Let My People Go!

The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.  God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.  So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them (Ex.2:23-25).

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...but I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them.  After that, he will let you go (Ex. 3:19-20).

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This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, "Let my son go, so he may worship me." But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son" (Moses to Pharoah--Ex. 44:22-23)

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The slavery in Egypt is not only an historical event; it is also a parable and a pattern for the Christian life.  Jesus told Nicodemus: Unless you are born from above by water and the Holy Spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God.  Yesterday, I wrote about a woman from Taiwan who was instantly set free from her slavery to a false god.  Her eyes were opened immediately -- not from years of study, not from an evangelist ---but from the power of God to reveal things no one had ever told her.  She was set free to worship the True God. 

 

The truth is that we are unable to worship God until we have been set free from slavery.  We are slaves to fear; we are slaves to the wounds of the past; we are in slavery to ignorance, to superstition -- to "the empty way of life handed down to us by our fathers," as Peter puts it in his letter to the church.  Like the Pharisees, we think we are free and that 'we have never been slaves,' but still, we find ourselves unable to worship God.  That in itself is proof that we are slaves to the flesh, for the flesh and the spirit are at war with one another (Gal. 5).  The flesh does not desire to worship God, and in fact, it cannot.  Paul tells us that no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit -- and my observation tells me the truth of this statement.  I myself, though a church-going Catholic for many years, could not have said "Jesus is Lord" until I was set free by the power of the Holy Spirit to truly worship God and to proclaim Jesus as Lord.

 

So where does our freedom from slavery come from?  Jesus died as a slave in order to put into effect the New Covenant of Spirit to spirit.  When He died, we died and are no longer in bondage to the flesh.  Sin and death no longer have any hold on us; we live now not according to the law of "sin and death" (Romans 7) but according to the "law of the Holy Spirit" living in us (Romans 8).

 

If anyone thinks he is not in bondage, but free to worship God, let him put it to the test by attempting to read Scripture -- or to worship God.  Is Scripture is a dead book to us; if it does not penetrate our minds and hearts, we have not been set free yet from the flesh.  "The god this world has blinded us," in the words of St. Paul.  If we are unable to worship the living God, if we do not know who He is, we are not yet 'born again' of the Spirit.

 

If Jesus Christ is dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit, He will teach us all things and lead us to the pure worship of God, in spirit and in truth:  If the Son of Man sets you free, you are free indeed.

 

The Israelites finally escaped from Pharoah by the death of his first-born son -- but even then, he sent his troops after the fleeing people, only to see them drown in the Red Sea.  Satan, too, is not willing to release his hold on us.  He will tighten his grip again and again until we finally flee to freedom through the waters of Baptism into Jesus Christ, where the sons of Adam / sons of the flesh die and are born again into a new way of life -- no longer subject to the flesh, but ruled by the Spirit of God:

 

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.  So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being;" the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.  The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.  The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.  As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.  And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so let us bear the likeness of the man from heaven (I Cor. 15:44-49).