CT - Catholic Telegraph

Rescued by God

Easter Vigil, Third Reading, Exodus 14:15 - 15:1.

The Easter Vigil is intended to be a lengthy event, a whole night's reflection on being saved. That's why the Lectionary gives us so many readings. Yet the liturgy does allow us some leeway. While we are encouraged to read all seven of the Old Testament readings, we are permitted to reduce the number to three if circumstances warrant that abridgement. However, under no circumstances whatsoever is this reading from Exodus to be omitted or shortened. It is the most important of the designated Old Testament readings.

The importance of this reading over all the others is that it deals most directly with the main themes that the church celebrates in the Easter Vigil. First of all, it deals with the rescue of the children of Israel from the power of their Egyptian oppressors. This is the central event of the Passover experience, the event that Jews would celebrate forever as a basic, constitutive element of their national consciousness.

But the passage through the Red Sea also symbolizes the exodus of Jesus from death into a new life of resurrection. Finally, the Israelites' passage through water also images the passage through water that is the sacrament of baptism, the constitutive event of our Christian existence. These verses from Exodus deal with all of this in one way or another. They are the salvation narrative par excellence.

The narrative can be divided into seven sections or paragraphs. (As we go through the reading, we should note the recurrent phrase, "chariots and charioteers." It occurs five times in our passage and serves as a kind of recurrent drumbeat to remind us that God was matched here against the mightiest war machine of the age.)

The first section of the narrative, verses 15 to 18, shows us the Israelites' state of mind. They are panic-stricken, but God reassures them by means of His instructions to Moses, by reassuring him and the people that He was going to teach the Egyptians a lesson.

Next we see the preparations for what was to happen. The cloud of fire that had been leading the Israelites now goes behind them and turns dark to hide them from the Egyptians.

Then Moses carries out God's instructions. The sea divides, a dry path is formed and the Israelites "marched into the sea on dry land." The Egyptians follow, but the Lord throws them into a panic and they turn back in retreat.

In response to the Lord's command, Moses now reverses what had been done before. The sea that had opened at Moses' behest now closes over the Egyptians and, in spite of their efforts to get away, "not a single one of them escaped."

Now comes a summary or epilogue which recaps what had happened and describes how the Israelites reacted to it. "They feared the Lord and believed in Him and in His servant, Moses."

Last of all, our reading leads into what scholars call "The Song of the Sea," a poetic celebration of what the Israelites had experienced. (Some scholars consider this canticle to be the oldest written text in the Bible.) It celebrates God as a warrior chieftain coming in battle to the rescue of His people.

In this reading, God is revealed as lord and savior, protecting and freeing His people from oppression through a miraculous intervention that surpasses all human hope and capability. It was an intervention that was essential for the establishment and continued existence of God's people.

But God's action at the Red Sea is not just something that concerned the Israelites. It also symbolizes the Father's rescue of Jesus from the waters of death. Even as the Israelites marched through the sea on dry land, so also Jesus came through the waters of death into a new kind of life, a life that still continues.

And each of us has experienced the same thing in baptism. Even as baptism symbolizes and brings about our sharing in the death and resurrection of Jesus, so also baptism associates us with the saving of God's first chosen people by means of their passage through water.

These are the basic acts of salvation that make us who and what we are. But there are still other saving acts of God. God preserves each of us from harm each day because each of us is precious to Him. Threatened though we may be by devastating chariots and charioteers, God still brings us through the waters around us safe and dry shod.

For reflection and discussion

How have I been rescued by God?

What difference has baptism made in my life?