God’s Justice (in the 10 plagues)

I have to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to this sermon because today we are looking at God’s punishment. It's not because I think God is wrong when he acts out for justice, I believe God knows what he is doing and it is good. I struggle with God’s justice because I don’t often understand it. As many things as I understand there are still many I don’t. I guess I am in good company because Jesus’ disciples sure didn’t understand why he needed to die. Actually, if I am to be completely honest with myself, the reason I don’t like talking about God’s judgment, is that I don’t want it. I don’t want these terrifying realities to be the consequence of our actions, I don’t want this to be what is needed to restore goodness in this world. I don’t want thunder and hail to rain down, I don’t want the firstborn to die, and I don’t want my friend Jesus to have to die for my sins, but God knows what I need. I guess this all stems from a deep misunderstanding of the sheer evil and consequences of sin and what God needs to do to change it.

In the first pages of Genesis, in the garden, God tells Adam “if you reject God and eat this one particular fruit you will die”. From the very beginning, we are told that the natural consequence of sin is death, even if it is something as simple as eating a fruit. Intellectually, I can make sense of this, if we turn away from God the source of our life, then the only alternative is not life. Yet, experientially, physically, and emotionally, I don’t understand this. I have done plenty of evil and I am, thankfully, still alive. The same is true for each of us. The same was true for Adam and Eve. They may have been removed from the garden, the fullness of life, but they did not die, immediately. Yet, I believe God was telling the truth and death is the consequence of sin. So, our misunderstanding of consequences is only possible because of God’s continuous mercy. As we run away from the source of our life, he runs after us, he incarnates himself, and he gives us gifts like our life back, time and time again. How easily we can confuse God’s mercy for what is natural?

With that understanding, we can start to jump into the ten plagues and God’s punishment in general. We have some sense from the last few weeks, of the evil committed by Pharoah and Egypt. Though even there we must confess that we don’t completely understand how Egypt as a whole was participating in the evil of Pharoah and that we don’t completely understand all that Israel was feeling and enduring. Most of us are fairly lucky in Canada to experience very little of this, though that is not true for all nations. Even when we look at our own nation with its general peace and inclusion, we can still recognize injustice and that often to change that wrong, something drastic needs to be done. If that is true in our case, only imagine how this could be true in all these other situations and we can begin to see why there were revolutions or why God needed to act.

God isn’t like our court systems or our revolutions though. His justice is a fitting consequence, that serves goodness. Most of the time we don’t know what is right or a fitting consequence, but God does. We already talked about death as a consequence to sin or removing ourselves from life. Today, we can see how the killing of Israelite children leads to the death of their own children and how the blood they spilled in the Nile has corrupted it, so no one can drink from it. We can imagine how that much blood and death would attract gnats and flies, create pestilence and boils, and get the frogs to leave the Nile. We can see how Egypt’s enslavement and overworking of Israel to create produce and wealth for Egypt meant that wealth would be taken away from them with locusts and cattle blight. We can see how Egypt was already sick, leading to boils. We can see how the pride and arrogance of Egypt would lead to their sun needing to be blotted out. In some ways, God is just releasing the natural and just consequences of what their actions caused.

There were many more reasons for these exact plagues. Many of these signs were also ways that God showed his power over the Egyptian gods and ultimately over Pharoah himself - the sun God was considered their greatest and most important God. The plagues were ways that God proclaimed his mightiness to the nations so that they too might fear him and come to him for protection and life. We hear throughout the story that many Egyptians turn to God and believe in him. We can also see that these plagues are increasing in intensity. The blood would have meant they couldn’t drink from the Nile, so they dug wells. The frogs and bugs would have touched and made everything unclean for the Egyptians. The plague killed their livestock, the hail killed their workers and their plants, and locusts ate most of their produce so they had little to eat. The boils threatened their life and comfort. The darkness made everything a danger. These plagues were all warning them that their lives were in increasing danger as they turned away from and rejected God. Not everything we experience is a consequence of our actions, but what might the struggles and pain we experience be trying to tell us about our wrongs, how we need to change our ways, or how we need to turn and trust in God more?

This was not the only warning God gave Egypt though. Remember last week when Moses approached Pharoah and asked him to let Israel go? Well, this is repeated again and again throughout the plagues - actually, Moses often says this in public places around the Nile so tons of people could hear - he asks Pharoah to let Israel go and then he warns Pharoah of the consequences. Pharoah and Egypt are given ample opportunities to change, to avoid the disaster, yet they don’t. They are given opportunities for repentance and to seek God’s mercy and yet they won’t accept them. The most telling example of this comes up halfway through the plagues. Just before the seventh plague, Moses tells them exactly what will happen. He says, “God is going to send the worst storm you have ever had. He will rain down hail and thunder. Any person or any animal that is left outside will die, so bring in your cattle, your servants, and your kin. Well, guess what happens? Some hear this and fear God, and because of this they protect what they care about but many didn’t listen to God. What would have stopped them from simply bringing in their livestock and people for one day? Only the evil of pride. Sadly, with all of God’s mercy, warnings, and hope for us, we can still so reject him that we walk into the consequences he doesn’t want for us.

That brings us to the death of the firstborn. Something so horrendous that I barely want to approach it. As I wrote this I was holding onto Matteo and I could barely imagine it. What would bring God to this? What would ever necessitate this? I don’t know. We have already explored some of the why, but it never feels like enough. We experience this every time someone young dies. Why Lord?

I think there is one big thing here that our minds, bodies, and emotions still can’t understand. We are so wrapped up in this world, in our finite states, that when a baby dies, we think that is it. All that potential and innocence was lost. Yet, if we can even approach understanding God’s eternity and life everlasting we will begin to see the finality of that loss can’t really be the case. We lose something for ourselves, but in God, we must understand that he cares for the innocent, all potential and life. He is caring for those lost children more than we ever could. In that, if we could ever perceive it, their death might even be a mercy. In the case of Egypt, for a nation so corrupt that would kill and enslave a whole nation, what kind of evil and hurt would they have led these children into? I don’t know, but I trust God takes care of them better. They are protected and loved, saved from the evils of this world, and brought into the warmth and light of God. Throughout the history of Christianity, this has been a common belief. If you have ever seen pictures of cherubs, either the baby heads or the full body, it became a tradition for those paintings to be the faces of the children who died. In that symbol, we are recognizing that God has a special place for those that died in innocence. The peace and joy of God are what we wish for these children, but we wish that they could be with us too.

Another important thing to recognize through all of this is that it is God doing this. Moses might be an instrument of warning, or the one who names it as God’s work, or even a strange kind of initiator, but it is God doing the judging and the ultimate execution of the plagues. He knows what is right, what needs to be done, and what is good. We still don’t. We might have a small part to play in it, but we must leave this kind of dramatic justice to God. Even when Israel goes to war later, God might strengthen them, save them or protect them, but he will show them that like Cain they are killing their brothers, that the earth cries up for the blood, and that like King David the blood has made them unable to build or become God’s temple. It is God’s place alone to execute this kind of judgment and justice.

We have talked about God’s judgment, but I wanted to end off by talking about his mercy. In a very grand way, these plagues were to show Israel mercy and deliver them from slavery and death. This is God’s hope with much of his judgment and punishment. I have also already given you little hints about God’s mercy for Egypt. How each of Moses’ statements was both an offer and a warning. Some of the Egyptians began to believe and so saved their livestock and workers from the hail and storm. We also read in the plagues that the whole land of Goshen didn’t experience many of the plagues. So, because of their sheer proximity, inclusion, and care for the Israelites their Egyptian neighbors would have been saved too. There is another great mercy but you could have easily missed it. When Israel is strongly pushed out by Egypt in the middle of the night, we hear that it isn’t just Israel that leaves, but that many other people went with them. There seems to be this large swath of people, Egyptians, and maybe other slaves too that are saved and delivered by God with Israel. There are these subtle or even not-so-subtle invitations consistently to join the side of God and be saved.

Another mercy most would miss. There is a funny little set of laws right after Israel leaves Egypt, where God tells them that all foreigners must do one thing to be able to eat the Passover, at least from now on. The idea seems to point to the fact that foreigners or people outside of Israel had been eating the Passover and that many people beyond just Israelites were saved by the blood over their door, so their children were passed over too. This might be wishful thinking on my part as it isn’t completely spelled out, but God was consistently offering them a way out, so it fits and it fits with what I know about God’s hope to include all people in his blessing over Israel through a relationship with him. In this difficult story, I think God’s justice and His mercy are pointed at both Israel and Egypt and that his ultimate hope is to deliver all of them. Just like it is his hope to save all of us from the consequence of our sins too. AMEN