Red Sea Crossing

By Joan Culler

I have a confession to make. When I first began attending Bible studies as an adult Christian I wasn’t very interested in the Old Testament. I had studied the Old Testament as history in college, and I knew all the Old Testament stories from my childhood Sunday school classes. What else was there to learn? A lot of Jewish laws that were no longer relevant? No thanks. The New Testament was what I needed to dig into. The Gospels with accounts of the life and death of Jesus, the history of the early church, the letters to the churches—these were the things that would inform and direct my faith life.

In time I discovered how wrong my thinking was. For one thing, the Apostle Paul, in a letter to Timothy, writes: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness …” (II Timothy 3:16).

Since the New Testament didn’t exist at the time, Paul was obviously speaking of the Old Testament. That gave me pause. Then at some point, I signed up for a two-year, through-the-Bible course where we spent a great deal of time on the Old Testament. I began to put those Sunday school stories into chronological order and to see that the Bible is one grand drama with many chapters. The overarching theme is the redemption of the people of God. It became obvious that many events in the Old Testament were a foretaste or hint of what was to come later. As St. Augustine put it: “The New Testament is in the Old concealed, the Old is by the New revealed.”

The Exodus, and in particular the account of how God rescued the Israelites at the Red Sea, is a prime example. As I read chapter 14 of Exodus, I see that this is a truly desperate situation. Facing the people is the sea, Pharaoh and his army are pursing them from behind. They are truly trapped and cannot save themselves. Moses understands that they must rely completely on God. He tells them: “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today … The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Exodus 14:13-14).

God is in complete control. He not only directs Moses, He hardens the heart of Pharaoh and He repositions the pillar of fire and the angel. He drives the sea back so that the Israelites can cross on dry land, and then returns it to its normal course, destroying the Egyptians.

This is not only an event involving water, it is a watershed event! It is one of those moments when history is changed forever. The Israelites never forgot their rescue, commemorating it every year in the Passover celebration.

As individual Christians, our baptism is a similar watershed event. Through water and the Word of God, we too are rescued. Just as God defeated Pharaoh through the water of the Red Sea, in the water of our baptism God defeats the world, the flesh, and the devil. Like the Israelites, we are no longer condemned to a life of slavery; we are new creations, united with Christ and promised eternal life with God. The action is entirely His. Whether we are baptized as an infant or an adult, it is the grace of God alone that finds us and saves us, the crux of faith as summed up by Paul: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

The water of baptism combined with the Word is God’s victory for His people. When we view our story and our salvation in light of the Old Testament, we understand that God is always victorious. He is always acting. He is always about the business of saving His people.

The yearly Passover meal celebrating their deliverance from slavery in Egypt was a way to remind the Israelites that they were the people of a mighty God, a God who was with them and who had saved them. According to the Large Catechism of Martin Luther, recalling our baptism serves the same purpose: “This is how we must regard baptism and make it profitable to ourselves; when our sins oppress us we must strengthen ourselves and take comfort and say: Nevertheless, I am baptized; but if I am baptized, it is promised me that I shall be saved and have eternal life both in soul and body.”

You are a child of God. You have been saved. Remember your baptism.

Culler is a member of St. Paul’s Evangelical Free Lutheran, Hagerstown, Md. Artwork: “Passage Through the Red Sea,” Oragio Borgianni, after a painting by Rafaël, from the Rijksmuseum.