Reading
Exodus 2:1-10

1A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife. 2The woman conceived and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. 3When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank. 4His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him. 5Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe at the river. Her maidens walked along by the riverside. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant to get it. 6She opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. She had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”

7Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?”

8Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.”

The young woman went and called the child’s mother. 9Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.”

The woman took the child, and nursed it. 10The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”


Devotional

A married couple Amram and his wife Jochebed from the Israelite people found out they were expecting a child. Normally this would have been a time of joy, but the edict of Pharaoh had brought fear and anxiety into this situation.  Finally, their child was born and it was a boy!  Tension filled the house as they tried to hide their son from the Egyptian authorities, thankfully Moses was an unusually quiet baby and they were able to hide him for about three months.  Then there came a day when they couldn’t hide him any longer.

It is hard to imagine the grief of that mother as she began to make a little waterproof basket for her baby to place him in the River Nile.  What went through her head?  Would he sail down the river just to be found and killed anyway, would someone find him and take pity on him, would a crocodile find him and kill him or would no one find him and he would die there on the river alone?  How harrowing those days would have been.  Perhaps she even asked ‘Where is God in all of this?’

The New Testament tells us in the book of Matthew that Jesus God’s son was born into very similar circumstances.  Herod the Jewish leader heard about the birth of a new king and in an effort to secure his own position and in great wickedness he too issued a decree to kill all baby boys under the age of two.  God’s son was also born into this danger and into a time of evil and grief.  Not only was God present in that terrible time, he experienced it, for his son was in that position too.

When dark days come, when difficulties seem greater than we can bear, when it feels like danger and disappointment are on every side let me remind you that God is still there.  In fact, not only is he there with you, he gets it!  He understands what you are going through first hand, for he experienced it to.  He knows the pain of disappointment, he was broken by grief, he is familiar with betrayal and felt the sting of death.  Not only is God present in our times of trouble he understands how we feel and so walks beside us every step of the way.