Tawa Baptist

Hope

Scripture: Mark 8:31-33 & 10:46-52

Title: Hope

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Bartimaeus’ hope – Mark 10:46-52
  • Peter’s hope – Mark 8:31-33
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Earlier in the year I preached a message on well-being and care of the soul, using the acronym: HEALING.

–         Each letter represents a word which, when properly applied, is life giving to the human soul…

–         Hope Energy Appreciation Lament Inter-dependence Nurture & Giving

–         At the time I touched lightly on each word and said I would come back later to explore the ideas in more depth

–         Now that we have finished our series on Abraham we can do this

–         Today our message focuses on hope

Hope is a very popular (in) word at the moment

–         It is rightly thought to be one of the life lines for those who experience depression – we see images on TV of John Kirwan writing the word ‘hope’ in the sand on the beach

But what is hope – what does it mean?

–         Well, to hope is to want something to happen

–         Hope, therefore, is a desire or a longing that is yet to be realised

–         Hope imagines something good and believes it can happen

–         We express our hope to God in prayer

–         In the Lord’s Prayer, for example, we say to God, ‘Your will be done, your kingdom come’ – which expresses our desire, our hope for heaven on earth

–         Prayer is important because it fosters hope

–         Hope requires some measure of faith or trust as we wait for our longings and expectations to be fulfilled

 

Developing our definition further, we could say hope is the capacity or ability to handle opposition, perspective and expectation (another acronym)

–         To help us understand this dynamic of handling opposition perspective and expectation let’s read a gospel story of hope realised, from Mark 10…

 

Bartimaeus’ Hope – Mark 10:46-52

As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more,

“Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.”

Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

 

Handling hope is a bit like flying a kite – you need three things…

–         A sail to catch the wind

–         A string to hold onto the kite

–         And wind to lift the kite up

 

Perspective is like the sail of the kite

–         Our perspective needs to be set at just the right angle to catch the wind and it needs a tail to keep it balanced

 

The string represents expectation – we control the kite of hope by managing our expectations

–         If we don’t have enough string (or expectation) our hope never climbs very high

–         But if we let our expectations get out of hand we risk losing hope altogether

 

The wind represents some difficulty or challenge or opposition

–         A kite rises against the wind, not with it

–         Without an opposing wind, hope doesn’t rise

 

Bartimaeus faced some winds of difficulty and opposition in his life

–         For starters he was blind, a significant obstacle in that context

–         He also faced the difficulty of living under enemy occupation

–         And, when he called out for Jesus to have mercy on him, Bartimaeus faced opposition from the crowd who tried to silence him

 

But Bartimaeus wouldn’t be silenced – he maintained the sail of his perspective that Jesus is the Son of David and the kite of his hope rose

–         That expression Son of David is code for ‘Messiah’

–         From Bartimaeus’ perspective Jesus was the true King of Israel, not Caesar

–         In naming Jesus as the Messiah, Bartimaeus was giving voice to the hopes and expectations of many of the people in the crowd

–         Perhaps the ones trying to silence him were afraid he might start a riot

 

Hope is good for the soul in that it generates its own positive energy

–         We call that energy joy

–         It’s the joy of expectation – of anticipating something good coming our way – of looking forward to our desire being realised

–         The joy or positive energy of hope is powerful – it can’t really be contained

–         That’s why hope is so important in helping to combat depression

–         Bartimaeus’ joy at hearing that Jesus was passing by only heightened his expectation of salvation, causing him to hold more tightly to the string of hope by continuing to call out for mercy

 

Okay, if hope is the expectation of something we want to happen then it logically follows that the opposite of hope is the expectation of what we don’t want to happen

–         The feeling that comes with the expectation of something bad happening can be described in a number of ways including, fear, worry or anxiety

–         Hope and anxiety are often in a wrestling match within us

–         For Bartimaeus, hope in Jesus overcame fear of the crowd and the Romans

–         But it’s not always like that for us, is it

–         We don’t want to worry, we don’t want to be anxious for anything, but sometimes (or perhaps a lot of the time) we can’t help it

–         Anxiety can be a brutal master – but Jesus is Lord, not anxiety

 

In Matthew 6 Jesus says to those who are anxious…

–         Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

–         Jesus then goes on to talk about how God clothes the lilies of the field

–         Jesus is saying here that we can find release from our anxiety when we change our perspective – when we take the focus off ourselves and our problems by looking outward to nature and to God

 

‘Look at the birds… look at the lilies of the field’ – in other words: spend time in nature, observe God’s creation, it will renew your mind

–         Being in the bush or by the sea or up a mountain grounds us – it puts us in touch with what is real and it gives our mind a break from our fears

 

But to get the most out being in nature we need to look for the ways that God is active and present in caring for his creation

–         We need to think about God as a good and loving Father who values us and wants to give us good things

–         One of the reasons we sing songs of adoration & praise to God is to restore our perspective – to remind ourselves that it doesn’t all depend on me

–         To be filled again with a sense of wonder at the largeness of God and consequently the smallness of our problems

 

Now for those of you who are struggling with significant levels of anxiety these measures (of spending time in creation and contemplating God’s care) are likely to be helpful but may not be the whole answer – there are other things that can help with anxiety as well, and we’ll touch on some of these in the coming weeks

–         Two things I’ve learned from my own experience

–         Most of my fears are never realised – most of the things I get anxious about never actually happen

–         But when bad things do happen I always seem to survive and somehow God uses that experience for good – he redeems it

–         So hold on, with God’s help you will get through this

 

Peter’s Hope – Mark 8:31-33

So far we have talked about the positive aspects of hope, but it needs to be said that hope is not always a good thing

–         If hope is about desire & expectation and we place our hope in something that is ultimately not good for us, nor good for others, then it can be destructive to the human soul

At least three times in the gospels Jesus tells his disciples how he must suffer & die before being raised from the dead

–         One of the reasons Jesus did this (I imagine) was to balance the disciples’ perspective and help them to manage their expectations

From Mark chapter 8 we read…

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Clearly Peter’s hopes and expectations for Jesus were quite different from what God had in mind

–         Perhaps Peter was wanting Jesus to be a military & political leader like David or Solomon – perhaps he was expecting Jesus to destroy the Romans

–         Certainly he wasn’t expecting Jesus to suffer & die

 

We might hear that line about Jesus referring to Peter as ‘Satan’ and feel a bit chilly, a bit uncomfortable – ouch that must of hurt Peter

–         But, if hoping amounts to coveting what others have, then it is not good for our soul and we can’t expect Jesus to bless it

–         Or, if hope amounts to wanting revenge or political advantage, then hope has become hate and we can’t expect Jesus to help us realise our desires

–         Hope can be detrimental to the soul when it is misplaced or disappointed and so we need to be careful what we hope for

–         It was kinder for Jesus to adjust Peter’s expectations, by speaking the difficult truth, than for Peter to go too far down the path of misplaced hope

 

If we widen our perspective on these verses we find an application for ourselves

–         Mark 8:31-33 provides a key for helping us to handle opposition, perspective and expectation

–         Jesus is saying here, following me is not an easy ride

–         You can expect some opposition & difficulty in this life

–         For Jesus opposition came in the form of rejection, betrayal & crucifixion

–         We probably won’t suffer as much as Jesus did, but, because of our association with Jesus, we can’t expect everyone to love us or accept us

–         There will be times when we face the dark night of the soul – when everything seems bleak and we feel like God is absent

–         The bigger perspective to hold on to is that our suffering is only temporary but the glory of heaven is forever

–         This life is just a drop in the ocean of eternity

–         Through Jesus the grief of death is followed by the joy of resurrection

–         As Laurie Guy says, “Human hope is based on divine suffering” [1]

 

In talking about hope we must acknowledge despair

–         Despair isn’t so much the opposite of hope

–         Despair is the utter loss of hope.

–         To despair is to lose the ability to believe that what we want could ever happen – despair is the death of desire and consequently the death of joy

–         To despair is to feel powerless – it is to think that nothing we do will make any difference

 

Despair is a terrible place to be – and when we are in despair we think it will never end, but it does end (nothing lasts)

–         It’s like the clouds of depression hang low & thick so we can’t see the sun’s rays of hope and everything is grey & gloomy

–         But just because you can’t see the sun behind the clouds doesn’t mean the sun isn’t there

–         Hold on – the clouds will pass and the sun will become visible again

 

In the same way that not all hope is good, so too not all despair is bad

–         Despair is a good thing if what we hope for is a bad thing

 

If you are in a place of despair at the moment then know that God is able to redeem the experience and use it for good

–         Despair has a way of purifying our desires

–         Despair can kill off those desires which are not Godly or life-giving, to make room for the new growth of desires that are good for our soul

–         As painful as it is there is a certain clarity that comes with despair

–         Bartimaeus saw Jesus with a clarity that others with sight didn’t have

–         I imagine despair had killed off Bartimaeus’ desire for more worldly pursuits and refined his hope in the Lord – in God’s Messiah

–         I expect that Bartimaeus wanted Jesus to restore his sight not just for the obvious reasons but more importantly so he could see Jesus for himself

 

Let me tell you a story about a young man named Jethro

–         Jethro grew up in a fairly well to do family

–         As a child Jethro didn’t really know what hope was because all his desires were taken care of – he didn’t really want for anything

–         He was, as Pink Floyd would say, ‘comfortably numb’

But all was not as it seemed on the surface

–         Jethro’s dad worked in finance and when the market crashed he wasn’t able to keep his family in the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed

–         Jethro’s dad started drinking too much – well, he had actually always drunk too much but now it was more noticeable

–         Not only that but he started gambling to try and recoup what the economic recession had consumed

–         The TAB and the pokies seemed to offer hope of redemption

–         Unfortunately, not everyone is a winner babe, and the boat, the bach, the car and eventually even the family home were sold to repay gambling debts

–         Jethro’s dad had misplaced his hope

By this stage Jethro was no longer numb – he had started to gamble with hope himself, although not in exactly the same way as his father

–         Jethro’s longing, his greatest desire, was to make his dad proud of him

–         And to this end he found himself half way through a finance degree

–         Now let me say, there is nothing wrong with doing a finance degree or working in the stock market, if that is what your passion and calling is

–         We need Christian businesspeople

–         But finance wasn’t really Jethro’s passion or calling – he was just doing it in the vain hope of winning his father’s approval

–         Sadly, it didn’t matter how many A’s Jethro got, his father kept on a downward spiral and the approval he craved from his dad never came

–         Jethro’s hope just kept being disappointed

To avoid too much student debt Jethro lived at home while studying at university and as a consequence he got to witness most of his parents’ arguments

–         In the end, when his mother had had enough, she threw his father out

–         It was a survival thing more than anything – she had to do it to save herself. No sense in being dragged down further by her husband’s problems

Jethro remembers watching his dad walk away and realising in that moment that he was never going to win his father’s approval

–         The hope that had once motivated him to succeed in business school was lost – it just emptied out of him like diarrhoea

–         For the first time in his life Jethro felt despair – the death of desire

–         There didn’t seem like much point in finishing his degree after that

The next year was extremely difficult for Jethro – he felt lost, abandoned and sad

–         Nothing gave him pleasure anymore

–         Depression is a vicious cycle – when we are in pain we tend to withdraw from people because there is too much risk in getting close – it hurts to be touched – but the more we withdraw the more isolated & lonely we feel

–         And loneliness feeds depression

–         Jethro would have self-medicated with alcohol except there was a deep anger in him that refused to be like his father

At the time Jethro thought the pain he felt would never end – but it did

–         Not overnight or all at once, but gradually, like ice thawing

Looking back Jethro could see that losing hope had purged him of his demons – despair had changed his perspective and given him clarity

–         It became clear to Jethro that putting his hope in things like making lots of money or gaining his father’s approval was wasted

Unexpectedly Jethro’s despair drew him closer to God (his heavenly Father) – the suffering of Jesus helped him to make sense of his own suffering & loss

–         Or to put it another way, suffering opened Jethro’s eyes to see who Jesus really is

New shoots of hope sprang forth

–         Jethro started to reconnect with people and he retrained as a teacher – now he finds meaning in helping others to develop their potential

–         He still has the odd dark day now and then but they are few and far between

–         For the most part Jethro is able to enjoy life again

As it turned out, Jethro’s dad came right too

–         He didn’t get back together with his wife, but he did give up the drinking and the gambling and made his peace with the family

 

Conclusion:

Each of us has a slightly different experience of hope and despair – maybe your experience is similar to Jethro’s, maybe it’s different

–         The point is, we need to place our hope in that which is worthy of us and Jesus is worthy – hope in Jesus is hope well placed.

–         Jesus doesn’t promise to give us everything we want or expect – sometimes he makes us wait – but ultimately, in him, we find abundant life

 

Let me finish with some words of hope from the book of Revelation

–         To those early Christians who faced much opposition from the Roman Empire, the apostle John gives an eternal perspective…

–         He who sits on the throne will protect them with his presence. Never again will they hunger or thirst; neither sun nor any scorching heat will burn them, because the Lamb, who is in the centre of the throne, will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

 

Questions for Discussion or Reflection:

1.)    What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    What is hope?

3.)    In what sense is opposition or difficulty necessary for hope?

–         Can you think of other Bible verses (or stories) that show a connection between opposition/difficulty and hope? (E.g. Romans 5:1-11)

–         When has hope been most real in your own life?

4.)    What can we do to combat anxiety?

5.)    When is hope good for us?

–         When is hope bad or dangerous?

6.)    What did Jesus say to manage people’s expectations or adjust their perspective when they had misplaced hopes? (E.g. Mark 8:31-33; Matthew 5:11-12, etc.)

7.)    How might we be helpful to someone who is in despair?

–         Or, reflecting on your own experience of despair, what was most helpful to you?

8.)    Take some time this week to simply be in nature and meditate on God’s love, care & provision for you and/or those close to you.

 

[1] Laurie Guy, ‘Unlocking Revelation’, page 64.

Tawa Baptist

God Wrestles

Scripture: Exodus 6:28-7:13

Title: God Wrestles

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God wrestles with Moses – trust
  • God wrestles with Pharaoh – despair
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Please turn with me to Exodus chapter 6, page 65 toward to front of your pew Bibles

  • Today we continue our series on Moses
  • Last week we heard how Moses & Aaron confronted Pharaoh for the first time and Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go
  • This week Moses & Aaron go back to ask Pharaoh again
  • Our reading this morning begins at verse 28 of Exodus 6 and continues to verse 13 of chapter 7…

[Read Exodus 6:28-7:13]

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading for us

I’ve given this morning’s message the title: God Wrestles, because in today’s Scripture passage we catch a glimpse of the way God wrestles with human will

  • Both Moses’ freewill and Pharaoh’s freewill

God doesn’t programme people to do what he wants, like robots or computers

  • God gives human beings genuine choice and he respects our choices
  • This doesn’t mean God just stands back and lets us have what we want
  • Sometimes God challenges our will – sometimes he wrestles with us
  • But God’s purpose in wrestling is not to overpower us with brute force
  • His purpose is to train our will – to make it stronger and better informed so we will make better choices
  • Wrestling with God exercises our faith

First let us consider how God wrestles with Moses…

God wrestles with Moses – trust:

Just prior to this morning’s reading, in the second half of Exodus 6, the narrator gives us Moses’ & Aaron’s family tree, going back to Jacob

  • Jacob is famous (among other things) for wrestling with God

In Genesis 32, as Jacob was preparing to return home and face his brother Esau, a man came and wrestled with him until just before daybreak

  • When the man saw that he was not winning the struggle, he struck Jacob on the hip and it was thrown out of joint.
  • The man said, ‘Let me go; daylight is coming’
  • ‘I won’t, unless you bless me’, Jacob replied
  • ‘What is your name?’ the man asked
  • ‘Jacob’, he answered
  • ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob. You have struggled with God and with men and you have won; so your name will be Israel’
  • Jacob said, ‘Now tell me your name’
  • But he answered, ‘Why do you want to know my name?”
  • Then he blessed Jacob
  • Jacob said, ‘I have seen God face to face and I am still alive.’

Moses is like his ancestor Jacob (aka ‘Israel’)

  • Moses doesn’t give in to God’s requests too easily
  • He shows some resistance, so God must wrestle with Moses’ will
  • But God’s wrestling is not violent where Moses is concerned
  • God doesn’t force Moses – God works with him gently to strengthen trust
  • This isn’t WWF or On the Mat, it’s more like Tai Chi – slow and graceful

The first thing God does to strengthen the bond of trust, is to say…

  • ‘I am the Lord’ or ‘I am Yahweh’ in other words
  • It’s interesting that while God did not reveal his name to Jacob – he did reveal it to Moses
  • By sharing His name God is opening up to Moses in vulnerability and intimacy
  • It’s like God is saying, ‘Here I am sharing something personal about myself, something I didn’t even share with your ancestor Jacob, so you know you can trust me Moses’

The next thing God does to create trust is to ask Moses to do something for him

  • He says to Moses, ‘Tell the king of Egypt everything I tell you’
  • Be my spokesman to Pharaoh
  • By asking Moses to speak for him God is trusting Moses with His reputation – when someone shows trust in you it helps you to trust them

Furthermore, God doesn’t beat around the bush in making his request

  • God is open and up front with Moses about what he wants so Moses isn’t left second guessing God’s motivation
  • There is no hidden agenda, no manipulation, no smoke screen
  • Honesty goes a long way in building trust

Moses responds to the Lord by saying…

  • ‘You know I’m such a poor speaker; why should the king listen to me?’
  • This is dejavu – Moses has already had this conversation with Yahweh, at the burning bush
  • It shows us that Moses is still reluctant to do what God says

In reflecting on Moses’ resistance to God’s will, Terence Fretheim observes…

  • “God is clearly not in absolute control of Moses. For all of God’s powers, Moses is not easily persuaded to take up his calling… [but] God relates to Moses in such a way that his will is not overpowered”  [1]

Just as God did not overpower Jacob in the midnight wrestling match, so too God does not overpower Moses in this verbal wrestling match

  • To the contrary, God further strengthens trust by listening to Moses
  • God takes Moses’ concerns seriously and adjusts His plan to accommodate Moses by allowing Aaron to help

The Lord goes on to say to Moses…

  • “I am going to make you like God to the king and your brother Aaron will speak to him as your prophet. Tell Aaron everything I command you and he will tell the king to let the Israelites leave his country”

There is a real tone of affirmation in what God says to Moses here – just as there was affirmation for Jacob

  • God raises up the lowly and humbles the proud
  • Moses is lowly and Pharaoh is proud
  • Moses may not have much faith in his own ability
  • But God certainly believes in him
  • God gives Moses a dignity and a status greater than that of Pharaoh

God wrestled with Moses’ will in a firm but gracious way

  • God did not bellow orders at Moses, nor did He try to manipulate Moses
  • God essentially built trust with Moses
  • And He did this in four main ways…
  • By revealing something personal about himself – His name
  • By asking Moses, in an honest & direct way, to do something for Him
  • By listening to Moses’ concerns and providing Aaron as a helper
  • And fourthly, by raising Moses up with words of affirmation – ‘you will be like God to Pharaoh’
  • In all these ways God showed Moses He was trustworthy and Moses responded by doing what God asked of him

God used a different approach, however, in wrestling with Pharaoh’s will and this is because Pharaoh was stubborn and hard of heart

God wrestles with Pharaoh – despair:

The prophet Amos describes God’s justice like a river

  • Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream [2]

The image of God’s justice flowing like a river is multi-faceted

  • A river is a source of life for the land and creation generally
  • Sometimes the river of God’s justice is flat and calm, moving slowly
  • Other times it is wild and rough, moving quickly
  • Always though it is powerful and deserves respect

In verses 3 & 4 of Exodus 7 the Lord God says to Moses…

  • But I will make the king stubborn, and he will not listen to you, no matter how many terrifying things I do in Egypt. Then I will bring severe punishment on Egypt and lead the tribes of my people out of the land.

If we read that (in isolation) we could come away thinking that God isn’t being fair to Pharaoh

  • Because it sounds like God is determining Pharaoh’s response
  • That would be a false conclusion

As I keep saying, God respects the freewill of human beings – he doesn’t force people against their will

  • So how are we to understand this statement about God making the king stubborn?
  • Because, as we read through the cycle of plagues, we will keep hearing how God hardens Pharaoh’s heart – it comes up again and again

Well, the first thing to say is that the text describes the stubbornness of Pharaoh (his hardness of heart) in three ways…

  • Sometimes it says that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart (e.g. 7:3)
  • And sometimes it reads like Pharaoh hardens his own heart (e.g. 7:14)
  • Then there are other times again where the text couches it in more passive or neutral terms by saying that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened (e.g. 7:13)

This tells us that both Pharaoh himself and God have a hand in the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart – so we can’t attribute Pharaoh’s stubbornness entirely to God

  • Pharaoh must take some responsibility also

Put up your hand if you’ve been to Huka Falls

  • Just above the falls there is a gorge which runs for about 800 metres with some pretty significant rapids in it
  • And just above the gorge there is a large wide flat area of relatively slow moving water, so if you are a kayaker you can easily avoid going into the gorge if you wish – but once you enter the gorge there is no turning back
  • The only way out is through the chaos of white water and over the falls

Terence Fretheim makes the point that…

  • [Pharaoh’s situation] …is not unlike a boat on a fast moving river, headed for a gorge or a waterfall. As often in history, human decisions… can bring human affairs to a point where there is no turning back, no possibility of getting the boat to the shore before it goes over the waterfall.
  • In such cases, history’s possibilities are… narrowed to a single one.  [3]

Pharaoh entered the gorge of his own freewill

  • No one forced him to attempt genocide against the Israelites
  • No one forced him to abuse the Hebrew people
  • But once Pharaoh had committed himself to that course of action – there was no turning back – he effectively narrowed his options to a single one
  • Pharaoh was in for a rough ride, but he could have avoided it by treating his subjects with fairness

Okay – so Pharaoh brought this on himself because he was hard hearted in the first place

  • But isn’t God making it worse by hardening Pharaoh’s heart even more?
  • Well, yes and no – first let me explain what hardness of heart is

Hardness of heart is spiritual blindness – spiritual deafness

  • The hard of heart cannot see God’s presence in the world
  • Such blindness results in pride, haughtiness and arrogance
  • To make matters worse those with hardened hearts are not aware of their spiritual blindness and so they are unable to repent and recover [4]

Jesus (quoting the prophets) described the hard of heart in this way saying…

Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing they do not hear or understand

  • In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
  • You will be ever hearing but never understanding
  • You will be ever seeing but never perceiving
  • For this people’s heart has become calloused;
  • They hardly hear with their ears
  • And they have closed their eyes
  • Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn and I would heal them [5]

[Set out one jug of water and two empty glasses on a tray – one glass open and the other covered over with tin foil]

 

Imagine these glasses represent the human heart

  • This glass without the tin foil on it is an open heart
  • And this one with the tin foil over the top is a calloused hard heart
  • Over here I have a jug full of water
  • Imagine that the water in this jug represents understanding

What happens if I pour the water of understanding into the open heart?

  • [Pour the water in from a jug]
  • It goes in – the water of understanding God’s Word fills the open heart

Now what happens if I try to pour the water of understanding into the closed hard heart?

  • [Pour water on the tin foiled glass]
  • It doesn’t go in
  • No matter how much understanding I try to pour into the hard heart, the glass remains empty

Many of the Pharisees had ‘calloused’ hardened hearts

  • They saw Jesus’ miracles and they heard Jesus preach but they still didn’t get it – they couldn’t see that Jesus was from God
  • They misunderstood Jesus so thoroughly that they thought he was the devil

The Jewish theologian, Abraham Heschel, said…

  • “The opposite of freedom is a hard heart” [6]
  • And he was right

We tend to think of freedom as the ability to do whatever we want

  • But that is not freedom – that is just licence

If a hard heart is spiritual blindness, and the opposite of freedom is a hard heart, then it follows that true freedom is spiritual sight

Freedom is the open glass – the one without the tin foil which allows understanding of God’s Word to fill the human heart

So the truly free soul is ‘fit and pliable, open to truth and sensitive God’ [7]

  • The truly free soul recognises God’s presence in the world

By that definition Pharaoh is not free – and the tragedy is he doesn’t realise it

  • Now this may come as bit of a mind bender to many of us
  • We tend to think of Pharaoh as the most free because he gets to boss everyone else around
  • But actually he is the most blind and therefore the least free
  • Pharaoh has a thick layer of tinfoil over his heart

When God says to Moses, I am going to make Pharaoh stubborn – I’m going to harden his heart

  • What it means is that God is going to take away what little freedom (what little sight or understanding) Pharaoh still has
  • As Jesus said, Be careful how you listen; because whoever has will be given more, but whoever does not have, even the little he thinks he has will be taken away from him [8]
  • In other words, if you listen to God’s Word with a hard heart (with the tinfoil on), no understanding will get in and so God will stop pouring
  • But if you listen with an open (sensitive) heart, God will keep pouring the understanding in

God is going to make Pharaoh even more blind so that he won’t be able to see or understand that God is behind the plagues

  • Pharaoh won’t be able to join the dots between his abusing people and God punishing him

As I asked before, how is that helpful?

  • Isn’t God making it worse by hardening Pharaoh’s heart even more?
  • Yes and no

You see, in some cases, the only thing that cures hardness of heart – the only thing that removes the blindness of pride – is despair

  • We think of despair as a bad thing
  • And, to be fair, it is not a pleasant experience
  • But sometimes God uses despair for our salvation
  • Despair is a kind of chemotherapy for the soul
  • Despair restores our sight by killing the cancer of pride
  • (Despair causes the tinfoil to come off the glass of our heart so the water of understanding can get in)
  • Unfortunately despair also kills joy – and so freedom (or spiritual sight & understanding) comes with a price

God loves Pharaoh and wants to set Pharaoh free – which means that God has little choice but to make things worse for Pharaoh

  • Pharaoh has hardened his own heart – now, in order to cure Pharaoh of his blindness and pride, God must make that hardness complete
  • God must bring Pharaoh to the place of utter despair so that Pharaoh can see reality as it is and be free

 

Abraham Heschel puts it this way…

  • It seems the only cure for wilful hardness is to make it absolute. Half –callousness, paired with obstinate conceit, seeks no cure. When hardness is complete, it becomes despair, the end of conceit. Out of despair, out of total inability to believe, prayer bursts forth. [9]

I don’t know how he does it – I only know that he can

  • God can make something out of nothing
  • God can bring order out of chaos
  • God can cause prayer to burst forth out of total dis-belief

“When all pretensions are abandoned, one begins to feel the burden of guilt. It is easier to return from an extreme distance than from the complacency of a good conscience.” [10]

God had to make things harder for Pharaoh so that he would ‘feel the burden of guilt’ and repent

The prodigal son discovered this didn’t he – that it is easier to return from an extreme distance than from the complacency of a good conscience

  • The prodigal son didn’t come to his senses until he hit rock bottom, a long way from home, in total despair
  • Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven  [11]
  • The older son, who never left home – well, his hardness of heart remained because he never tasted despair
  • He was blinded by the complacency of a good conscience
  • Woe to you when all men speak well of you… [12]

The hard truth is: God sometimes wounds us in order to save us

  • He sometimes hurts us in order to heal us
  • It is painful to remove the tinfoil or callous from a heart

As if to prove the point of Pharaoh’s blindness our Scripture reading this morning finishes with Aaron’s stick turning into a snake

  • Pharaoh’s magicians do the same trick, only Aaron’s snake eats their snakes
  • The message couldn’t be clearer – the best Egypt has to offer will be swallowed up, consumed
  • But Pharaoh doesn’t get it – he can’t get it – his hardness of heart prevents him from seeing

If we oppress people and abuse people, like Pharaoh did, we will lose our freedom, we will lose our spiritual sight

  • We will find ourselves in the gorge of God’s justice unable to turn back, quite oblivious to the fact that a pummelling waterfall awaits us

The king remained stubborn and eventually the first born of Egypt died and Pharaoh’s army was swallowed by the (waterfall of the) Red Sea

  • Only then did despair do its work so that Pharaoh’s eyes were opened and the tinfoil was removed from the opening of his heart

Conclusion:

God wrestles, both with Moses and with Pharaoh – although his strategy with Moses is significantly different from his strategy with Pharaoh

In wrestling with Moses, God creates trust

  • He shows faith in Moses and helps Moses to see that He (Yahweh) can be relied on

In wrestling with Pharaoh though, God creates despair

  • The kindest thing God can do with Pharaoh is to remove his pride and conceit so that Pharaoh is free to see reality as it really is

Trust and despair are not God’s only strategies in wrestling with people

  • He has other ways of dealing with people too
  • But however he may deal with us we can be assured, God’s ultimate goal is our healing and salvation – our freedom

[1] Terence Fretheim, ‘Interpretation Commentary on Exodus’, page 102

[2] Amos 5:24

[3] Terence Fretheim, Interpretation Commentary on Exodus, page 101

[4] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, page 244

[5] Matthew 13:13-15

[6] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, page 243

[7] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, page 244

[8] Luke 8:18

[9] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, page 244

[10] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, page 246

[11] Matthew 5:3

[12] Luke 6:26