A Mother’s Heart
Let the Children Come - Part 2
Sunday, August 14, 2022
Exodus 1:8-2:10
“When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it’s a boy, kill him. But if it’s a girl, you can let her live.” Now the two midwives respected God so they didn’t obey the Egyptian king’s order. Instead, they let the baby boys live.
Exodus 1:16-17 (CEB)
Listen to this week’s sermon here:
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For the Jew, the Exodus out of slavery in Egypt is the single most defining event in their historic identity as God’s people. We typically associate the Exodus story with images of God’s power and strength. We see Moses in the face of Charlton Heston standing over the Red Sea with his staff raised as the waters rise into great protective walls at his command.
In all the demonstrations of God’s mighty power throughout the Exodus story, I wonder if we miss something very important about the way it all began.
Just as God’s redemption of the world through Christ did not begin with the power of the resurrection, but with Jesus taking on the weakness of humanity and surrendering himself to death, even death on a cross, so in the same way the Exodus story of deliverance does not begin with Moses’ strength over Pharoah, but with the revolutionary compassion of four unsuspecting women, two Hebrew midwives, a Hebrew mother, and an Egyptian princess with a mother’s heart.
Without Moses, there is no Exodus and without these four women, there is no Moses. Isn’t it just like God to begin the work of salvation not in a show of power and glory, but in the quiet faithfulness and love of a mother’s heart, not only for her own children, but for every child, no matter the cost.
Shiphrah and Puah knew all to well the cost for defying Pharoah. If caught saving the lives of male Hebrew babies against Pharoah’s orders, they certainly would have been killed. But their compassion for the children was greater than their fear of death.
Moses’ mother knew the consequences for allowing a baby boy to live, and yet she not only gave her son a chance at life by floating him down the river, she boldly followed and manipulated the circumstances so that she would not only get to raise her beloved Moses, but that he would also have the full protection and privilege of a member of the royal household.
And Pharoah’s daughter knew full well her father’s hatred of the Hebrew slaves, and yet her compassion for this child floating in the river was greater than the murderous racism of her extremely powerful family. The daughter of Pharoah came to love this foreign child as her own.
It is not the power of an eternal king or authoritarian judge or even an overprotective father that saves, but the mother heart of a God who loves her children no matter the cost.