Rev. Peter J. Haugen
St. Paul Evangelical
Lutheran Church
When our Lord God instituted the Passover, He said, “I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the LORD” (Exodus 12:12). The Exodus is not simply a temporal, historical event, though it is that. But as is true of all of life, it is also a spiritual, theological event. God is waging war against Egypt on behalf of His people, but He is also waging war against the gods of Egypt, against the blasphemous evils that are necessarily a part of all false religion.
And Pharoah and the Egyptians understood this. When they were pursuing the Israelites through the dry bed of the Red Sea, “the LORD looked down on the army of the Egyptians through the Pillar of Fire and Cloud and brought the army of the Egyptians into confusion. And He caused their chariot wheels to swerve, and He made them drive with difficulty” (Exodus 14:24-25). And the Egyptians knew this, albeit too late. So they said, “Let us flee from Israel, for the LORD is fighting for them against the Egyptians” (Exodus 14:25). They pursued what they could see to swallow it up, and they were destroyed by what they could not see.
After their deliverance, the Israelites sang a Psalm, a hymn of praise, to God. Most of Exodus 15 is devoted to this Psalm. It begins, “I will sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted; the horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea. The LORD is my Strength and Song, and He has become my Salvation; this is my God, and I will praise Him; my father’s God, and I will extol Him. The LORD is a Man of War; the LORD is His Name” (Exodus 15:1-3).
This is the Psalm of the Israelites who have been delivered through the Red Sea from their enemies. This is the Psalm of our Lord Jesus, Who has been delivered from death into life, Who has been vindicated by His resurrection. But this Psalm is also ours, the Psalm of us Christians today, who have been baptized into the death of our Lord Jesus… and so also into His resurrection and life. It properly belongs on our lips, and it will be on our lips, as we “come off victorious from the Beast and from his image and from the number of his name,” as we are “standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God” (Revelation 15:2). Then, finally, amen, and amen, we will sing “the song of Moses the slave of God and the song of the Lamb” (Revelation 15:3), for we, too, have been delivered from Pharoah and his hosts, from the gods of Egypt, from Satan and his minions, from sin and death and hell. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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