“The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. Many other people went up with them and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. With the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves of unleavened bread.” ~ Exodus 12:37-39
“Be careful,” Jesus warned.” them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
~ Mark 8:15
Advent means waiting. Waiting is writ large all over the pages of the Great Story. So much of the waiting in Scripture is bound up with a longing for freedom and deliverance. God counsels His people everywhere, from the beginning, to be patient, and to believe, even when the outlook seems grim.
But in some times and places throughout the checkered story of human history, there are peppered answered prayers and fulfilled longings so great, that they transform the world and individual hearts at the same time. The time of patience is completed. The time of the hoped for deliverance arrives.
For 430 years, the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt. They were bent, hunched and humiliated despite the promise to their forefathers that they would be a mighty nation, blessed in a land of freedom and abundance. And so they waited and prayed and waited and wept and waited and despaired and waited and hoped. Until in one day, Moses walked millions of God’s people, along with “many other people who went with them”, out of the bondage of Egypt into their long awaited freedom. 430 years boiled down to one unforgettable day.
When the prophet Malachi penned the final words of what would become the Old Testament, there would follow 400 years of silence from the Holy One of Israel. The people of God waited and prayed for the promised Messiah who would deliver His people not only from external tyranny but from the ancient ravages of sin and spiritual darkness. And then, in one day, Jesus Christ the promised One was born to a virgin in a dusty backwards desert town in obscurity and humility. The Son of God altered the course of history in one day, after so much waiting.
And we know the story. Jesus had to die and rise again for the story to reach its climax. The Exodus from Egypt is a shadow - the deliverance of millions of God’s people along with many others who did not originally worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The shadow came to life in Jesus. Christianity started with a group of rag tag Jews who with the flame of the Holy Spirit set the world on fire. And many Gentiles, pagans and unbelievers, went up with them.
And now, the people of God wait patiently again. One more round of patient waiting is required. Jesus promised He would return, this time in great glory for all to see. He will vindicate the patient endurance of His people and bring them to the true land “flowing with milk and honey”, where they will live with Him forever, justified by faith in Jesus the Messiah.
The Jews left Egypt carrying dough without yeast in it, having hurried out of Egypt. Even this was a sign that would find deeper meaning when Jesus warned about the yeast of Herod, and the Pharisees – the yeast of unbelief. Both Herod and the Pharisees rejected the Savior. Herod refused to follow Jesus because it meant a devotion that would cramp his sin laden appetites, and the Pharisees refused because they pridefully thought they could justify themselves by adhering to works of the law. And so they perished by both forms of unbelief, still in play in our culture today.
As we wait for Jesus to come again, it seems to me that the people of God are most in danger of losing heart and losing hope. The American church is shrinking, orthodox Christian doctrines are mocked, and we people of the Way are all too sleepy when we should be keeping watch. (I love when I preach to myself…) So I remind you of these two great moments when long stretches of endurance and waiting were followed by great joy in the fulfillment of the promise.
I pray we will rejoice in this time of Christmastide, grateful for our beautiful inheritance from the Old and New Testaments, thankful for those who patiently waited and hoped before us without shipwrecking their faith on the rocks of impatience and unbelief.
Jesus will return. Let’s remove the leaven of unbelief, rouse our faith in so Great a King, and pray and work so that “many others will go up with us”. It will all happen in one day.
Your friend on the Pilgrim Road,
Loriann
