This morning we are exploring the beginning of the stories of two babies with big futures. They were born centuries apart, but there are so many links between their stories, links that are show us something about God’s consistent love and faithfulness for us.
So let’s begin with baby number 1, a little boy.
Now, I don’t know about you – but this short account prompts some questions for me. Why is the baby’s mother hiding him? Why, after three months, does she decide that the best thing to do would be to put him in a basket in a river Nile? Just think about little Jacob here. Would you ever put him in a basket and leave him in the Severn?
To find the answers to these questions we have to go back a bit. If we look at Exodus chapter one we discover that the people that this baby was born into, the Hebrew people, were living in Egypt at the time – that’s why the river was the Nile. They’d moved there generations ago to escape a famine, but they had flourished so much that the Egyptians had grown to fear them, and had enslaved them.
More than that, we read that the king of Egypt had commanded that all the boy babies born to the Hebrews must be killed, by being thrown in the Nile to drown.
That is why the boy’s mother hid him, for fear that otherwise he would be murdered. She was at the end of herself, and perhaps reasoned that it would be better for him to be put into the Nile in a waterproof basket, with some chance of survival, than for him to be thrown in with no chance.
There are times when I read the Bible I wonder at what was going on in the minds of the people involved. It seems a little short on detail. I wonder why the boy’s sister waited to watch. Did the mother know this was where Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe and hoped that something like this might happen and do told her to wait and watch? Could she not bear to see her baby brother abandoned and chose to stay herself? I wonder what Esme would do if she thought Jacob was in danger?
Whatever the reason she stayed, what she saw would have delighted her. One of the princesses of kingdom saw the basket and rescued the boy.
She knew he was a Hebrew and defied her father’s command by drawing him out of the water and taking him home. And so the boy ended up being nursed and raised by his mother before being adopted by the princess.
This is a blended family – birth mother and adoptive mother both having their parts to play in raising this boy, safely to adulthood. And what was this boy’s name? His name was Moses, which sounds like the Hebrew for “draw out”. All the days of his life he was reminded by his own name of this story, of how we was rescued by being drawn out of the river.
Even today many of our babies sleep in a Moses basket, a physical link to this ancient story in which Moses was entrusted to God’s care – perhaps we whisper a prayer entrusting our children to God’s care in the same way as we lay them down to sleep in their Moses baskets?
We know now that Moses went on to lead God’s people out of their slavery in Egypt, and on towards the land that had been promised to their ancestors to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was drawn out, rescued, so that he could be part of an even greater drawing out, an even greater rescue, the drawing out of the people of God from that awful situation, their rescue.
That’s baby number 1. What about baby number 2 – another little boy.
We’ve picked up his story about a week after his birth at his circumcision. One of the things that Moses had done, all those centuries before, was to receive from God the laws that the people of God were to live by, laws that were given to form them together as a community that followed God faithfully. Part of that was to acknowledge God at the start of someone’s life, to thank God for them, to dedicate them to God.
Circumcision was part of that, as was the sacrifice of a pair of doves, which happened a little while later. The practical details are different, but it seems to me that we can recognise the underlying motivation as we bring young children, like Jacob, for baptism. At the start of their lives we name them, and we want to do something that thanks God for them, and shows that we intend them to be part of God’s family, part of the community of faith.
This was particularly important for the people of God at the time that this baby was born. Things weren’t as bad as they had been in Egypt. They were living in their own land, they weren’t enslaved, and their babies weren’t being systematically slain, but they were living under Roman occupation. They weren’t free. So maintaining their identity as the people of God, doing the things that God had commanded them through Moses were really important.
Once again they were waiting for God to send someone to rescue them. That is why Simeon, the old man in the temple was so excited when he saw this little boy. God had promised him that he would not die before he saw the person that God was going to send to rescue the people – the Messiah. Messiah means, “chosen one.” As soon as Simeon saw they boy he knew that he was the one that God had sent and chosen to deliver his people. Just as Moses was sent to save the people of God from slavery in Egypt, so this boy had been chosen and sent by God to save not just the people of Israel, but the whole of creation – Jews and Gentiles, from all that oppresses us and stop us living in freedom
And, just as Moses’ name reflected his mission, so did this little boy’s. His name was Jesus, which means, “God rescues.”
Jesus’ path to fulfilling his call was one a difficult one. He grew up, as boys do, and when he was thirty he began a public ministry of healing, of teaching, of calling people to follow him as he showed them how to live for God. He shook things up, annoyed a lot of religious leaders, was radical in his insistence on living authentic lives of love, in obedience to Father God.
In the end he died, tortured to death on a cross, giving himself as a sacrifice so that we could be free. He was drawn out of death, raised to life again, life that is without end. He lives now, raised to the Father’s side in heaven. He has done everything that needs to be done so that as we turn to him and trust him, so we can live his way, knowing that we have been rescued, and are safe with him.
This decision to turn to Jesus, and to live God’s way, is reflected in the commitments that Jacob’s parents and god parents have made on his behalf today. They have turned away from the evil and darkness of world, acknowledged their own part in it and turned from that, and have turned to Jesus – the only one who can truly deliver us. As Jacob grows up, they will teach him about this, and help him to discover what it means for himself so that he can confirm those commitments for himself when he is old enough to do so.
Many of us here will have had those commitments made for us at our own baptisms, and may have confirmed them for ourselves. For some of us this might be a new. The idea that God wants to rescue us from whatever mess we are in, and in Jesus has given us a way out. All we have to do is turn to him and say, “Yes, I need your help. I’m sorry for things I have done wrong. I want to follow you.” If that is you, this morning, then come and talk to me or one of the prayer ministry team after the service, and we would love to talk with you about what that means and pray with you.
For all of us, one of the delights of a baptism service is that it gives us an opportunity to remember and celebrate all that God has done for us in Jesus, and to recommit ourselves to following him faithfully, with love and gratitude in our hearts.
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