12 April, 2020 – Berlin Immanuel Church joined an online service on Easter Sunday with a sermon on Exodus 15:1-21. The song that Moses and Miriam sang after they crossed the Red Sea and the waters closed on the soldiers of Pharaoh shows us much about our own salvation and what the center of our faith and identity in Christ is to be. The song is a response to what God has done and His character that was revealed through His saving works. The beginning and the end of the passage, verse 1 and verse 21, are the same, they are about giving glory to God for his perfect salvation. In the same way, the New Testament teaches us to pray in the name of Jesus Christ – our prayer and worship are a response to who God is and what He has done for us in Christ Jesus, not in who we are and our works, but in God’s grace.
The song praises the most God’s complete victory over the enemy. The sons of Egypt sank in the depths of the water as stones (Ex 15:5), they were consumed as stubble by the fire of God’s righteous judgement (Ex 15:7). God judges the sin and the evil of Egypt who tried to drown the sons of Israel (Ex 1:22) and who caused injustice to His people (Ex 5:12). God is a warrior (Ex 15:3) who defends His people and brings completely victory. God’s has been in war against sin since Genesis 3 and the whole Bible is a story of the God of salvation who deals with the sin of men completely and once for all on the cross of Christ. In this time of suffering and facing an invisible enemy, we are reminded painfully of the arrogance of men who think they don’t need God, our own vulnerability reminds us how much we depend on God. The biggest problem we have is the epidemic of sin that separates us from God, an enemy we cannot overcome by our own ability and strength. But the Resurrection of Christ shows us that God is a mighty warrior who brought us complete victory over the power of sin.
But not only our guilt and sins are perfectly covered by the blood of the Lamb, it is His resurrection that brings the power of God into our new lives in Christ. As Paul says in Ephesians 1:19 and 2:1-10, the power of God that raised Christ from the dead is at work in those who were cleansed by His blood through faith, we were raised together with Him to the presence of God. This newness of life must, therefore, be evident in us, as a testimony to the power of God that changed a sinner into a new creation prepared to do good works so that the riches of His grace maybe be shown to the world through us in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Both the cross and the resurrection come together to effect the power of the life of Christ in us, since just as our sinful nature was buried with Him, we were also raised with him from the death of our sins, so that we may live a new life to His glory (Rom 6:4). May our lives be this beautiful song, a worship unto God who loved us even when we were sinners, God who justified us by grace and who sanctifies us and will glorify us by the same power that raised Christ.