AN ALIEN IN A FOREIGN LAND

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?"

They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock."

"And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat."

Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

Exodus 2:15b-22

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The word had gotten out.

Moses, an Israelite, had killed an Egyptian and Pharaoh wanted an eye for an eye. And so in Exodus, chapter 2, we find him wanting to kill Moses who was able to escape and flee Egypt, finding refuge in Midian. As he sits down by a well, we see more of his future begin to unfold in our passage for today. Look again at those words here:

Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?"

They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock."

"And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat."

Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land." Vv. 15b-22

As Moses sat at the well, it was obvious that he would encounter people who would come regularly to draw from the water source.

On this day, he would meet “seven daughters” of “a priest of Midian” who had come to "draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock." The scriptures tell us that while they were trying to get water, they were harassed by some shepherds but we read that Moses "came to their rescue" and then even "watered the flock" for them.

Afterwards, the daughters returned to their father, Reuel, sharing what had transpired and what Moses had done. The story prompted Reuel to ask about Moses’ whereabouts before rebuking his daughters for leaving him without offering some form of gratitude through hospitality. In Reuel’s mind,  he feels the least he could do is offer something in return for what Moses had done for his daughters.

And so we read where he asks Moses to join the family for a meal, an invitation he agrees to. In fact, we read that Moses received far more than just food and a few nights’ stay. For the scriptures tell us that the priest of Midian gives his daughter, Zipporah, to Moses in marriage and after they are wed, they have a son who they named Gershom. All seemed like it was going fine for Moses but there was something wrong. For we read at the end of this scripture passage that he felt like "an alien in a foreign land", his feelings exposed through the name he gave his son.

With this, we get a sense that Moses really yearned to return to Egypt for although he was staying in Midian, he was not a Midianite at heart. And although he had come from Egypt and the Midianite hosts believed he was an Egyptian, we know he wasn’t an Egyptian at heart either. Rather, Moses was a full blooded Hebrew with a heart that loved his fellow brothers and sisters, the ones who were still in Egypt suffering from oppression and hardship. With this, it had to be extremely hard for Moses to feel good about his relatively good and safe conditions when he knew of the difficulty his fellow Israelites were experiencing in the place he had fled.

All this brought thoughts to my mind when maybe we have felt like aliens in a foreign land.

For example, I have changed jobs, and even work locations within the same organization, many times in my life. Every one of them was unsettling going into because the jobs were different with unique expectations and requirements. The people I worked with were different and every new start in employment meant I had to integrate and fit in with another group of people, which anyone who has done it knows takes time.

We could draw parallels to this anytime we experienced change in relationships or living arrangements or finances, anywhere that became new and/or uncharted territory or anything that may remove us from our comfort zone and into a place that is full of unknown. These transitions can leave us feeling off balance, maybe even alone and isolated with an uncertainty of what the future may hold.

Maybe you can relate to some of these feelings that Moses must have felt. I know I can.

Well, the good news is that we, like Moses, will soon realize that we serve a God who has a way of putting us where He wants us to be and sometimes this requires us to go to places where we might be an alien in a foreign land. After all, when we made the choice to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the scriptures let us know that we became a new creation for what was in the past was gone and everything after our rebirth became new and blessed (2 Corinthians 5:17). Through this conversion, we were no longer expected to be of the world, although we lived in the world.

In other words, through Jesus, we became aliens in a foreign land, disciples who now lived under a new set of holy and righteous standards for in Christ, we stand for principles and values that place us in conflict with the world and its sinfulness.

We also are disciples who will one day have a permanent change of address as we move on to a new eternal home in Heaven, a land of future eternal hope where we will live forever. Until then, all Christian believers are to be on a quest through the Great Commission to help alienate others from the world and its sinfulness, drawing them into a righteous new relationship with the Savior who delivers them from death to life, from a dark world into a new eternal place filled with light and hope and love.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.