SATCHMO

I'm taking a bit of a late stab at this one. I have to confess that I’ve never seen the movie, but the book of Genesis is easily one of my favorite books of the bible. It means a lot to me and I continue to glean new insight and wisdom each time I read it.

Firstly, I have to give my obligatory disclaimer and say that I’m not a conventional Christian, which in this case means that I probably believe that more of the supernatural events in this story are allegorical than the typical literalist Christian may believe. Having said that. the story of Moses and the great exodus out of Egypt is all about heeding God’s revelations and living in a state of faith that is not reflective of one’s immediate external circumstance.

You have Moses (in Hebrew, Moses, literally translated, means to draw out) who ironically, was benevolently abandoned by his Hebrew mother, adopted into Egyptian royalty, Sees the injustice of the brutality that is being inflicted on his people, and is chosen by God for a task that seems infinitely beyond his capacity, Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past, nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue... Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else - Exodus 3:10-13. Moses wrestling with his own faith over being chosen to lead an entire nation out of the bondage of slavery and into freedom is just one facet of the entire faith dynamic of this story.

You then have the Pharaoh Ramses, who after each round of Moses beseeching him with God’s command to let his people go and worship Him, The Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them - Exodus 7:13. It started out with the Pharaoh requesting a miracle of Moses so as to prove to him that he was really the ambassador of God’s word, to which Moses responded by throwing down his staff which turned into a snake, a rather innocuous sign. After each of the Pharaoh’s subsequent refusals, the consequences of dismissing Moses’ authority becomes more and more severe until finally the last plague results in the death of every one of Egypt’s first born. If you take this as being allegorical, like I do, the primary lesson here is that when one ignores the writing on the wall, so to speak, in favor of clinging to one’s one pride or particular wants, the consequences become more and more severe. I think that everyone has experienced this to a certain degree in their own life.

And Finally, the Jews who, after spending over 200 years in captivity, are led out of bondage and out of a country and a way of life that they’ve known for generations by a man that they do not fully trust, or trust at all. The estimated number of Jews following Moses range in number between 120,000 and and 600,000, regardless, that’s a huge caravan to be traipsing across the desert for what turned out to be 40 years. The Jews were required to trust God and subsequently Moses implicitly. All of their provisions were provided for through some seemingly supernatural act of god: The water pouring out from the rock, the Manna from heaven, the defeat of the enemies that they encountered along the way. They had to rely on their own faith that the veneer of the external circumstances that they perceived was not indicative of their ultimate fate. They had to have faith both in the man that was chosen to lead them and in God to provide what they needed on the journey and more often than not, they failed at displaying this level of faith they were dominated by their own fear, behaved rashly because of it, and this made the journey to the promised land all the more longer.

The ten commandments, which for most is the highlight and the main focal point of the story, to me does not carry the degree of importance as it does in most Christian’s eyes. I see it as God’s practical ground rules for living harmoniously within a society, which the Jews after spending over 200 years in captivity desperately needed, especially considering their numbers. Sure the first commandment Thou shalt not have any god before me seems to contradict that, but given the circumstances the Jews very existence depended on a very implicit faith in God to lead them to where they were going. I think that degree of faith is still necessary for some, including myself, as a guide on their own path.

I think some distinctions need to be made between a human killing another human and an act of God taking another or many lives. God’s discretion and judgment is not marred by human emotion. God does not have to live with the potential doubt or remorse regarding the justification, or lack thereof, of taking another life and God also does not have to deal with the societal complications that arise when taking another's life for one’s own self interests is condoned. Because of this, I don’t see the contradiction between the justification of God killing and the unjust act of humans committing murder. If one believes in God’s sovereignty, then any act that God commits is just. God does not have the weight of a regrettable crime weighing on his shoulders and eating away at his soul, whereas humans are very susceptible to that.

As far as the supernatural is concerned, I think it is a contradiction in terms. There is no such thing as a supernatural occurrence, only an occurrence that lies beyond our capacity for understanding. Everything happens within nature. It is our lack of true understanding of nature which causes things to appear to be supernatural, but also I think that the more we discredit the miraculous, write it off as coincidence, or laugh at the naivete of those who believe in things that cannot be empirically deduced, the more we lose our capacity to see the hand of the divine working throughout our life. We lose the spiritual lens which affords us our perception of the seemingly supernatural events that occur everyday in our lives.