The Waiting December 19, 2007

Exodus 1-2

Once a land of provision, but now a place of hardship and toil. Oppressed bitterly we have little choice but to submit to these hard conditions. The Egyptians ruthless, the conditions harsh, we work without hope of fair recompense. Every day our circumstances become more desperate – we are pushed harder, worked until we faint, mistreated and abused.Our children are taken, thrown into the river because of their gender. The mothers of a generation sob for their lost sons. We grieve as we toil. We are the voiceless ones.From whence will our deliverance come? Days pass, years roll on in hopeless monotone. We bake bricks until our bones break, we work in the fields until we are bent over and blind. We mix mortar for cities we will never inhabit, and stock storehouses for food we will never eat. Where is the God of our forefathers?

Meanwhile, out in the wilderness, a young man wanders. A murderer, he has run away from all he ever knew. Injustice pulsates in him at the oppression of his people, even his privileged upbringing in the Egyptian courts is unable to suppress the heart-cry of his heritage. A wanted man, he cannot return, he is separated from his family, a stranger in an alien land. He is an unlikely candidate for God’s redemptive plan.

Then, God speaks through a burning bush. ‘I AM’ appears and sets the plan into motion. Moses, cleansed, restored and called for a Divine purpose, returns to his homeland. Hope comes to the Hebrew people, carried by a man exiled as a criminal, forced to flee on account of his sin and shame. God uses the unlikely candidate, the frightened, questioning and uncertain one. The wait is over.

***

Thousands of years later, Ellen is shivering in the corner of a tiny room. The bread is stale and no-one has been to visit for days. She is crushed by loneliness, a prisoner of anxiety and fear.

Carly carves another line into her criss-crossed arms. The cut is deep but the relief is only momentary. The real pain is buried much deeper.

Simon considers another weekend, another faceless girl, a nameless conquest to add to the list. His heart is holed away under his hollow-framed bed. Uncertain of the future, he lives only for the moment.

The bricks and mortar, the fields of our slavery are different, but the oppression and injustice are still the same. We focus on coping in a world that teaches us that the crushing reality of our present is inescapable. We try to learn to manage, dosing ourselves up and dulling the pain away.

From whence will our deliverance come? The light of hope in our eyes has dulled and we have embraced the cynicism of the condemned. We exist and survive and pretend we are doing fine. Where is the God of our forefathers?

Meanwhile, a few of us remember a story from our youth. A tiny baby born in an occupied land. Hidden, chased, forced to become a refugee. Born to a virgin. Talked about in Heaven and on Earth. An unlikely candidate.

The face of God, wrapped in humanity. ‘I AM’ shrouded in vulnerability. Divinity hidden and humility embraced. Beyond the tired rendition of yet another Christmas Carol, hope streams into the places of our slavery and oppression. The rumours of deliverance come true. Life is found. The wait is over.