Day 6 (16 Dec): Birth of the Greater Moses for our Exodus

READ EXODUS 2

Like the Israelites in our text today, don’t we sometimes resonate with their cry of hopelessness in face of hostility and injustice? Does God hear their cry? Does He see? The Israelites longed for the tyranny of Pharaoh, the enslavement and the madness of the massacre of their babies to come to an end. Where is God in this darkness? They must have wondered if God cares at all about their plight.

The author of Exodus insists that God hears, remembers His promise to them, sees and knows (v23, 24). In the midst of their pains, He quietly protected baby Moses in the basket (literally “ark”) and later appointed him to rescue His people in their exodus out of Egypt many years later. So, while their cry was for their harsh enslavement in Egypt to end, God’s greater plan was to rescue them, make them His treasured people and bring them into the promised land to find rest in Him forever. All of Pharaoh’s evil plots and iron chariots could not stop God from fulfilling His covenant with Abraham.

Indeed, when it was time for the Exodus to take place (Luke 9:31), even all power of hell could not stop God from fulfilling His promise to crush the serpent’s head by the seed of a woman. God similarly protected another baby, God’s own son Jesus, from King Herod’s massacre of all baby boys in Bethlehem. Jesus, the greater Moses, is God’s appointed Deliverer to save God’s people from slavery to sin. While our cry this side of heaven might be for God to end our painful trials, God’s greater plan is to give us His Son so as to secure a treasured people who would go through many tribulations to enter into His eternal kingdom through Jesus’ death and resurrection for us.

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus our Saviour, let us with eyes of faith trace the quiet finger of our covenant-keeping God in the midst of our trials. He longs with us for that Day when we shall enter the Promised Land where there will no more be mourning or tears. In the meantime, let us hold fast to this hope and hold it out to many still living under the tyranny of Satan.

Sis Priscilla Ong

Toong Chai English Presbyterian Church