You hear what sounds like thunder, and the ground is rumbling hard under your feet. You look back and see massive clouds of dust rising from the ground An enormous fleet of chariots, pulled by snorting warhorses with rippling muscles is chasing you, along with thousands of armed soldiers, warriors of a nation feeling that it had been fooled and tricked into losing its slave workforce your people who added insult to injury by plundering their wealth on your way out.
Imagine the crush of this furious, global power bearing down on you and your friends and your family as you race along over desert terrain! All of the sudden you hit a dead end! There’s nowhere to go! This intimidating fighting force is bearing down on you from behind and there is an expanse of water in front of you. You’re stuck—afraid of what is behind you and afraid about what’s up ahead!
Though not quite as dramatic for most, many times, people feel kind of pressed like that when they are at the brink of a new year not completely recovered from the pressures of the past year or the weeks just gone by and maybe even feeling like they are piled up right behind and some of them still pressing hard. And often it is overwhelming to think about what needs to be done soon. Or tough to think about what you might encounter in the weeks and months ahead. In some cases, knowing the difficulties that are coming. Maybe in some way, you feel a little hemmed in by things.
God was freeing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Despite the confusion and fear as it was happening, there was a man who saw clearly Moses. He showed faith in the face of danger. He listened when God spoke to him. And he followed the Lord’s direction. To the people who stood there looking back at what was behind them, Moses said:
IT’S TIME TO MOVE ON!
Looking Back
This is one of those cases where, if it wasn’t so sad, it would be funny. God was rescuing his people. He was freeing them after over 400 years of oppression and servitude in Egypt! Yet, at the first sign of trouble, they cry out to their leader, Moses: “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Wasn’t this what we said to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” (v.11-12) Sarcasm, fear, lack of trust in God, content to be slaves, blame-laying it’s all there!
This is why Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm, and see the salvation from the LORD, which he will perform for you today. For the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you. You must wait quietly.” The LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to set out.
As you sit here tonight like the Israelites, looking back and also looking forward what do you see? How are you feeling about things in your life? How is your trust in God? If you were to give me an honest answer out loud, would it sound like the Israelites? Would it be sarcastic? Would it reveal the fear in your heart? Would it expose a trust problem? Would it show that you are content to be less than God has in mind for you?
As you look over your shoulder at 2024, maybe some of these kinds of things hit you:
• A family member disappointed you—or someone in your church family.
• A relationship fell apart.
• Your health or someone else’s that you care about took a difficult or disastrous turn.
• Your job changed—and not in a good way.
• You wondered where exactly God was at times.
• You had this consuming thought: “I just don’t know what I’m going to do?”
We all experience those kinds of things from time to time and a good look back over an entire year, as we remember them, can again stir up sinful thoughts and feelings toward others or God like a helicopter blows up dust over a patch of desert. We see our own failures before God too and that’s tough to look at. The Israelites painted too rosy a picture of their lives in Egypt. If we’re more honest in our assessment of what is behind us, it’s not all good.
But an honest look at last year also shows that God brought us through those challenges and difficulties. God even brought obvious blessings through some of them. More importantly, our faithful God took care of not just our bodies, but our souls.
• His love in Christ came to us through his Word in worship and in multiple Bible study opportunities at every site of our church.
• Every single week, without fail, he provided pastors to share his law and gospel with us in four places!
• We were amazed at the love of God in baptism and the Lord’s Supper and experienced the forgiveness of all our sins and the promise of heaven.
• He provided music to lift our souls and his Word in song as his people played and sang for us and with us.
• He gave us Christian friends to support us.
• He gave the wisdom of older Christians to help and guide us and the joyful faith of children to warm our hearts.
The miracle of God’s continuous, everyday grace gave us all those things to serve our souls. The people Moses led only selectively remembered the physical comforts of what was behind them—and even then, God seemed absent from their memories. That is not the case with us as we gather in his house tonight.