You are Welcome to Reflect on this Message
From the First Baptist Church in America pulpit
February 5, 2006
“Relics From the Past”
Genesis 50:24-25; Exodus 13:17-19
Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

I have looked forward to our 1^st official Sunday with the church. For our purpose today, I chose the story of the Exodus. The Bible reveals that these kinds of experiences are commonplace for people of faith; full of movement, modifications, and promise.

If you awoke in the middle of the night and your house was on fire, what would you take? What we bring with us in an emergency says a lot about our values. “Moses took the bones of Joseph.” For 400 years the children of Israel labored under the lash of Egyptian overlords. Generations came and left. And a new breed arose that knew nothing but slavery. After centuries of oppression, waiting, and praying for deliverance, at last the moment of liberation came.

We pick it up in The Book of Exodus where God heard the cry of the children of Israel and called Moses to lead them out of bondage: “Go down and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.” This Pharaoh “ knew not Joseph.” Thus, he had no appreciation for this ancestor of the people he now enslaved. Whose close relationship with God once spared his own country from famine. So he was in no mood to cooperate.

But God has his ways to promote concurrence. Like the plagues that took their toll as Pharaoh “hardened his heart.” Finally he cried out in rage: “Rise up and vacate the premises!” when the people became more of a burden than an asset.

So the Hebrews hastily gathered their belongings for the journey. There was no time for delay or preparations. Pharaoh was wavering. In the confusion and chaos, they had just enough time to evacuate by the skin of their teeth. Necessity dictated they take only the barest essentials. Certainly there was no room for luxuries.

How then are we to understand this eerie word about Moses taking priceless time to exhume Joseph’s remains? With little time to pack, Pharaoh breathing down their necks, the Passover blood still fresh on their doorposts--along with their kids, and some animals, Moses made room for “the bones of Joseph.”

Undoubtedly he met resistance from the pragmatists. Bones? What kind of leader has God sent to us? He wants to take somebody’s decrepit old bones? Why they’re only relics from the past, sealed in some box, hidden away in a dark corner of Goshen! And who is this Joseph anyway? Why is he so important as to delay our exodus? To the slave generation, Joseph was little more than a name in the faded memory of the past.

What’s at stake now was not the past, but the present. And more importantly, a future to create in a new place to live, with a new identity to mold. So “let the dead bury the dead” and let’s split! We’ve got a Pharaoh to flee, a Red Sea to cross, giants to conquer and a promised land to claim! What use are these old bones anyway? They’ll just slow us down. Yet Moses insisted they bring them. What was it about Joseph’s bones that he wouldn’t leave Egypt without them?

To Moses, this bag of bones was worth its weight in gold. Because it was a connection with Israel’s roots, her religious tradition, a unique identity. These dry bones were a vivid reminder of something invaluable. Because God knows without symbols, we forget who we are. Plodding along in every-day-living, it’s easy to disregard our reason for being. Without such reminders, they’d forget why there even was an exodus.

For 4 centuries the Hebrews belonged to Egypt. Owned by Pharaoh. Their identity was in being somebody’s property. So Moses risked their lives to dig up the bones to show them that there’s One greater than Pharaoh to whom they belonged! Not because they were anything special but because they made a promise to be “a light to the nations.” The time had come to keep the promise. To freshly freed slaves, the bones of Joseph were a constant in a world of variants.

In their darkest moments under Egyptian tyranny, these dry bones wouldn’t let them forget that they were heirs of the promise; and that God keeps his promises. A visible reminder that people at the bottom of the ladder, can be more than what they seem.

How we need things like that! We live in a world that values outward appearances. Image-making, bigness at great cost, winning at all costs, money and wealth and numbers are its success signs. Where are the symbols that remind us of true success?

Each of us is obligated to many people who contributed to our lives, who accepted us and nurtured us along so we could grow into who we are today. Especially in the church. We are part of all we have met–pastors, teachers, friends, parents, colleagues. Some are still with us and some, like Joseph have been dead for a long time. But their influence remains.

The New Testament says, “We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses...” It shows the value of having positive influences upon us from people in our lives who have birthed us, named us, defined us and blessed us. They serve as our bones of Joseph. And we carry them with us like Moses did, to remind us how we got to be like we are.

On Communion Sunday in the worship of God we in the church have the opportunity to remember with appreciation our Christian faith and the Christ who sacrificed to make it possible. You know how it goes - “On the night before Jesus was crucified, he took a loaf of bread and broke it and blessed it and said: Remember!” It still has an impact on us to gather in the presence of the Lord’s table because of Who we remember and what we recall. We remember that we are no longer the same anymore. Because when we share the bread and the cup we realize “God loves me this much!” And if that doesn’t make you a better person, nothing will.

The Lord’s Supper is to Christians what the bones of Joseph were to the Hebrews. The common elements of bread and wine speak to us of our value to God and serve to remind us that our faith costs something. “Jesus paid it all!” With his life, to proclaim in a world of uncertainty, injustice and broken dreams, that God is still God. And He never runs out of life. He has not grown slack concerning his promise. “Be of good cheer,” Jesus said, “for I have overcome the world.”

This ancient story ought to speak to us today. The Israelites were involved in a transitional period, leaving behind a way of life to which they had become accustomed, for something better they hoped. What they couldn’t see, was the future: 40 years of wilderness wandering. Such change moments provide opportunities for growth or staying stuck. You can either keep things like they are or move out to something new. Because Pharaoh is always out there eager to own us and control our destiny. In such times you’d better know who you are and why you’re there.

Once again my wife and I have recently undergone our own exodus, which means “to move out.” Just a few miles up the road, but a totally different setting. In responding to your gracious call, we responded in hopes that our time in this special, historical place full of promise and opportunity, where we’d like to initiate a transformation interim, that is productive for all. But we did it primarily to be a blessing to somebody.

In the process we left behind many warm relationships and lifelong friends in Warwick. We are aware of our temporariness. But each time we move, which is 22 times now, I noticed one of the 1^st boxes Libby unpacks, is neither cosmetics nor clothes. Nope. She put out some pictures of our grandkids and family on display. Our bones of Joseph. Our heritage, our roots, our identity, our memories of those things and persons who remind us who we are, whose we are, where we’ve come from, and Whom we have to thank for it all.

Pastoral Prayer: In the Exodus, you showed us your saving power. On Easter you showed us resurrection power. In the days of the early church, you showed us your visionary power. May we once again be reminded of the power of God unto salvation in this worship.

In Jesus Christ you poured new wine into old wineskins. Let us never get them confused and always realize the skins and structures of our institutions have one purpose only, to serve the wine of the Gospel. So bless the ministries of this church in the many and varied ways we try bring the power of his invigorating spirit to heal the hurts around us...proclaiming your good news, lifting up the fallen, unbinding the guilty, releasing the captives, and providing hope for the hopeless.

With gratitude for the past, and faith for the future, help us to minister to all who suffer, all who grieve and for whom life is a struggle. Wipe the tears from their eyes so they too may be lifted up and blessed with a vision of your joy that is already on its way.

We enfold our arms around all who are in pain this morning. We pray for healing for all who are ravaged by terrible illnesses that lead to the loss of health and a quality‑life. We pray for our leaders and all who make far‑reaching decisions in the social and political world, that they may be fair in their choices and compassionate in the discharge of their duty.

Because of the modern media, we are mindful of people displaced by war, refugees feeling violence‑without much of a chance for an ordinary life that we just take for granted.

We would not forget all who minister among us, and abroad who envision a better world‑who care more for your kingdom than our own status and welfare.

Let you Spirit that consumed Jesus Christ come alive in us, so that the prayers we offer will be acceptable to you, O God, our hope and our redeemer, in whose name we frame this prayer....Amen.