-by Nick Phillips
There is a house I drive by on a regular basis where I often see two crows staring in a basement window. I am not sure why they do this. The house does not appear to be occupied, but these crows have some sort of fascination with whatever they see in the window. Maybe it’s as simple as their reflection? Who knows? But it is an interesting sight to see. They have been there since March, just hanging out by the windows. And it’s not always the same window either. They move around to different windows. Fulfilling my dad joke requirement, I often think, “Look, an attempted murder!” (a group of crows is called a murder). What can I say, little things amuse me.
I was recently reading the story of Moses. Well not all of it, but a decent amount, since his story covers four full books of the Bible. I was reading through his more significant life moments as part of our series of looking at the heroes of the Bible in our Sunday morning services.
We remember so many good parts of his life. He truly is a hero of the faith, and rightfully celebrated as one by our Jewish friends. Moses did, after all, rescue the Israelites from generations of slavery in Egypt. However, there is a part of his story we often forget: Moses was a murderer. It’s right there in Exodus 2:11-13, “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”
As a young man, Moses killed an Egyptian and was forced to flee to a neighbouring nation to save his life from the enraged Pharaoh. In our modern legal system a murderer should be punished with jail time, no matter the motive behind the killing. In the days of Moses, murderers were sentenced to death.
So here is Moses, a man on the run, a fugitive in a foreign land, and what happens? God speaks to Moses through the burning bush. Moses meets God. And God gives Moses the job of going back to Egypt and saving his people. God has given Moses a second chance to do the right thing.
This is, of course, an unexpected turn of events. A confessed murderer has been chosen by God to save a nation. Moses comes up with all sorts of excuses as to why it cannot be him, but for each excuse God gives a solution.
Moses could have been very easily dismissed as someone unworthy of leadership, especially when God is the one looking for a leader. How could God choose someone like Moses? It does not make a lot of sense. But God saw into the heart of Moses. God saw his love for his fellow Israelites and chose him regardless of his past. God gave Moses a second chance.
I lost count of the many people who have told me they have done too many bad things in their lives for God to care about them. How it was “too late” for them. Was it too late for Moses? Was it too late for the Apostle Paul, who spent his early life persecuting and killing followers of Jesus, only to become the greatest evangelist in the New Testament outside of Jesus himself?
There is no “too bad” for God. Despite his past, Moses had faith and God redeemed Moses and used him to save a nation trapped in abusive slavery. Despite our past, our faith in God can redeem us, too. This will not erase our past, but God will place us on a new path, toward a new life where we can honour God and follow his way.
Moses was far from perfect, and later on in his story he made many more mistakes. But his faith is what kept him close to God. Our faith is what keep us close to God, mistakes and all. May we let God give us our second chance.