Meditations from Zion

It’s difficult to see something with new eyes or get new understanding when our memories abound with old movie images and Sunday School bible stories. Who can forget Yul Brynner’s angry, jealous, heart-hardened Pharaoh who would not let Mose’s people go?

Romans 9:17
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

I used to believe that people who were marked for despicable acts by God were literally “born and bred” for those moments. I limited my definition to the word, “raised” to be “reared” as in a child who is reared by his parents. But there are over 31 meanings for the word including “setting in motion” or “to cause” something to happen. That means someone could be “raised up” in a single moment, a single choice.

We will never know much about the childhood of Rameses or what challenges he faced as he was being trained for leadership. Perhaps he had always struggled with making decisions and his tutors put heavy constraints on him to “stick to his guns.” In any event, he came to a point in his life, when he was confronted by Moses and said, “No.” And with each “No” he uttered, the future of a people was set into motion.

I cannot assume that Rameses was particularly evil or cruel as a child, teen, or even young man. In fact, a quick trip over to Wikipedia shows that he was actually known as “Rameses the Great” and ruled for nearly 66 years. Or was it Rameses I (even that is unclear historically)?

Whichever Pharoah oppressed the Israelites and then later tried to block their “exodus,” his “raised up” moment could have happened in a heartbeat and God used that encounter to birth a nation.

I don’t believe I’ll ever be comfortable with the idea that a child is born with an evil future. Depending on the scenarios and the choices made along the way, there will be always be turning points that can bring a person to an evil day and time (or not). Does God know how a life will go? Sure, as I have written before, God is outside of linear time. And yet, a life still has more to it than a signature event or time period. Men and women who are remembered for evil may have kissed a child, planted a tree, loved a mate, or created something of a beauty as well.

If I love someone today, anyone, that moment could turn the tide the other way, for me as well as for the “other.” It is why the power is in the now. We can all be change agents for God through touch, compassion, friendship, love: koinonia.