Escaping History

the love that overcomes all

The story of Moses in Exodus 2 begins in rather prosaic fashion: “Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son” — the son who will be raised by Pharaoh’s daughter and named Moses on account of his watery deliverance. We might wish to ask why his tribal heritage is significant, such that we’re told both his parents were from the tribe of Levi?

The answer likely lies in Jacob’s biting words in Genesis 49 where, in speaking of all his sons, he says of two that

Simeon and Levi are brothers—
their swords are weapons of violence.
Let me not enter their council,
let me not join their assembly,
for they have killed men in their anger
and hamstrung oxen as they pleased.
Cursed be their anger, so fierce,
and their fury, so cruel!
I will scatter them in Jacob
and disperse them in Israel.¹

Within a few verses of being told of Moses’ birth to a Levite couple, we find him killing an Egyptian in his anger.² It looks like the DNA is bearing its bitter fruit. History is repeating itself (it has to, wrote Steve Turner, no-one listens). Jacob knew how much trouble the violence of Simeon and Levi brought in its wake³ and we’re left wondering the same here — the self-appointed heir-apparent appears to be a hot-head, a violent man who will reckelessly expose his people to unsought trouble.

The instinct to defend his own people is arguably justified but the means is very much open to question. The devil was a murderer from the beginning, but the Lord’s deliverer? Is this how the kingdom of peace will be inaugurated?

Perhaps Moses is going to need extended time in exile to learn a different way…

And so it turns out. His absence in Midian, which no doubt felt open-ended, is noted as “that long period”.⁴ The LORD is not working in haste, because character formation takes time. Preparation for lengthy service is unlikely to be a brief affair. Genuine maturity isn’t like Jonah’s favourite plant that grew up overnight and was gone by the end of the day.

God’s purposes take time to ripen, sometimes over several generations. And that will inevitably include the need to work through some of the entailments of history, whether embedded within DNA or in the broader swells and currents of complex, sin-warped life-stories.

He feels under no compulsion to hurry. Israel was in great distress in Egypt — as the LORD knew. He saw and prepared to act, but did so over time. That’s hard for us to handle because we can’t ever see that far, our eyes are firmly fixed on the road in front of us, as we slouch towards our own Bethlehem.⁵ But the God who transcends time deals with people and peoples both over many years as well as within the space between seconds.

Where does all this meet us?

It speaks to our slow, slow growth into mature, fully-formed believers capable of bearing lasting fruit.⁶ It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon. We need to be prepared for that and not become discouraged that some things seem to take so long. There are things about life — about us — that need more than surface treatment. The buried giants waiting to be brought into the light in order to be finally slain.

It’s right to be cautious about rapid growth, given our Lord’s parable of the soils. Often such increase doesn’t last or needs at the very least to be consolidated over a longer period of time, sometimes through extended trials — the suffering-perseverance-character-hope arc that Paul traces in Romans 5.

If we find such waiting difficult for ourselves we can also struggle with the idea of patiently holding on for change in the lives of others and for the flourishing of our churches. We often struggle to wait 40 minutes let alone 40 years for something to happen. Yet our Lord Jesus commends patience, steadfastness, endurance. So many of his kingdom parables point to that: seeds are planted and will ripen in time — his time, not ours. And there’s nothing we can do to hasten it.

But we can pray. Always. Not giving up but keeping faith with the God of the promise. He isn’t slow as some understand slowness; he isn’t unmindful of the weight of the burdens and requests we bring to his feet. He’s worthy of our trust, even through the longest delay.

Changes can and do come, through the grace that is in our Lord Jesus Christ. They came for Moses. They came for Jacob. They came for John-Mark. They came for John, the disciple who, along with his brother James, was called Boanerges — Sons of Thunder — yet is ultimately remembered not for his anger but as the apostle of love.

You are no longer captive to history, your own or others, when the love of God has set you free.

---

For your encouragement of the real change the Lord can work, here is Andrew Peterson singing The Power Of A Great Affection:

1. Genesis 49:5-7

2. Exodus 2:11f

3. Genesis 34:25-31

4. Exodus 2:23

5. See the poem The Second Coming by WB Yeats.

6. John 15:16