Liz Schauer

Let’s start with the man, ordinary at best. Memories of grandeur, pomp, and fame fade with the thousands of steps taken each day wandering after wondering sheep. Life isn’t so bad – there is a wife, kids, enough food to eat. It’s different, not bad, he tells himself. Day after day, the same after same, but something slowly begins to stir again; a seed was planted deep within the day his identity was shaken. Born to die but raised in a palace, he grew to learn those people were actually his people.

Enter the people. Born for greatness but subjected to slavery; cycles of disobedience led them to be captives. Year after year they cried out for someone to hear, was the God of their Fathers just a myth? Was he really there, or were the promises of a Promised Land just stories to make each day easier to endure? A hopeful few still lifted their prayers, the wearied others simply dropped their heads to the mud and bricks that had become their reality.

Anger enveloped the inner core of the man and the people – all they had been told, all they had dreamed of, all they thought they were promised had been replaced with the drab monotony of an outcast life. Each day, more sheep, more mud, more work. The small smolder of expectation was nearly sniffed out when a fire suddenly appeared. The smoke that circled from the extinguished hope of the man was lit once again with the mystery that stood before him. Burning, yet not consumed, the weight of holiness hovered over a bush. The man fell, afraid and humbled. He was being sent, called once more to grandeur of a different kind. Shaking, he stepped forward into something he knew he couldn’t do.

The same work, less supplies, gather it yourselves, they were told. If you fail, you will be beat. Discouraged and weary, their spirits broke as this man’s message made their lives increasingly more difficult than they thought possible. The resounding repetition of stuttered syllables echoed in their ears. They wanted nothing of it. Wasn’t this man one of them? The one who ran? Now he returns with what – a message of hope from the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”? Hundreds of years of humiliating harassment left no hope to be rekindled. The hardened people had replaced the promises of their God with the present reality of enslavement, and they chose the latter when presented with the former.  The man’s courage was crushed once more when he saw the people he was to save turn away.