Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord for the Exodus!
Isaiah looks back to the Exodus event as the key moment of God saving God’s people. We often have a clearer view looking back at the way God has been saving and guiding us in the journey of our lives. Let us recount the ways in which God has been there in our lives before this day and trust that God will continue to walk with us in our distress and in our joy.
Praise the Lord! Let us praise the Lord for suffering!
Someone said to me recently that it was the first time that they had considered what it meant for Jesus to be considered the firstborn of the dead. This wasn’t an easy process for Jesus. It involved sharing our frailties and being tested through suffering. Let us thank God for this and that we have been adopted into the line of Abraham.
Praise the Lord! Let us praise the Lord for Egypt!
When I visited Egypt in 2017 my background to the Matthew passage was expanded markedly. Before then this was a passage that was noted as interesting, but…In Egypt I encountered a tradition that speaks of the Holy Family living in at least three different Egyptian locations and I was shown a well in Cairo from which they reputedly drank and a stone where Jesus slept as a child. This was Egypt as an extension of the Holy Land. This was Egypt as a welcoming haven for refugees as a reverse Exodus from which a new Exodus could come. I enjoy Andrew McDonough’s little book Jesus was a Refugee with its quirky approach to this Egyptian journey.
Graham Booth
Lay Preacher