, we are a way from the first Passover. And not just because of the sake sashimi.

At the close of the last chapter of Exodus (Exodus 4), we were stuck with a reluctant rescuer-designate who was neither keen about rescuing his people from Egypt nor terribly trusting of God's ability to effect such rescue through him.

Anyway, the reluctant rescuer & mouthpiece finally meet with the Pharaoh to present God's demands: "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.'" (Exodus 5:1)

Pharaoh is possibly amused by this challenge to the otherwise perfect obedience to his rule. Afterall, his is current the greatest ruler in the known world, and he and the rest of his world think him a deity too. (And if he was indeed Ramesses II the red-head, the loss of free migrant workers might have interfered annoyingly with his fetish for large scale construction. Plus Freud had not yet been born to distract him with psychoanalysis of his repressed jealousy of his father.)

So he flicks the two Hebrews off with a roll of his kohl-lined eyes:
"Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD" and "moreover, I will not let Israel go" (Exodus 5:2)

But the Hebrews repeat the demands of the God of the Hebrews and he realises they are quite serious about this rejecting his rule over Israel business. After sending Moses and Aaron away, he decides to show them who really holds their tomorrows in his hands ("thus says the LORD, the God of Israel" (Exodus 5:1) cf "thus says Pharaoh" (Exodus 5:10) ) by decreeing that the slaves would have to meet their daily quota of bricks without a ready supply of raw material for the task (Exodus 5:4-12).

Perhaps Pharaoh thought there was no such god in the first place and so Moses and Aaron's words had been "lying words" (Exodus 5:9). And even if there were such a "God of the Hebrews", he must have been a rather incompetent, lesser god. How powerful could their god be if his people were enslaved by the most powerful empire in the ancient world which Pharaoh was like a god over?

So Pharaoh set himself up against the God of the world.

Meanwhile, God's people unfortunately, buy into Pharaoh's hype. They speak to him as to a god: crying to him for mercy (Exodus 5:15) and grovelling before him, calling themselves "your servants" (Exodus 5:15-16).

So God's own people disowned their God.

And spat upon by the angry foremen, Moses spares no time in accusing God of not keeping his word to them back in the dessert: "O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all." (Exodus 5:22)

So Moses the rescuer designate failed to trust the God of the world who'd sent him.***

The megalomanical Pharaoh might be easy to swat off the face of the earth but how can God ever fulfil his covenant promises in the face of a stupid people who trust their abusive captor more than the God who wants to rescue them and how can God do this through the man he promised as rescuer without squishing said rescuer in anger in the meanwhile?

What follows shows that God isn't just a nice Platonic Form of the Personification of the Good. He is a person, a being actively concerned with his world and passionately involved in the lives of his people.

The LORD answers Pharaoh's impertinence:
"Who is the LORD that I should obey him"? Why, this is the LORD who pre-existed the Pharaoh who only recently appeared on the scene. Many generations ago, he had already appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob (Exodus 6:2).

"Morever I will not let Israel go"? Well! God will bring them out from Egypt and deliver them from slavery. He would redeem them with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgement (Exodus 6:5-7)

And the LORD answers the people's unfaithfulness and distrust:
After what I am about to do, you should have no doubt whatsoever who is the God you should put your trust in and whom you should worship.

What food can be found in a desert?
A sandwich.

Ok, ok. The sandwich or chiasm here tells us the essence of God being "the LORD":
A - I am the LORD.
B - I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.
C - Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.
C' - Say therefore to the people of Israel, 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
B' - I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession.
A' - I am the LORD.

The essence of God is encapsulated within his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And within that covenant, the meat of the sandwich (C and C'), the central characteristic of God the LORD, would be seen in his rescue of Israel from Egypt - his ability and his willingness to fulfil his promises, his compassion, his power and his judgement.

"Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land." (Exodus 6:1) What a promise of exciting things to come. It seems like we're watching the World Cup semi-finals. The camera pans to show the fans in the stands and the field being prepped. Then there's a quick flash away to the background of the more interesting members of the teams about to play. Not a terribly distinguished pair but there you have them. When we return, the banners are out, the field is prepped, the media is waiting, Aslan is on the move (Exodus 6:10-30)... but in the locker room, Moses is still whinging (Exodus 6:12,30).

If Moses was getting nervous about the stakes in God vs Pharaoh - The Showdown, God tells him that actually, the thing is a throwaway. He is complete control over every, that is, every aspect of this situation:

Problem of the reluctant rescuer? "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land." (Exodus 7:1-2)

Problem of the reluctant Pharaoh? Actually, it is God who has hardened/will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though he multiply his signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to Moses. Then God will lay his hand on Egypt and bring his hosts, his people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. By this the Egyptians would know that he was the LORD. (Exodus 7:3-5)

We humans are fond of claiming the credit for things we have not done. Mark Ashton remind us of the story of the Beaver saying to the Rabbit as they looked up at the Hoover Dam,"No, I didn't actually build it myself, but it is based on an idea of mine". If Moses or the Israelites were to try to claim credit for their salvation after all this was but a distant memory: oh I was obedient, I was. And full of faith too. That's why he chose me/us etc, the Book of Exodus so far just about shoots that out of the sky.

好戏还在后头. Grab some pizza and chips.


spinach and prosciutto di parma pizza. good with Belgian blondes of the drinkable sort

*brick wall pun thanks to D's CLDG entertainment

**for the avoidance of doubt in the minds of the kind folk who have given me much chocolate for which I have been grateful, there is no personal preference for chocolate. It's just the common preference of most folk who eat these confections/conjectures. Artisanal chocolates and otherwise experimenting with chocolate for the sake of it are of much interest however. Attempting not to burn cakes is also of much utilitarian interest.

***and really, this rescue was no skin off his nose really, compared to what Jesus the final rescuer had to go through! Which really brings into focus just how wonderful Jesus' perfect obedience to and trust in God must have been!

Current Read/Think-through of Exodus

• Convalescent Food, Lemon Poppyseed Yoghurt Cakelets and Exodus and the People of God
• Not the Physiology of Taste x Exodus 1
• Moses the Non-Rescuer and Exodus 2 - 4
• Rescue Plans Hit Brick Wall. Israelites Draw Short Straw. (Exodus 5 - 7:7)
• God Shows Hand, Gives Egyptians the Finger (Exodus 7 - 10)
• Easter Bunny Spared, Goose Cooked, Lamb Slaughtered, Israelites Painted Town Red, Dough Failed to Rise to Occasion (Exodus 12)
• Egyptians Sink To New Depths, God Gets Gobs of Glory (Exodus 13-14)
• Hallelujahs for the Hell-bound, Verses for Vengeance, Jumping for Judgement By Beach Boy & Co (Exodus 15:1-21)

Good Friday -> Easter Sunday -> Eternity

For before he was born on the earth, Scripture was written about him: both man and God, servant and king, sacrifical lamb and priest, saviour and judge. For after his death, his disciples wrote down what he had taught them and what he had done. There was much more they had not recorded, for all the books in the world would be too few to contain everything. For through the ages, songs have been written and sung of his greatness and his marvellous deeds. And they will be continue to be written and sung, even in eternity.

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Consequently,when Christ came into the world, he said,

"Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, 'Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.'"

When he said above, "You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered according to the law), then he added,"Behold, I have come to do your will." He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
"This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,"

then he adds,

"I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more."

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:1-25)

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, "See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him." So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold the man!" When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them,"Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him." The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God." When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus,"Where are you from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?" Jesus answered him,"You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin."

From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, "If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar." So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews,"Behold your King!" They cried out,"Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews,' but rather, 'This man said, I am King of the Jews.'" Pilate answered,"What I have written I have written."

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be." This was to fulfill the Scripture which says,

"They divided my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots."

So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother,"Woman, behold, your son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst." A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said,"It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness— his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth— that you also may believe. For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken." And again another Scripture says, "They will look on him whom they have pierced." (John 19:1-37)

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. (1 Peter 3:17-22)

The Power of the Cross (Oh to See The Dawn)
Ahem...
Oh to see the Don*...

Stop that! This is serious!

Sorry.



Oh, to see the dawn
Of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood.

Chorus:
This, the power of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh, to see the pain
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Every bitter thought,
Every evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Chorus

Now the daylight flees;
Now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life;
"Finished!" the victory cry.

Chorus

Oh, to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.

This, the power of the cross:
Son of God—slain for us.
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Keith Getty & Stuart Townend © 2005 Thankyou Music


At the Cross
At the cross
God demonstrates His love for us.
While we were sinners, Jesus came to die
So by His Blood, we could be justified.

At the cross
God demonstrates that He is just.
Unpunished sins could not be overlooked
So Jesus took them on Himself

So be not ashamed of the cross,
It brings salvation to all who believe
God is revealed, guilt is removed,
Forgiveness can now be received

So be not ashamed of the cross,
Tell of its power to all who will hear.
Great is our joy, glory is ours,
From death we can now be set free.

At the cross
God demonstrates His endless grace.
He chose to send His precious only Son,
To punish Him for sins we’ve done.

So be not ashamed of the cross,
It brings salvation to all who believe
God is revealed, guilt is removed,
Forgiveness can now be received

So be not ashamed of the cross,
Tell of its power to all who will hear.
Great is our joy, glory is ours,
From death we can now be set free.

Bryson Smith & Philip Percival © 1996 Plainsong Music


Across the Great Divide
There is no more separation
There is no more need to hide
You have brought us near, O Jesus
Across the great divide
There is no more condemnation
Since the blood flowed from Your side
You have brought us near, O Jesus
Across the great divide

Oh glory to Your holy name
For the distance that You came
To bear my guilt and take my blame to save me
From heaven to a cross of pain
Oh the distance that You came
So I will love You without shame
You saved me, You saved me

There is no more fear of judgment
The Father's wrath is satisfied
You have brought us near, O Jesus
Across the great divide
There’s a way beyond the curtain
Through our Priest and King on high
You have brought us near, O Jesus
Across the great divide

Words by Mark Altrogge, Music by Jeremy White © 2001 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)


There Is A Redeemer

There is a redeemer,
Jesus, God's own son,
Precious lamb of God, Messiah,
Holy one,

Jesus my redeemer,
Name above all names,
Precious lamb of God, Messiah,
Oh, for sinners slain.

Thank you oh my father,
For giving us your son,
And leaving your spirit,
'til the work on earth is done.

When I stand in glory,
I will see his face,
And there I'll serve my king forever,
In that holy place.

Thank you oh my father,
For giving us your son,
And leaving your spirit,
'til the work on earth is done.

There is a redeemer,
Jesus, God's own son,
Precious lamb of God, Messiah,
Holy one,

Thank you oh my father,
For giving us your son,
And leaving your spirit,
'til the work on earth is done.

And leaving your spirit,
'till the work on earth is done.

Keith Green

I Will Glory In My Redeemer

I will glory in my Redeemer
Whose priceless blood has ransomed me
Mine was the sin that drove the bitter nails
And hung Him on that judgment tree
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who crushed the power of sin and death
My only Savior before the Holy Judge
The Lamb Who is my righteousness
The Lamb Who is my righteousness

I will glory in my Redeemer
My life He bought, my love He owns
I have no longings for another
I'm satisfied in Him alone
I will glory in my Redeemer
His faithfulness my standing place
Though foes are mighty and rush upon me
My feet are firm, held by His grace
My feet are firm, held by His grace

I will glory in my Redeemer
Who carries me on eagle's wings
He crowns my life with lovingkindness
His triumph song I'll ever sing
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who waits for me at gates of gold
And when He calls me it will be paradise
His face forever to behold
His face forever to behold
His face forever to behold

Steve and Vikki Cook © 2001 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP)

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, "Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive,'After three days I will rise.' Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, 'He has risen from the dead,' and the last fraud will be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can." So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard. (Matthew 27:57-66)

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. (Colossians 3:1-7)

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. (John 20:1-10)

So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea,beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. (Acts 10:34-43)

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see." And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognised him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other,"Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:13-35)

Behold the Lamb
Behold the Lamb
Silent before His accusers
As thorns are pressed into His brow
They lift Him up
Oh see the spikes that hold Him
Redeeming blood flows down
But look again
The cross stands empty now
And He is risen

Behold the Lamb
See Him crowned with glory
Behold the Lamb
Cast your crowns before Him
Crying Holy Holy is the Lamb

Behold the Lamb
Carrying all our transgressions
He freely takes our place
Endures the lash
The mocking and the laughter
Of those He dies to save
But look again
The cross stands empty now
And He is risen

Behold the Lamb
See Him crowned with glory
Behold the Lamb
Cast your crowns before Him
Crying Holy Holy is the Lamb

Mark Altrogge © 2000 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

Low In The Grave He Lay
Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Saviour,
Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

Chorus:
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Vainly they watch His bed, Jesus my Saviour;
Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!

Chorus

Death cannot keep its Prey, Jesus my Saviour;
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!

Chorus

Ro­bert Low­ry, 1874


See, What A Morning (Resurrection Hymn)

See, what a morning, gloriously bright,
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes, tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce, "Christ is risen!"
See God's salvation plan,
Wrought in love, borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

See Mary weeping, "Where is He laid?"
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name;
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope, bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit who clothes faith with certainty.
Honor and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned with pow'r and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

Keith Getty and Stuart Townend © 2003 Kingsway Thankyou Music


Christ the Lord Is Risen Today
Christ, the Lord, is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Lo! the Sun’s eclipse is over, Alleluia!
Lo! He sets in blood no more, Alleluia!

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Alleluia!
Christ hath burst the gates of hell, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Hail, the Lord of earth and Heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to Thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail, the resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

King of glory, Soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing and thus to love, Alleluia!

Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia!
Unto Christ, our heavenly King, Alleluia!
Who endured the cross and grave, Alleluia!
Sinners to redeem and save. Alleluia!

But the pains that He endured, Alleluia!
Our salvation have procured, Alleluia!
Now above the sky He’s King, Alleluia!
Where the angels ever sing. Alleluia!

Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!

Charles Wesley

Beautiful Saviour

All my days I will sing the song of gladness
Give my praise to the fountain of delights
For in my helplessness, you hear my cry
And waves of mercy poured down on my life

Chorus:
Beautiful Saviour, wonderful counsellor
Clothed in majesty, Lord of history
You're the way, the truth and the life
Star of the morning, glorious in holiness
You're the risen one, heaven's champion
And you reign, you reign over all

I will trust in the cross of my Redeemer
I will sing of the Lamb that never fails
Of sins forgiven, of conscience cleared
Of death defeated and life without end

Chorus

I long to be where the praise is never ending
Yearn to dwell where the glory never fades
With countless worshippers singing one song
And cries of "worthy" will honour the Lamb!

Chorus

Stuart Townend © 1998 Thankyou Music


Because He Lives
God sent His son, they called Him, Jesus;
He came to love, heal and forgive;
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives!

Chorus:
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Because He lives!

How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy he gives;
But greater still the calm assurance:
This child can face uncertain days because He Lives!

Chorus

And then one day, I'll cross the river,
I'll fight life's final war with pain;
I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives!

Chorus

William J. Gaither © 1971


Crown Him With Many Crowns
Crown him with many crowns,
the Lamb upon his throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns
all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of him
who died for thee,
and hail him as thy matchless King
through all eternity.

Crown him the virgin's Son,
the God incarnate born,
whose arm those crimson trophies won
which now His brow adorn;
fruit of the mystic rose,
as of that rose the stem;
the root whence mercy ever flows,
the Babe of Bethlehem.

Crown him the Son of God,
before the worlds began,
and ye who tread where he hath trod,
crown him the Son of Man;
who every grief hath known
that wrings the human breast,
and takes and bears them for His own,
that all in him may rest.

Crown him the Lord of life,
who triumphed over the grave,
and rose victorious in the strife
for those he came to save.
His glories now we sing,
who died, and rose on high,
who died eternal life to bring,
and lives that death may die.

Crown him the Lord of peace,
whose power a scepter sways
from pole to pole, that wars may cease,
and all be prayer and praise.
his reign shall know no end,
and round his piercèd feet
fair flowers of paradise extend
their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown him the Lord of love,
behold his hands and side,
those wounds, yet visible above,
in beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky
can fully bear that sight,
but downward bends his burning eye
at mysteries so bright.

Crown him the Lord of Heaven,
enthroned in worlds above,
crown him the King to whom is given
the wondrous name of Love.
Crown him with many crowns,
as thrones before him fall;
Crown him, ye kings, with many crowns,
for he is King of all.

Crown him the Lord of lords,
who over all doth reign,
who once on earth, the incarnate Word,
for ransomed sinners slain,
now lives in realms of light,
where saints with angels sing
their songs before him day and night,
their God, Redeemer, King.

Crown him the Lord of years,
the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres,
ineffably sublime.
all hail, Redeemer, hail!
For thou has died for me;
thy praise and glory shall not fail
throughout eternity.

Words, verses 1, 4-9: Matthew Bridges (1800-1894), 1852;
verses 2-3: Godfrey Thring (1823-1903), 1874


Majesty
Majesty, worship his majesty;
Unto Jesus be all glory, honor, and praise.
Majesty, kingdom authority,
Flow from his throne unto his own, his anthem raise.
So exalt, lift up on high the name of Jesus.
Magnify, come glorify Christ Jesus, the King.
Majesty, worship his majesty,
Jesus who died, now glorified, King of all kings.

Jack W. Hay­ford © 1980 Rocksmith Music (ASCAP)


To God be the Glory
To God be the glory, great things He hath done,
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life our redemption to win,
And opened the life-gate that all may go in.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear His voice;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice;
Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the Son,
And give Him the glory; great things He hath done.

Oh, perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

Great things He hath taught us, great things He hath done,
And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
But purer, and higher, and greater will be
Our wonder, our transport when Jesus we see.

Lyrics: Fanny (Frances) Jane Crosby, 1820-1915
Music: William H. Doane
____________________________________

*other less blasphemous results of this terrible sense of humour:

me to M and R: check out "Pun For The Ages"!
R: like what an infantry man said when he saw the armour division, "tanks
a lot".
me: as the singaporean watchman said to his master when he saw a
water source arrive at the gate: "your well come".
M: like the cook told his assistant to fit all the dried noodles into the small pot
"Give mee a break".

Moses the Non-Rescuer and Exodus 2 - 4

This post was brought to you by several mugs of TWG's Vanilla Bourbon red tea and the sugar high of half a slice of Cedele chocolate almond cake.

Like any good inspirational story of character-building overcoming of infanthood trauma, a biography of Moses (only, like, the greatest non-divine prophet in the history of the Jews) would have started off well, exciting many a literary agent. Against the systematic, empire-ordained genocide of Hebrew male infants, his mother not only managed to keep him alive for 3 months after birth (Exodus 2:2), she was later paid by the pharaoh's daughter to bring him up (Exodus 2:7-10). The miracle baby was then adopted into royalty (Exodus 2:10b) and a wonderful comfy future.

What delicious potential. What great things to expect from the lad.

For the next 40 years (cf Acts 7:23), Moses was schooled in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, which was nothing to sniff at. More than proficiency in reading, writing and 'rithmetic, the wisdom of the ancient Egyptians included well-structured governments and legal systems, agricultural science that resulted in prosperous bustling marketplaces full of food thanks to nifty irrigation works, the strategic know-how and technological advancement that produced an unrivalled military force, and the science/mathematics behind the matter-of-fact mummifying of loved ones and the building of pyramids in their backyard that has yet to be satisfactorily explained by modern intellectuals.

(Furthermore, he wasn't too bad a looker. In fact he looked rather like a movie star, Charles Heston to be exact . Or perhaps that should be Karl Marx.)

Not only was Moses merely well-versed in all this, he also had the makings of a great leader, being "mighty in his words and deeds" (Acts 7:22). And great leaders, the ones world history textbooks don't call nasty names like "tyrant" or "despot", normally have a heart for the common people, especially the oppressed. Right on cue, "after Moses had grown up" (quite a bit: he was 40 years old, but they hadn't invented red sports cars then) he looked upon his own people slaving away (literally) at their hard labour (Exodus 2:11). Seeing one of the children of Israel being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down his bully (Acts 7:24). He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand (Acts 7:25).

But the very next day, while he was trying to settle a dispute amongst 2 Hebrew men, one of them spat at him saying "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" (Exodus 2:14). He came to his own but his own did not know him? Well, no Obamessiah reception for this one. In fact, the people he had been trying to save probably blabbed about his little heroic deed to the authorities and the next thing he knew, he was running for his life (Exodus 2:15).

Cut to another 40 years later (Acts 7:30) and a rather old Moses was still in self-exile in Midian. Probably the region's most educated sheep herder, he was content to dwell in his father-in-law's house with his wife and son (Exodus 2:21).

On one of those same old-same old days, Moses stops for a stare at a bush that is burning but not consumed. And God speaks to him, telling him that he has seen the affliction of the Israelites and will deliver them from the Egyptians and bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 2:23-25, Exodus 3:7-10). Moses was his rescuer-designate.

We would expect Moses to jump for joy at this point shouting,"Yay! This is more than I ever dreamed of!"

But instead we see a rather cagey character:
Moses: But who am I that I should do this rescue? (Exodus 3:11)
God: Don't worry, I will be with you, (Exodus 3:12)
Moses: Erm, ok. But what if the Israelites ask me who you are? (Exodus 3:13)
God: I AM WHO I AM. Just tell them I AM sent me. I made promises to Abraham, Issaac and Jacob. And I am going to fulfil these promises just like I said I would. And the Israelites will listen to you. And I will make sure that the pharaoh lets them go. (Exodus 3:14-22)
Moses: Yeahhhh, so you say... but they may say that you didn't really appear to me? (Exodus 4:1)
God: Ok, here're 3 signs you can give them: (i) the staff-to-snake sign, (ii) the on-off leprosy sign, (iii) the water-to-blood sign. (Exodus 4:2-9)
Moses: Riiight. Well, actually I'm really rather bad at public speaking. (Exodus 4:10)
God: No problem. I made your mouth. I will be with you and teach you what to say. (Exodus 4:11-12)
Moses: Actually, can you just ask someone else? (Exodus 4:13)

At which point, if you were his momma, you'd have asked God leave to smack some sense into him there and then to spare him from being consumed by fire from the burning bush for his irritating unbelief and lack of faith in God:"Say 'yes of course I'll do it' and 'thank you' to the nice God, Moses.".

So we realise that Exodus isn't really a biography of the great Hero of the Faith. Perhaps if the charismatic Moses had brought the Israelites out by his own civil/human rights revolution, there might have been a cult of Moses and Moses t-shirts. But it was when Moses had nothing to boast of that God used him. What better way to demonstrate that this rescue is all about the Faithful God of the Faith. It's about God's initiative, God's power, God's timing, God's way; God's unrivalled, unshared control over everything in the world, in all of history.

If one could read Hebrew, the early narrative had God's fingerprints all over it. The vessel in which the baby Moses was laid is described in English as "a basket" made of bulrushes and daubed with bitumen and pitch (Exodus 2:3). The Hebrew version wriggles its eyebrows, calling the vessel an "ark" - a noun only otherwise used in the Bible in relation to God's own perservation of Noah & co in the days of the Flood. Also, the seeming superficiality of Moses' mother in keeping him because "he was a fine child" (Exodus 2:2) or because "they saw that the child was beautiful" (Hebrews 11:23) is given deeper meaning in the Hebrew "ki-tov" (and in the Greek, "asteion") - which might have been translated "she saw that he was good". Stephen in Acts 7 goes one step further to say "and God saw that he was good" (Acts 7:20) - nudge, nudge, wink, wink. The language of Genesis 1, of God's perfect creation, of God's design for his perfect creation in order.

We know that God works in tandem with faith. Faith in God is the assurance of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), the assurance that God's promises will come to pass because he is able and willing to fulfil them. And faith is confirmed by the very obedience that stems from such faith (eg. "this shall be the sign that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain" (Exodus 3:12)).

But by the end of Exodus 4, not only is there the evil pharaoh dude, we are also stuck with a stiff-necked people unwilling to be rescued and a similarly reluctant rescuer-designate whose reluctance stemed from having so little hope that God would fulfil his covenant that he hadn't even bothered to keep his part of the covenant by circumcising his son (Exodus 4:24-26).* Not exactly a bunch of people awash with faith, or even faith as small as a mustard seed.

But knowing God, he will make a way where there seems to be no way**. Exciting times ahead. Buckle in for the ride.

PS: With so many parallels to the real Messiah-Who-Could, is it any surprise that the writer of Hebrews compares Jesus to Moses, albeit a far far better, a perfect infact, version (Hebrews 3)?

*the same way, maybe, we do not bother to obey God nor mortify sin nor love him and neighbour, nor preach the gospel to the unsaved etc because we do not really think there is a God, or that he has the power to turn the hearts of even the most hardened sinner, or that his way of maturing us through trial and suffering is the best way, or that the Day will come, or that he will judge all who are not in Christ, or that he will make us give an accounting for all we have said and done in the flesh...

**applies only to God's promises to his creation, not to our promises to ourselves and others.

Current Read/Think-through of Exodus

• Convalescent Food, Lemon Poppyseed Yoghurt Cakelets and Exodus and the People of God
• Not the Physiology of Taste x Exodus 1
• Moses the Non-Rescuer and Exodus 2 - 4
• Rescue Plans Hit Brick Wall. Israelites Draw Short Straw. (Exodus 5 - 7:7)
• God Shows Hand, Gives Egyptians the Finger (Exodus 7 - 10)
• Easter Bunny Spared, Goose Cooked, Lamb Slaughtered, Israelites Painted Town Red, Dough Failed to Rise to Occasion (Exodus 12)
• Egyptians Sink To New Depths, God Gets Gobs of Glory (Exodus 13-14)
• Hallelujahs for the Hell-bound, Verses for Vengeance, Jumping for Judgement By Beach Boy & Co (Exodus 15:1-21)