If you’re a firstborn, did you know there was a price on your head? This headline is a tad old (about 3,500 years or so), but nevertheless it’s true. On that dark and fateful night that the slave kingdom of Israel fled Egypt in the mighty Exodus, God declared that the firstborn of every Israelite family (and flock and herd) belonged to him, “It is Mine” (Exodus 13:2).
Was God playing favorites? Not at all. Rather, he was branding deep into that slave community’s perpetual consciousness the supernatural deliverance Israel’s firstborn received on the night of the tenth plague. Remember the story? Through Moses God warned both Egyptians and Israelites alike that death would “pass over” the land at midnight, and only those homes that had painted the blood of a lamb upon their doorposts and lintels would be spared the death of their firstborn. “And it came to pass at midnight” that it happened just as Moses had decreed, and “there was a great cry in Egypt” (Exodus 12:29, 30). Only the firstborn “under the blood” had been spared.
So that they would never forget that mighty deliverance, God later instituted in Israel a “head tax” for every firstborn, five shekels of silver (see Numbers 3:47; 18:16), a perpetual reminder that God alone was their Deliverer, firstborn and all born.
But when the story of the greatest Exodus of all (from the bondage of sin) is told in the New Testament, the fate of the firstborn is reversed! For the sacrifice of Christ is portrayed, not as the deliverance but rather as the death of the Divine Firstborn: “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead . . . who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5). For at Calvary the death angel of divine judgment did not pass over the Firstborn. Rather “he was wounded for our transgressions, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-7).
I happen to be my mother’s firstborn. But no matter your birth order, the deliverance we have gathered to celebrate today declares us all “the church of the firstborn” (Hebrews 12:23)! And who’s complaining? After all, the sacrificial love and death of our Savior truly is a one-way ticket to the Promised Land for all “the chosen” who believe. Chosen as you are, then, do you believe?
On March 4, 1933, the newly elected president of the United States delivered his inaugural address to the nation. Four sentences into that address, Franklin Roosevelt uttered the words that have lived long beyond his four-term presidency: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” So spoke the nation’s leader in that dark hour of economic despair. Because that’s what leaders are raised up to do, is it not? To call the people, the populace, the public to renewed confidence and hope for the journey yet ahead, to remind them of their “rendezvous with destiny.” That’s precisely what an aged leader named Moses did in an ancient book that becomes the grist for our worship journey this new season. Deuteronomy is in fact the farewell address (no doubt the longest farewell address in history!) of that beloved leader to the children of Israel who had literally grown up under the tutelage of his forty year administration. As we handle the document and text of his last will and testament to this community that had exhausted four decades of wandering in the bleached, barren wilderness south of Canaan, we will ponder the notion that in their wanderings lies the tale of our own journey toward the Promised Land. For the apostle firmly asserts: “Now all these things happened to them [in the wilderness] as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (I Corinthians 10:11). Have “the ends of the ages” come upon us? And are we prepared for the high calling of that “rendevous with destiny?” What are the lessons of and for “the chosen?” Journey with me this season as we track the sandy footprints of that chosen generation long, long ago. And in Moses’ appeal to remember, may we heed the call of another leader who spoke courage into the uncertainty of a journey that yet remained: “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history” (Life Sketches 196). Nothing to fear, much to remember, and a future to claim. It is the shining hour of “The Chosen.” Shall we not seize it?
How would you like to teach school in New Orleans? The government is endeavoring to attract new teachers to what, even before Hurricane Katrina, was one of the toughest and most challenging school districts in the nation. But now in the post-traumatic stress of that crippled city, recruiters are offering to every teacher willing to move to the Crescent City a two-year signing bonus of $17,000. Any takers? Fact of the matter is that whether you teach in New Orleans or Benton Harbor or Berrien Springs you’ve signed on to a very demanding profession. U.S. Department of Labor statistics report that there are now 3.8 million preschool through high school teachers (public and private) in the United States, with annual earnings ranging (in the latest statistics available) from $26,730 to $71,370. Any takers now? But sit down with a school teacher, private or public, and inquire the motivation that keeps the teacher returning to that noisy classroom day after day, and I predict you’ll not hear a word about “the compensation package.” And probably not too much about the working environment or physical plant either (which isn’t to suggest that such factors aren’t important or vital to these professionals). But to a man and woman among the teachers I’m privileged to know (and work with) the gut motivation and heart response keep coming down to a personal passion for kids, a love of learning and teaching and the desire to change this world one life at a time. And the rewards? Years ago the screen play “Mr. Holland’s Opus” powerfully portrayed the payoff of a high school music teacher, whose dream to compose a world-class opus was perennially preempted by his devotion to the kids who tromped through his band room year after year. Their surprise rendition of his unfinished opus at his retirement program captured the compelling truth about teachers—their greatest life compositions are played out in the lives of their students long after school days are over. I carry these two quotations in my Bible: “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth” (Eccl 12:1); and, “What line can we dwell upon that will make the deepest impression upon the human mind? There are our schools” (FE 529). In that juxtaposition is the reason why I thank God for the hundreds of dedicated Christian teaching professionals in this parish. Let the school bells clang—our kids are in the right hands!