The Crimson Tide.

All of the sudden I didn’t know whether it was tears or sweat streaming down my face.

Plagued throughout my years by trials and “insecurities” and issues of various kinds, I knew why it would be tears if in fact it was that.

I was on my Elliptical machine, the night was one like many. Cruising along, listening to my worship music blaring in my headphones, I was struck, once again, by a song I have heard a hundred times. Sang a hundred times, not exaggerating.

“He to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood….oh to grace, how great a debtor.”

 

When I was in the desert I went to an Arizona Cardinals game.

I love football. I am one of those girls.

This is our stressed-out face during the game.

 

But one sight in particular got my little mind thinking.

Not kidding you, my first thought was, “Well I have heard that before.”

Sure, sure. You all are thinking Egypt. And so was I.
Can you imagine if you had been there? Stranded in exile for centuries in a foreign land. Oppressed by hostile Pharaohs. Working tiredly forever in the sun. Your soul would be crying out. Dry bones would definitely be crying out. Maybe some of you, if you are like me, feel like you know what it does indeed feel like.

For the Israelites, just when you think all hope is lost, in comes a plague. Only this time it doesn’t hit you. You have braced for the fall, but one does not come. The grasshoppers don’t get you. The angel of death doesn’t get you. In a fluster then you leave home, nervous, ready to be gotten by guards or men with swords or wild beasts or something, but you don’t.

You travel on and before long, behind you and your fleeing companions you can hear the Egyptian army coming…what you feel you knew all along was coming. For you honestly didn’t think you were going to get away. Chariots and horses, shouts of battle, no doubt, with a blockade in front of you, that’s what was coming. This time, though, the blockade is not cement blocks or bricks made without straw. Not sun-baked walls, un-climbable, but water. Blockaded by water “Red” and unswimmable. A hopeless sea.
I think I can hear the sigh. My heart knows the tension. When rocks and hard places are your only boundaries, and no escape window seems visible.

I sigh. And I anticipate the story to end there, like a bad movie that you knew the whole time where it was going.

Only this wasn’t a bad movie. This story had a twist. Like you hope all stories will.
Moses. A man sent to set captives free.
Where would the story be without the savior, I must ask myself? The one who comes between us and our devastation. What if there was no Moses who believed and no Moses who saw the Invisible One (Hebrews 11:24-29) and no Moses who had faith to take the Lord’s charge, raise his hand up to the roadblock and say with confidence:

                                                                                “Rise up, Red Sea.”

 Where would you be without a Red Sea? What if the rocks and hard places never knew your name? I think about my own story and I wonder now, would I have any thankfulness for the rescue if there had been no oppression?

Might I suggest that even if you feel you haven’t had the enemy in chariots breathing down your neck and if you feel like you have never had the waters parted for you, if you know Christ Jesus as Savior, you have been given another Red Sea experience.

Like that song lyric I mentioned, “He to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.”

And as the words, so old, were pounding into my head that night, all I could think of on that Elliptical machine was, “What a red sea it was. Hot blood pouring out of innocent veins.”

Why am I surprised to find that the greatest rescues all bleed the same? They parallel each other and mine is counted among them. Oppression and rocks and hard places and enemies and no-way-out and Saviors who blindside you.
Saviors who turn their back on your enemy, look forward to the goal and to their beloved ones held captive for so long, and say, whether to bodies of water or to blood in their veins, “Rise up, red sea.”

And the red seas rise up, and they part.

And the captives walk through it because to them freedom only comes on the other side.

Can you believe that Jesus inflicted that on himself? For you?

For me?
Some of you might scoff and say, “Ah! But the Romans killed Jesus!” or “But the Jews killed Jesus!”
Who gave the word and who pounded in the nails is of little importance, because the truth is, I killed Jesus. You killed Jesus. Our sins killed Jesus. Our wages of death he bore.

And also…Jesus killed Jesus. Not in some selfish suicidal way, but in a greatest-act-of-sacrifice way.

It says in John (19:30) that “When he had received the drink, Jesus said ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
Now, I don’t know if you realize this or not, but you cannot give up your spirit. You don’t have that kind of power. I don’t have that kind of power. We cannot speak ourselves to death.
But the one who spoke all life into being could.

The realist in me wants to yell, “Who in their right mind would subject themselves to brutal torture and then, after suffering shame and scorn and beatings, give up their own spirit?!?!”

This one who now knows freedom answers, “Could it be anyone less than He who says, ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts’ (Isaiah 55:8)?” For surely a mind that thinks differently than ours is the only one who can bear the cross for the sake of love. A love of which is stronger than any of us can endure, for is it anything other than his love that kills our body of sin?
I think not.

I don’t know whether I was out of breath that night or hyperventilating.

I would understand the hyperventilating if it was indeed that.
When the reality of Jesus hits you it absolutely has to take your breath away.

I don’t know what I am trying to get across to all of you tonight. I just wanted to tell you how my brain (and body, what with the crying and hyperventilating) was wrecked the other night.

The power and love of a God who told the red sea in his veins to “Rise up,” well…it just takes my breath away and it makes me cry because he loves me so much and I love him so little and I just beg the Lord that all of you would know what in the world I am talking about and I know this is a run-on sentence and I absolutely don’t care how many grammar rules I am breaking right now or ever because this is so important to me and, boy, do I want this to be so important to you.

*Sigh*

You know, in Hebrews it says that Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ of greater value than all the treasures of Egypt because he was looking forward to his reward—i.e CHRIST! Can’t we as Christians just grasp this a little more, I wonder?! The truth that Christ is better than…well..everything?!?

Because he is, Wolfies, he absolutely is! He is not a God who saves you and then leaves you empty-handed or heart-less-filled or what we all fear the most—alone.

I mean kids, this is real! This Jesus thing isn’t just some Sunday morning play time. This isn’t just something that you compartmentalize and have a life or a job or a pastime or a voting record or a credit card bill separated from.
Paul said that “To live is Christ.”

Period.

I just want to look you all in the eyes and say, “Period.”

That’s all.
That’s all you need to know about life and how to live and how to love.
Period, because he made his blood rise up to save you, how can we, therefore, not consider everything else, like Moses, of lesser value? Because it is of lesser value. It’s just not worth sacrificing your life to. Not when you compare it to the One who sacrificed HIS life for yours.