Covenants
Out of Water
a meditation on Exodus through Judges
“if you believed moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” - Jesus of Nazareth
As should be no surprise at this stage, the whole story of the Exodus of the sons of Israel is about Jesus. God foretold in the story of the nation of Israel, the story of his beloved son. The Exodus is the story of love and salvation and the son who is savior. And God told this story in even greater detail than was possible in the earlier stories of Genesis.
The whole of the Exodus story is an allegory of Christ. We shall look at over 12 episodes in the story of God’s people from Exodus through Judges, and we will see how deep a Christology is found in the early historical books of the Old Testament.
And know, dear reader, this isn’t an exhaustive list of the allegories found about Christ in the writings of Moses and the early prophets, but simply a small sampling to understand and glimpse at how thoroughly Saint Augustine’s saying applies to the Covenants,
the New reveals the Old; the Old conceals the New.
For Christ came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. A greater Covenant is now here, and that Covenant is the one foretold in the earlier ones and now fulfilled in the New and offered to us to live under today. Today, we are called to live as sons and daughters of Our Father, as the holy bride of his beloved Son, and as dwelling places for the Holy Spirit.
So, let us now turn to the Exodus stories so that we might see Jesus even more clearly.
I Am Who I Am
“Say this to the sons of ISRAEL, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” - God Speaking to the Prophet Moses
The sons of Israel once again find themselves in need of a savior. This time, not from famine but slavery. The chosen people, the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, find themselves far away from the promises of God. They are exiled from their promised land without dominion or authority. In fact, they are under the rule of a foreign power, the king of Egypt, Pharaoh. And not a Pharaoh like Joseph served under, for Moses tells us, “Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph,” which means this new Pharaoh didn’t know of the salvation brought about by Israel’s beloved son. And so the sons of Israel found themselves slaves in Egypt.
Worse even, they were under a tyrannical and murderous decree. In contrast to God who says, “Be fruitful and multiply,” they found themselves under a power and king who commanded the midwives and doctors,
“If it is a son, you shall kill him.”
The devil knew of a promised son, he had heard the pronouncement in Eden, and worked through the powers of this world to command the killing of all the Hebrew sons. Miraculously, the midwives feared God and disobeyed Pharaoh and a savior to the sons of Israel was born even in times of tyranny.
We will skip over the obvious parallels to Jesus who was born under a similar decree when King Herod had all the innocent children of Bethlehem slaughtered in order to try and kill our savior.
Miraculously, a Levite man fathered a son who they hid from Pharaoh. He was a goodly child but they could hide him no further, and they sent him in a basket down the river.
Miraculously, the Pharaoh’s daughter found him floating down the river and adopted him and called him Moses, for his name means “drawn out of water.”
We will skip over the obvious parallels to Noah, who survived on an ark floating on water. In some sense, all children are drawn out of water. For before we enter the world, our mother’s water breaks and the child comes into this world. And though Moses is under a decree of death, he finds salvation when he is drawn from water and brought into the king’s household. A foreshadowing of the destiny of the sons of Israel and the eternal importance of the waters of baptism.
At this point, many would think salvation would come in Moses gaining power and influence with Pharaoh, possibly even becoming kinglike under Pharaoh as a type of Joseph. But no, Moses commits murder and flees Egypt in fear of punishment from Pharaoh. He would spend 40 years in exile in the wilderness, another foreshadowing of the life he would live as leader of the nation of Israel. The hope of the sons of Israel seemed lost.
Miraculously, God had a greater plan.
While in exile, Moses took a stand and helped some women at Midian; these women were daughters to the priest, Jethro. He marries one of the priest’s daughters, has a son, and cares for Jethro’s flock as shepherd. But Moses has a transformation to undergo to know God. For when the daughters speak of Moses to their father, they describe him not as a Hebrew, but as an Egyptian. Though Hebrew by blood, he was Egyptian by culture and appearances.
One day, while keeping the flock of Jethro on the mountain of God, God reveals himself to Moses in a miracle of nature - a burning bush that won’t burn up. A mystery, the consuming fire of God doesn’t consume the bush. And as Moses investigates, God reveals himself to Moses and that includes his divine name, I Am Who I Am.
God’s revelation is to transform Moses into a man with a divine mission. Moses knew the mission in his soul, for he tried to solve it via murdering the slave oppressor, but he didn’t know God nor his ways. How could he, being adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter as a baby? So, his first attempt to free a singular Hebrew slave from oppression was via power and human might and murder, killing an Egyptian to help a Hebrew. But that’s not God’s way. Moses needed revelation to understand revolution.
God desires freedom for his children. And after centuries of suffering, after enduring the evil decree of murdering the Hebrew male children, God is going to send Moses as a prophet to warn the people, Hebrew and Egyptian alike, of the divine mission of freedom. So, first, Moses is to tell his brethren,
“The Lord the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.”
And Moses is to lead them out of Egypt and to the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Next, Moses is to go to Pharaoh, and Moses is to give God’s news to him,
“Thus says the Lord, Israel is my first-born son, and i say to you, ‘let my son go that he may serve me. if you refuse to let him go, behold, i will slay your first-born son.’”
And the message is clear, the son can no longer be a slave. The time of custody and guardianship is over. And if Pharaoh does not repent of his evil, Pharaoh and all of Egypt will experience God’s judgement as a small measure of the pain they inflicted on God’s children. The Pharaoh who killed so many of God’s sons will experience the death of his own firstborn; of course, if he doesn’t repent. God is about to reveal his Way, and this will create a conflict with the ways of the world.
So, yes, at a surface level the story of Exodus is a political tale, about tyranny and liberty; it is a tale about ending slavery and overcoming tyrants, but the deeper message is a family story. At a deeper and more profound level, the Exodus story is one not only of freeing slaves but of establishing sons.
True freedom comes in relationship with God, a family relationship; and true liberty is found in covenant with our loving Father, whose name is the essence of being and existence - I Am Who I Am. We find our existence and purpose in relationship to God - a family relationship.
Moses is sent as savior to proclaim the sonship of Israel. And Jesus is sent as more than savior, but also as beloved Son, to proclaim the sonship of humanity. The story of Moses finds a greater fulfillment in Jesus, God’s only-begotten Son. Jesus, who also reveals the divine name “I Am” in various times during his ministry, to the shock of those around him, has come to free slaves and save his family. The story of Moses is a hidden story of Jesus who reveals we are all God’s children and he has come to turn slaves and enemies into God’s sons and daughters. Israel may have been first-born, but they are not God’s only children, simply his eldest.
So, when Jesus reveals the divine name, which the rulers of his time want to kill him for, he is not just clarifying his place as the divine Son. He came to teach us ours. The beloved Son of God has come to proclaim our freedom as sons of God. Jesus has come to offer brotherhood to humanity, Jesus has come to let us know God heals and frees slaves and transforms us into family. Jesus leads mankind to freedom as sons of the Father, for he says among many similar sentiments,
“You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free… i am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”
Saint Paul understands the implication and importance of sonship. He tells the Church,
The law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs ACCORDING to the promise.
So, the sons of Israel may have been under Pharaoh’s care, but he was a tyrant and the time of tyranny had come to an end, God hears the cries of his children. The sons of Israel are the first-born sons of God and they are about to be set free to inherit the promises of Abraham. In order to be free, they will need to have faith to hear and heed the call of God’s messenger and savior. Freedom will come at a cost.
Lamb of God
“Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” - Saint John the Baptist
When Moses experiences the theophany on the mountain, receiving his commission for the divine mission, the three miracles occur as private preludes to the very public miracles to come before Pharaoh and all of Egypt, all the world even.
Again, Moses sees the bush burning yet not consumed, hears the divine call from God in which his purpose and name are revealed to Moses, and then Moses has two more private miracles - the staff that turns into a serpent and back to a staff when he picks it up by the tail, and the hand which becomes diseased (leprous) and then cured in moments. These three miracles point to greater truths revealed in the New Covenant, and they set the stage for what some may claim as the greatest miracle of the Exodus story, the miracle of the Passover Lamb.
After Moses receives these private revelations of God, he then embarks on his public mission. Moses receives Jethro’s blessing to return to his people, has his son circumcised by his wife as a critical sign of adopting God’s way, very important to do before confronting Pharaoh and his ways, and also is reconciled with his brother who will become the High Priest to this great Prophet of God. Aaron speaks for Moses to the people,
Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the sons of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.
Words and signs led to belief. And the people bowed their heads and worshiped God’s goodness, even while yet slaves in Egypt. Moses would go on to perform 10 great public miracles, and even more, but the Exodus narrative seems to come back to 3 and 10 and other key numbers like 7 and 40 many times throughout the story. All numbers important for the New Covenant people as well as the Old.
But the 10th and greatest sign is the Lamb of God at Passover. This is a feast celebrated for more than 3,000 years at this point. God desires we know this feast intimately, for it becomes the central feast in the life of the people of ancient Israel, akin to July 4th for Americans. But rather than bbqs and burgers, and family and friends, and fireworks in the night sky, to celebrate our independence from tyranny and freedom to worship God as Christians, the Ancient Israelites had their own Independence Day, their own day of formation, their own day of God remembering and establishing their sonship as God’s Firstborn. This sonship is established by the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb.
After Pharaoh continues to see these miracles of God but his heart remains hard, of stone scripture would say, one miracle builds upon another culminating in the miracle of the Passover Lamb. And so the Lord said to Moses and Aaron while in Egypt that every man was to take a lamb for his household, a lamb without blemish, a male a year old from among the sheep or goats. They take the lamb on the 10th day of the month and keep it until the 14th day, upon which (we will quote the instructions at length),
“the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening.
Then They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled with water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and you staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt i will execute judgements: I am the LORD.
The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when i see the blood, i will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when i strike the land of egypt.
THis day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever.”
Our God is poet. He has had Ancient Israelites celebrate Passover every year for lifetimes and generations, across centuries into millennia. Can you image the number of lambs sacrificed and eaten over a period of more than 1,200 years! From the first passover in Egypt to the Lord’s supper in Jerusalem, it is easily thousands of lambs sacrificed every year leading to millions upon millions of lambs sacrificed across the millennia.
But this should be no surprise to us. For God’s glories renew every day. And our great Poet God finds ways to bring forth ritual and meaning that point to his greatness, beauty and truth. Yes, this should be no surprise for us, for our great Poet God has us practicing every single day for the resurrection. We sleep nightly, and some even nap during the day. But we all know that our body needs sleep, among other things like air and water and breath, food and family and yes, sleep! All images created to reflect God’s goodness. And in his eternal goodness, from long before the foundation of the world, long before we know what sleep is, our parents and loved ones teach us to sleep and share in the resurrection. Every morning we awake as practice to the resurrection. Every time we get sick, we sleep to heal and again practice for the resurrection. Because one day, when we enter into death and our final sleep, when we awake anew it will be even more precious than a beautiful mother who lays her baby down to nightly rest, for our eternal rest will be in God. Praise be to our Poet God who has us practice for the resurrection every single day!
Truly, you give sleep to your beloved.
Returning from resurrection back to the Passover lamb, that context of daily and yearly rituals amplify how powerful the words of the Baptist are when he sees Jesus, for he calls out in testimony to Jesus,
Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
He says this again the next day, and when he does, his disciples begin following Jesus. For John testified: Jesus is the Son of God and Lamb of God.
Can you imagine what the first disciples thought as they heard these words? How revolutionary! The nation founded on the lamb of God finds its fulfillment and completeness in the lamb of God, the Son of God!
And maybe even, to an un-sanctified mind, how cannibalistic and grotesque. Because every ancient Jew knows you must eat of the lamb to be a part of the people of God. Sounds cannibalistic to call Jesus lamb. For, we don’t just sacrifice the lamb, but the Ancient Israelites shared the lamb as a communion meal with their families. And they put the lamb’s blood on their doorsteps, for as Noah teaches, “the life is in the blood.”
And so, when the angel of the Lord sees the life in the lamb’s blood at Passover on our door frames, the angel of death knows that this is a family of God nourishing themselves in the Lamb of God, of which they eat together.
So, when Jesus later says to his disciples,
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and i in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.
Shocking words, to say the least. Saint John records that many of his disciples drew back and no longer walked with Jesus. For Jesus’ words were so shocking that even the great signs he performed didn’t keep them, his words were just too hard to believe for many. But Saint Peter knew they were the words of eternal life.
And so, thanks to their obedience and faith in Jesus’s words, even when they might not have understood their meaning, similar to the Ancient Israelites who obediently sacrificed and ate of the lamb for millennia before its meaning was revealed in Christ, Peter and the apostles were present to hear the now famous words uttered at every single mass, in every country, on every day, the words Christ himself uttered at the Last Supper, the last Passover of the Old Covenant and the first of the New. For in celebrating the Last Supper, he fulfills the Old and inaugurates the New when he says,
“I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before i suffer; for i tell you i shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
And he took a chalice, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves, for i tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.
And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it ot them, Saying, “this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
And likewise the chalice after supper, saying, “This chalice which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
All of Israel’s history was leading to this moment, the moment when the promised Son of God comes to fulfill the Old and establish the New. Moses was a type of Jesus, a savior who pointed to the Savior — as all good things do — whether the Lamb or even the private miracles of divine revelation. But when the first lamb was sacrificed in the land of Egypt, this was not just the culmination of their time as slaves, but the beginning of something new, a people of God, the firstborn of God, destined for a promised land flowing with milk and honey. Their journey was only just beginning.
In order to inherit the promises as the first-born children of God, a journey awaited them, out of Egypt and into the promised land.
Out of Egypt
“When Israel was a child, i loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” - The Prophet Hosea
Heavenly signs of God’s goodness for his children continue to accompany them throughout the Exodus story, not just in the confrontation with Pharaoh and the powers and principalities of this world, but also in the aftermath and the journey towards the promised land. After the night of Passover, the people of God are led out into the wilderness, away from Egypt, the land of slavery, and towards the promised land flowing full of milk and honey and freedom. Only, they do not go the direct route by way of land, but instead, they go by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea.
And as they go on the way, another miracle and supernatural sign guides and guards them on their travels — the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night — leads them along the way towards the Sea. These pillars are signs of God’s presence, his intimacy to be alongside his children on this journey to freedom. The pillars are also powerful imagery of the unification of heaven and earth, of divinity and humanity, of God and his people.
The supernatural sign is powerful and provocative. One, pillars are a stabilizing force connecting the foundations with the protective coverings — the foundations of God’s people on the earth are now being protected by heaven. And so, pillars function to both protect and support and connect. And in God’s mercy, these pillars by day and night are visible signs of his presence and glory among his people in the wilderness. And they happened to be in the form of water (visible droplets collected into clouds) and fire, the symbols that are coming to be associated with the Holy Trinity and God dwelling with his people. And the great sign of baptism is where God will lead his people after the Passover, and He is leading them by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
As God leads his people towards the Red Sea, Pharaoh changes his mind. The result is Pharaoh gathers his army and pursues the sons of Israel, marching towards them to trap them in the wilderness between the Sea and his army — both images of pending death.
But the story is told in a way that not only foreshadows the sacrament of baptism of the Church, but also remembers the story of creation, a story not of death but of life. This time the people of God experience a new creation of sorts, as a new nation, but the storytelling mimics the first creation, when land emerges from water (as it was on Day 3 of creation) on the day of first life.
The baptism of the sons of Israel into the Red Sea is life for the people of God and death for the enemies of God, and so the story not only echoes Day 3 of creation but also Noah’s flood, where the family of God are saved via baptism when the rains come to flood the earth and destroy evil doers. And so, Noah’s story not only hints at the baptism of Christ, but in the intermediate, is also a foreshadow of the baptism of Israel. For Moses encourages the people,
Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today; for the egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you and you have only to be still.
And so, miraculously, the sacred storyteller notes,
The sons of israel walked on dry ground throuh the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. Thus the lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the egyptians. And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the SEASHORE. And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did against the EGYPTIANS, and the people feared the Lord; and they believed in the Lord and his servant Moses.
In this case, water saves God’s people like in the time of Noah, and also destroys their enemies, again, like in the time of Noah.
And even mimicking creation, the breaking of water is a sign that a child is emerging. Water breaking is a sign of motherhood and new life. And so, it is divinely fitting that baptism of the people of God is a sign of fatherhood, a heavenly parentage where God claims his children.
And so, the people of God are claimed as his Son as they pass through the Red Sea. And when Christ is baptized and fulfills hisstory, God’s voice unmistakably thunders from the heavens and proclaims,
This is my beloved son, with whom i am well pleased!
At Christ’s baptism, God publicly claims his Son, not for Christ’s benefit but ours. We have heavenly testimony that he is the Son of God. And that testimony is a fulfillment of multiple holy scriptures, God is quoting sacred writers from the holy prophets as well as the sacred psalms. This is a prophecy that finds its fulfillment not simply in the people of God but fully in God’s son, Jesus. And this fulfillment extends to us today, for after Christ’s baptism into death, where our Passover lamb of God offers his body and blood for his people, he commands his apostles,
All Authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and makes DISCIPLES of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
The apostles were faithful to this teaching. For at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came, and the people in Jerusalem repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Saint Luke the holy historian records,
So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls. And they held Steadfastly to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.
Returning to the story of the Red Sea — the prefigurement of the baptism of the Church — one would have thought that the supernatural signs would come to a close now that the sons of God were established as a nation, as a free people, as a firstborn of God among the nations. But that would be seriously mistaken! The supernatural signs and wonders only increase from here for God’s people, divine gifts from heaven, and all of these heavenly gifts find their fulfillment uniquely in Christ and the sacraments of his holy Church.
One miraculous sign comes only three days later, the day of life and eternality, and that is the supernatural sign of wood and water.
Wood and Water
“And behold, two men talked with him, MOses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus, which JEsus was to accomplish at Jerusalem” - Saint Luke
As Christ prepares for his passion at the Mount of Transfiguration, the promise is that the exodus would not be from Egypt, as it was in his childhood, but from Jerusalem. The city of peace would be the location of the world experiencing heavenly peace. And so, Christ is crucified on a tree in the outskirts of Jerusalem, pierced in his side so that his holy bride, the Church, could emerge in the flowing blood and water from his pierced side, just as Eve emerged from Adam’s side during his deep sleep.
And there is a hint of this miracle of the Cross in the curious supernatural sign that immediately follows the exodus of the people of God. After crossing the Red Sea, they break out into a glorious song of God’s triumph which records the story of their salvation, and memorializes their unique experience, including the beautiful lyric of God’s eternal kingship,
The Lord will reign forever and ever.
This miraculous sign to come makes little to no sense outside the illumination of the Holy Spirit. But with the Holy Spirit, we see another symbol of the Cross. For the scripture records,
Then Moses led israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur; they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people murmured against moses, saying, “what shall we drink?” And he cried to the Lord; the the Lord showed him a tree, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.
There the Lord made for them a statute and an ordinance and there he tested them, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I put upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord your healer.”
And in this short story, readers with ears to hear and eyes to see will see and hear the story of the cross and resurrection. For Christ on the cross is a bitter defeat made sweet on the 3rd day — the day of life and eternality. For the grave is defeated and sin destroyed, and the bitter judgement of God becomes rivers of salvation. Water, with the power of life and death, is sweet for those destined to eternal life and bitter for those under the judgement of death. Blessed is the wood by which bitter waters are made sweet, blessed is the wood at Calvary by which the judgement of God is turned to divine mercy. Yes,
Blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes.
The miraculous little story is a sign of the transformative power of the cross. For, out of slavery, the people of God are given an incredible sign on the third day, a sign of bitter water made sweet from a dead tree. This is simply one of the many foreshadowing signs of Christ’s work at the cross to come in these stories of Exodus, for the New Covenant’s dead tree of life is the source from which the sweet waters of salvation flow from the side of Christ. The next sign in Exodus is even more miraculous than this one, for it is the sign of the Eucharist — the flesh of Christ is under the disguise of heavenly bread.
Bread from Heaven
“I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever” - Jesus, king of Kings
The people of God, freed from slavery and walking to the promised land of glory, have drank from the sweet waters of salvation and now hunger for food. And once again, God performs a heavenly miracle, and this one miraculously points forward to the sacrament of the Eucharist in the New Covenant. For before the people are given the Law written on Stone, they are given the bread and flesh from heaven. The scripture records,
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you… At twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bead; then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.”
God fills his people with bread in the morning and flesh at night. Bread, a meal that goes through its own passion, for grain sprouts from the earth and is crushed by pressure and baked in fire till it is ready to eat, is a wonderful meal to imagine the passion of our Lord. And so, this tiny odd story of the people fleeing slavery and walking in freedom and how their daily needs where met is a hint of the gift to come in the New Covenant. And Christ teaches the meaning of this story for his disciples, for after he performs the miracle of feeding the five thousand, Saint John records Christ’s teaching,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from ehaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from ehaven, and gives life to the world.”
And when the people were confused at what he meant, Jesus clarified,
“I am the bread which came drom from heaven.”
And while the people murmured, like their ancestors in the desert, Jesus again clarified,
“Truly, Truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down form heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the brad which i shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
And while people were disputing what Jesus meant, Christ further clarified,
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and i will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the brad which came down from ehaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.
And so, the ancient Israelites had an experience of God that was a foreshadowing of what we would have in the New and Eternal Covenant. While they ate the bread in the wilderness and died, we eat the bread of life in the sacrament and live forever. The Church has testified to this teaching in our daily masses ever since it was instituted in the Last Supper and fulfilled in the resurrection.
Of course, the people of Christ’s time just like today walked away from him due to the “hardness of this saying.” But for those who trust Christ like Peter did, we echo Peter’s words and say to Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Even just one of these miracles would have been enough to inspire faith, but God is so good to us that he doesn’t give us just one sign and miracle, but countless miracles that testify to his goodness. And continues to give us these miracles daily in the supernatural bread of the mass. And just as Moses command the future high priest of the Old Covenant to keep the bread close by, we do the same in the New. For the command that our priests keep today is similar to the one the Lord gave to Moses,
“Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD, to be kept throughout your generations.”
Manna is what they called the bread from heaven. And today, we have the manna of the New Covenant in the tabernacles and churches all across the world, wherever the mass is celebrated. For our priests ensure we have the bread from heaven in our midst. God be praised,
For what great people is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?
Water from the Rock
“And the rock was Christ” - Saint Paul
We go from sign to sign, miracle to miracle. After the bread from heaven we have an image of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit, the law written on our hearts, is given to the people of God. Saint Paul helps us see this.
For Saint Paul summarizes this whole passage in a few lines in a letter to the Corinthians, warning them from Israel’s history to not indulge in immorality but remain faithful to the Lord, using the story of the Exodus and the details to point the Corinthians to Christ, making the story new in Christ, teaching,
I want you to know brethren that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed THROUGH the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the SUPERNATURAL Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
The holy Church teaches that to properly interpret sacred writings one must be aware of a few key principles. First, we must know the sacred author’s intention and the genre of scripture employed. And the Church teaches there are levels to interpretation, namely the literal and the spiritual. And within spiritual interpretations there are three types — the moral, the allegorical, and the anagogical.
In the passage in Corinthians, Saint Paul teaches us the spiritual interpretation, in this case, he gives us the fuller understanding of this ancient story. For the people were thirsty and asked Moses for water to drink. The people thirsted for water. The psalmist understands this thirst as a type of thirst for God. For David the great King would later sing,
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
So longs my soul for you, O GOd.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
They thirsted for water, they thirsted for God. And God gives Moses a curious command, one that made little sense at the time but was a sign pointing forward to Christ and the New Covenant. For God tells Moses,
You shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink.
The rock is Christ, holy scripture testifies to this through Saint Paul’s letter. The rock is struck, and the Holy Spirit would flow to the people of God. And our souls shall drink of the Holy Spirit. The signs of Christ and stories of the Old are miraculous in themselves, but when we see the fulfillment in Christ, we realize they are stories of Christ told centuries before they would be fulfilled in Him. Wow.
Time fails us to go through all the details of Exodus, we are only hitting on some of the highlights. But these are enough to see the wisdom and truth of Saint Augustine’s words,
The New is hidden in the Old, the Old revealed in the New.
Kingdom of Priests
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” - Saint Peter
Truly, there are many details to cover in these old exodus stories and their fulfillment in Christ. And as we transition from the story of water from the Rock, that is, with the literal meaning being a story told by Moses of what happened to them as they journeyed the wilderness, but on the spiritual level has a deeper meaning, the foretelling of the Holy Spirit pouring forth from Christ’s cross. We quickly go through other stories that prophesy Christ and his holy Church.
For we could talk of the Israelites conquering their enemies in battle through the outstretched hands of their savior on the mountaintop, just as we conquer through the outstretched hands of our savior on the cross atop Calvary.
We could talk of how Moses, through the guidance of his father-in-law and priest, set up a hierarchy for teaching the people the statutes of God and his decisions. And so Moses sets up a hierarchy to judge the people at all times, allowing the harder cases to be brought up the hierarchy. We see this today in the Church hierarchy, or from an American national perspective, the court systems leading to a Supreme Court that settles the biggest issues of the land.
We could talk of the theophany at the mountain of God on the third day, the day of life and eternity, where God gives the message to Moses,
Now, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is minde, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of israel.
And this message, one of a kingdom of priests, is powerful as it is a fulfillment of the promises to their forefather Abraham. For God had promised Abraham,
Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And i will make of you a great nation, and i will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. i will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you i will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.
And so what we shall focus on is how Moses is a new Abraham, chronicling these historic promises and recognizing their fulfillment in the mission God gave him. It’s easy for us to miss this, for what we read in pages chronicles the passing of centuries, and so the promises given to Abraham centuries before are starting to be fulfilled in God’s son Israel, the nation under God led by Moses out of slavery. Abraham was promised land, a great nation of descendants, and a people by whom the world is blessed — that sounds like a priestly people. And here, God tells Moses, if they obey his voice and keep his covenant, these very pilgrims leaving slavery in Egypt are to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And so the sons of Abraham are starting to fulfill their destiny as a priestly people because our God is one who remembers and fulfills his promises.
But if we consider a little more deeply, this restoration is more than just a fulfillment of a promise to Abraham, it’s actually the beginning of a restoration of what went wrong with Adam, and so in Moses we are finding a new Adam by whom the world can be served, protected, and blessed.
fulfillment goes back to Adam himself.
Covenant by Book and Blood
“Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ was faithful over God’s house as a Son” - Author of HEbrews
The theophany happens on the 3rd day, the day
One thing we will note, is the wisdom of the prophet Jeremiah to realize and prophesy, there was always in the plan of God to have a better covenant to come, even greater than the one offered to the ancient Israelites under Moses, for that covenant pointed forward to the one we live under today. But while it was always destined to be fulfilled and improved, there are some amazing details in how we would recognize the future covenant. And one of those details is the importance of blood to the covenant.
We saw in Adam… Noah… Abraham… and now Moses… blood of covenant
We could have spoken of the eternal beauty of the 10 commandments, the theophany of the third day, the …
“Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning” - God to Noah
One thing we will note, is the wisdom of the prophet Jeremiah to realize and prophesy, there was always in the plan of God to have a better covenant to come, even greater than the one offered to the ancient Israelites under Moses, for that covenant pointed forward to the one we live under today. But while it was always destined to be fulfilled and improved, there are some amazing details in how we would recognize the future covenant. And one of those details is the importance of blood to the covenant.
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when i will make a new covenant with the house of israel” - The Prophet Jeremiah
Ark of the Covenant
“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, loud noises, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. And a great signed appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child…” - Saint John, the Revelator
A vessel for God's presence
Bread of presence
God Dwells Among Us
“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which means God with Us” - The Gospel of Saint Matthew
Incarnation and marriage
Day of Atonement
“For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the Nations” - the prophet Malachi
Sonship and marriage. Unfaithful sons and daughters, the prophets would later use the imagery of adultery to describe idolatry. The most painful emotional wound, the forgetting of divine vows God uses as illustration of how painful our disobedience is. And the prophets, including Zechariah, Jeremiah, and especially Hosea share this message of repentance to God’s people. But in the meantime, God has offers a way for us to remain in close and intimate relationship despite our imperfections and his perfection. And the answer is love and mercy, not sacrifice. But because we are hard of heart and slow to learn, He offers a system of sacrifices so that we could learn mercy. But the prophets continued to offer messages that find their fulfillment uniquely in Christ. Like Hosea, the prophet commanded to marry a whore,
“On the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him…For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings”
Bronze Serpent
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life, for God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” - Jesus, Son of God
Wilderness
Promised Land
“Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” - Deuteronomy
Joshua
Movement from redemption to inheritance
And the last words of Deuteronomy, end with tragedy as the great Prophet is not able to walk in the promised land of God’s people, but of hope, for he had prepared the people and a new savior was to lead them. Let us hear the scripture, the last words of the Books of Moses, and hear with joy knowing that there has come an even greater Joshua, our own Jesus who leads us to the promised land of heaven, flowing full of divine mercy and inexhaustible love,
And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; so the sons of Israel obeyed him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great and terrible deeds which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel.
Judges
“In those days there was no king in israel; everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” - Book of Judges
Judges