I Will Fight Your Battle

Monday, July 18, 2011
Exodus 14:5-18 (I Will Fight Your Battle)

During these last few weeks, the first reading at Holy Mass has been from the Book of Exodus, that dramatic account of Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, from slavery to freedom. Today we find the children of Israel have just arrived at the shore of the Red Sea. But looking back, they see Pharaoh’s army in hot pursuit of them. The newly freed slaves do what is all too easy for human nature: they cry out to the Lord and complain to Moses. For his part, Moses handles the situation well. He calmly told them to have confidence, the Lord will do their battle for them, so they can keep quiet. It is a good answer, but only the beginning. The Lord has more to say. I like to fill out the conversation between Him and Moses that is given in the Scriptures. “Go forward!” says the Lord. Where?” “Into the sea.” “But that’s crazy!” “Yes, and it’s going to get worse (but we won’t deal with that now). Just trust me. Take up your wooden staff by which you worked miracles in my name, stretch out your hand and do a greater wonder: split the sea in two! Yes, I will indeed fight your battle, but I will do it in a way you cannot imagine, and you must come with me into the unknown, into the impossible, into death itself.”
And so it is with us when we reach our own dead ends on our journey through life. We must trust God and go forward with Jesus, our new Moses, who has stretched out his hands on the wood of the Cross, who has already fought our battle for us and leads us through the sea of death into a new and glorious life.