Thus Says Pharaoh

There was the day when a dusty, bedraggled, fiery-eyed shepherd came upon the throne room of a presumably austere, snake-crowned king of Egypt and proclaimed freedom for Hebrew slaves. Through that prophet one who claimed to be Maker announced freedom for his son (which was the nation Israel).

"Thus says the Lord," spoke the prophet and his cousin.

The Pharaoh's response? He rejects and ridicules the God he does not know, and in his later address to the Hebrews, amidst his heightening of oppression to them, utters a subtle blasphemy:

"Thus says Pharaoh."

He uses God's words; he claims to be a god; to determine reality and shape lives.

And so the story proceeded to its conclusion; only God knew the outcome (and he knew the outcome).

I've been overtaken by the thought that in an interaction between a preacher and the preached, a Moses and his Pharaoh, we are inevitably one of those two figures, in a sense.

(Cf. Ex 5:1-10)

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To hear God speak is to be immediately identified as someone. There is a dignity in being spoken to, to being singled out, is there not? When my parents call out to me there is a sense of identity. When my professor calls to me about a matter, a wave of responsibility washes over me, because it has to do with me.

Similarly, when the King of Creation, the Creative Mind behind Space and Time, steps onto the road of history, it gives the road meaning. It gives the drivers a purpose - probably to avoid that Eternal Pedestrian who has wandered onto our streets and called out to us. Jesus with thumb up in the air - drive past or halt, but acknowledgement, well, that's inevitable - that is a certainty.

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As John Frame puts it, "[God] is part of the world in the sense of 'our situation'; - He is the most most significant fact of our experience" (Frame, DoKG, 64). A mountain changes its landscape by virtue of its own nature, by virtue of being itself - so, too, God (re?)organizes the geography of our hearts by His appearance in history, by being Himself. He is the Fact with which we have to reckon.

Erosion and rejection of this Fact in culture today has led to the rejection and erosion of our culture and our own selves. We break apart in the unstable recipe of despairing nothingness, relativism and shouts for justice that have no basis in a faceless, chance-based reality. Outcome of said recipe?

"Dead while they live."

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Where, then, are the spokespeople of God? Who would be prophets and tell forth God's will into formless void of a world? One might expect the Church. But then again, hypocrisy is a wonderfully far-ranging animal, but the haven of Hypocrisy is most oft the church.

Why?

The ones closest to the words of God hear it clearest and reject it easiest. Not that rejection is clearly registered - self-deception is a fascinating epidemic. The sneaky way to full rejection of the Fact is half-acceptance. If we cannot say "no" (which is far too absolute) we will modify our "yes" to keep our comfortable sins; the devil - as the saying goes - is in the details.

God is demanding, of course, as facts are demanding. Any unthinking person might cry "legalism" or "restrictive" to the responsibility God as Fact forces on us, but

as reality is demanding,

as gravity is restrictive,

as daily eating is legalism,

so also He is demanding. 

It's always easier to exclaim than explain. 

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So what do we do with this Fact, the Fact that is God? 

I have been struck by the reality of revelation (not the book). We have the words of God given to us through time, preserved by Him, and our task is to go forth and share it. But for that, we must have the sense of having seen a burning bush, a sight to strike us blind - blinded by reality that is. 

Two evils there are: sick people content in their illness, and healthy people ignorant of their health. So also we are fairly unmoved by the revelation of God through his word. What Christians must have is a sense of the awe-full-ness of words from God to us - words from the Maker for His creation. 

"There is a fundamental distinction between saying 'we question the Bible' and 'the Bible questions us'" says Rutledge. "The right approach is not, 'what question do I have to ask of the Bible?' but 'what questions does the Bible have to ask of me?'" (Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 20). 

As I see it, our conveying (properly, proclaiming) of Scripture should be meditation that is mediated. Not simply information, but our meditation of it, our chewing and digestion of the Scripture given to others. It must be something that has nourished us or we will be speaking of things we do not understand. 

To meditate on Scripture is to think, "God speaks to me" because it is always a present word; it is always a "Today" sort of word. the I AM is ever occupied with the present. 

To mediate Scripture is to say "God speaks to you" because when one hears, we rush into the throne rooms of others hearts and speak what the Maker has said; we cannot un-hear it. Prophets were always seized by the intrusion of the Divine into the moment and mediating that intrusion, conveying it, proclaiming it. 

To speak of roads one has never driven on,

of food one has never tasted,

of places one has never been,

of love one has never felt,

of dreams one has never had,

so it is to speak of the revelation of God, the facing of the Fact, when you haven't been seized by it. 

I'm convicted by this. 

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So, how did he get in? 

I mean, how did Moses get into the throne room? How about:

Guards?

Doors?

Penalties?

Schedules (better than any of the above)?

He flew past all of them, carried on the back of "Thus says the LORD."

And so the revealing of God is Today. But if we are not seized by such a word, by the reality and the Fact of God come upon our lives, the electricity of it all, then what are we seized by?

There are only two positions in this time, or any: to say what Moses said or what Pharaoh said.

What do you say?

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Nicholas Poussin, The Infant Moses Trampling Pharaoh's Crown, 1645