Title: God of Judgment (Ex 12:1-14)
God of Judgment
Exodus 12:1-14, First Sunday of Creation, September 4, 2011
The most important religious ceremony for the people of Israel is the sacrificial ceremony in the Jerusalem Temple. However, many people cannot participate because the sacrifice is only possible in a certain place called the Jerusalem temple. Another important religious ceremony is the Passover ceremony. All the Israelites performed this ordinance whenever the Passover was celebrated, regardless of location. Jesus also performed this ordinance with his disciples. During the Passover ritual, Jesus said that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood. Early Christianity went a step further and saw the Lamb slaughtered at the Passover as Jesus Christ in a spiritual sense. It is this Passover ritual that connects Judaism and Christianity.
Nomadic Life and Exodus
The historical setting for the Passover ceremony is the Exodus. Israel lived in Egypt as a minority for nearly 400 years. Their dream is to leave Egypt and enter the land of Canaan. Canaan is the land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants. Getting out of Egypt is the key, but this is not easy. Moses builds a forum with Pharaoh of Egypt. He demanded that the people of Israel be freed. Pharaoh pretends to listen to him and ignores him. God brought nine plagues on Pharaoh's Egypt. Water became blood, frogs and locusts came, or darkness covered them. Pharaoh refuses Moses' request. It is said that God prepared the final calamity. As you are well aware, it was an incident where all the firstborn of Egypt and the firstborn of livestock died. Only after this last plague did Pharaoh accept Moses' request.
God's Judgment
The reason Israel accepted the Passover ceremony as a command from Jehovah was because they experienced salvation there. It is an experience that not only did the plague of death avoid Israel, but Egypt, which had suppressed them, was devastated. All the firstborn in Egypt died. Are you a little skeptical? The question of whether God could act so cruelly in the name of Israel is meaningless here. For the ancients, swarms of death were fear itself. Livestock also died from the plague, and so did people. Similar things are happening even now, with tremendous advances in science, not to mention ancient times. Ancient Israel remembered the horrors of slaughter in Egypt. This event is interpreted in connection with the Exodus. The interpretation of history is the Old Testament. Through the historical experience and interpretation of Israel, God has come to the confession of faith that ‘he will judge all the gods of Egypt’. Here, all the gods of Egypt refer to the idols of Egypt as well as the deified Pharaoh and all the imperial ideologies of Egypt.
self-sanctification
Why does God judge the gods of Egypt? It is not accurate to say that Israel is God's chosen people and Egypt is a Gentile. The Old Testament says that God often judged Israel. If we limit ourselves to the case of today's text, God judges the power and civilization that absolutizes Himself. Self-absolute, self-sanctifying powers and civilizations do not need God. He is already a god. They experience the things they have created with divine power. Pharaoh of Egypt was a god at that time. He had to be immortal. It was believed that the dead Pharaoh lived forever in the world of the pyramid catacombs. So I put in the mummified body of Pharaoh. On very special occasions, the living were also buried. The custom of shunjang (殉葬) also existed in ancient China. Groups or individuals that absolutize themselves have no choice but to oppress others. Sometimes it appears violently or in a sophisticated way, and at the center of it is the gaze that sees objects other than oneself as others.
What are 'all the gods of Egypt' today? Many Christians think of other religions. An organization called Intercorp emphasizes hostility to other religions through all kinds of events such as stepping on the ground. That's stupid. All the gods of Egypt, whom God will judge, are located in all civilizations. This is the self-absolutizing, self-sanctifying civilization, as already implied above. It shows up in modern life. The power of politics and economy is proud of it. Competitive omnipotence is destroying our souls. Young people have no time to think about the meaning of life, the world, and history. Right now, only a job with better conditions than others became my ultimate interest. To them, both friends and neighbors have become rivals. If this is not the Egyptian god whom God will judge, what would it be?
Second to the world, I am concerned that the church may not be the subject of judgment. You don't know how proud the church is. Now, some megachurches are going to form a Christian party. The idea is to create a party that will practice pro-Americanism and anti-communism. There are rich churches that build churches that cost hundreds of billions of dollars without considering the fact that they are the same community as the 30% or more non-self-supporting churches. In my view, they are ‘all the gods of Egypt’ that God will judge. properties are the same.
Beloved saints, remember. God is the one who judges all the gods of Egypt who absoluteize Himself with His own power. Paul saw the cross of Jesus, which was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, as the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:23, 24) because true judgment and salvation began there. Take a look at ourselves. Are you going on the path of self-sanctification or the path of self-denial that the cross speaks of?