Fear

Exodus 1

We begin exodus where we ended Genesis, with Joseph's death.  We begin with a reminder of the Israel's exodus from Canaan into Egypt in the first place, where they were treated well.  But, now the people are numerous and the whole first generation is dead as well as the ruler who had welcomed Joseph's family.  This new pharoah is not so nice.  There are just too many Israelites running around and he's concerned they might overthrow the Egyptians.  Fear causes pharoah to enslave the Hebrew people.  Fear causes pharoah to try to put an end to the multiplying of the Hebrew people.  He orders Hebrew mid-wives to murder Hebrew children, specifically the sons, as soon as they are born.  Seems the king of Egypt is helpless against even the Hebrew mid-wives.  The killing part doesn't happen.  I suspect his fear his probably escalating, so he tries again.  He orders the mid-wives to throw all of the sons born to the Hebrews into the Nile.

A little bit of fear can be a healthy thing.  Children should be taught that strangers indeed can hurt them and that they should be cautious.  But, fear can make us react in ways that is beyond cautious.  It can cause us to strike out before we are struck, damaging others as well as ourselves, as we will see soon enough was the case for pharoah and all of Egypt. 

But, here we end today...  The king's fear caused the ordering of the deaths of innocent children.  This too, we will see repeated.  We will see it again with the massacre of the first martyrs for Jesus - the children - by King Herod.  (Matt 2:16-18)    

Consider this day if the fears you have are reasonable fears or if they will hold you (and others) back from being all that God intends for you to be.  Are the choices you make based on fear - the lack of trust in God?  Or will you make them knowing that God has a good plan for you and will be with you every step of the way?  Even as we may have unreasonable fears, there is one fear that can be very healthy:  We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. (Luther's Small Catechism on the first commandment) As one of our parishioners reminded me the other day, when we put first things first, in the proper order that God gave us, then things work.  When we take them out of order, they don't work.  The first priority is always to put God first.  When we put the world first, fear of losing the world, what we have in this world, jades our thinking and all that we do.  But, when we put God first, we trust him to be with us through all things and things just work out a whole lot better for all people in the end that way.

May God heal your fears, that you might trust in Him for all things.