There is an old story that has made the rounds in the church many, many times, but it’s worth telling again. An eight year old boy was reporting to his folks at Sunday dinner what he had learned at church school that morning. “Boy, was it exciting!” he exclaimed to his parents. “Moses organized all the Hebrews into a resistance group and through careful planning they broke out of Egyptian slavery. They moved as quickly as possible toward Canaan, driving every kind of vehicle available: jeeps, tanks, half-tracks, sixteen wheelers – everything.

“But Pharaoh’s army refused to quit. They traced the Israelites with color radar, exploded missiles all around the escaped prisoners, shot at them from jet planes in the sky. When Moses and his people reached the Red Sea, all seemed lost. The raging water was before them and the warring Egyptians were behind them. Suddenly though the Corps of Engineers came to the rescue by building a pontoon bridge over which all the fugitives passed to freedom. Then, just as Pharaoh’s forces were about to do the same, the Hebrews blew up the bridge with dynamite, saved all the people, and as a result, they lived happily ever after in the Promised Land. What a great story it was!”

Obviously, the youngster’s mom and dad were more than just a little concerned about their child’s overdone imagination. “Is that really what they told you at church this morning?” they inquired. “Well, not exactly,” their son replied. “But if I told you what they told me, you’d never believe it!”

You’ve heard the story in our scripture lesson this morning, without any imaginative addition on my part. This story has stood on its own for thousands of years. In Jewish history, the Exodus is paramount. Their crossing the Red Sea, delivered from the death clutches of Pharaoh’s Army was one of the pivotal events in Israel’s history. For Christians, that pivotal event is Easter, the resurrection of our Lord. There is a sense in which the Passover is the Jewish Good Friday, and the crossing of the Red Sea is their Easter.

So, on this Easter Sunday, we come in our preaching journey through Exodus to the Red Sea.

I want to add to our scripture lesson today from Exodus one little word from John’s story of the crucifixion and resurrection.

It’s the 41st verse of the 19th Chapter of John’s gospel: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden.” Now, that word to a casual reader would have no significance in fact, if we were simply reading the gospel we would probably pass over it. The word means little within itself — it simply says that near the star barren, horrid, wind-swept hill where they crucified Jesus, there was a garden. In that garden there was a tomb. Now, I know the word is there to introduce us to that beautiful act of that gracious man Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph was the owner of that garden. He was a kind of “closet Christian.” Scripture says he was a disciple “though secretly.” He and Nicodemus you remember Nicodemus? He was a high-ranking member of the Sanhedrin who came to Jesus by night. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were people who stayed in the shadow until the crucifixion. Isn’t that a commentary on the power of Jesus’ death? These two outstanding men, noted men in the community, stayed back in the shadows, on the edge of things Jesus’ public ministry yet they are the ones who emerge and claim Jesus’ body for burial.

But back to our main point. “In the place where he was crucified, there was a garden.” Let’s make that our symbol today, our picture, of what the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus teaches us on this Easter Sunday. Let that picture be the connecting point between Exodus and Easter.

Let’s get that Exodus picture clearly in mind.

Pharaoh, fickle man that he was, was bent on power. The plagues had eventually gotten to him, especially the death angel claiming the firstborn of all the land. He’d had enough of God’s intervention in his life so he had summoned Moses and Aaron in the middle of the night, and commanded them to take the people and leave the land and serve the Lord as he would.

But when they had gone, Pharaoh and his servants changed their mind. “What is this we have done that we have let Israel go from serving us?” It’s hard to give up a place of privilege and position. It was impossible for them to give up having all those servants and slaves around to attend to their every need. So, the Army of Pharaoh made itself ready, with all its leading officers, and with their mighty chariots, and they went in hot pursuit of the Israelites.

God brought his people to the Red Sea, There they were. The sea stretching out before them, the mountains as a barrier on either side; and Pharaoh’s Army was pressing in upon them.

In that setting of impossible desperation, God acted mightily. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord sent a strong East wind and parted the waters in order that his people might walk over on dry land. But, when the Egyptian army followed the, the wheels of their chariots were clogged with mud and the Lord released the waters and in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Pharaoh’s Army got drownded.”

Can’t you see how this is how this is such a significant event in Hebrew history? How it was like an Easter to them? The whole nation had been brought from the tomb of slavery.

And what does it teach us? Four big lessons:

One, none of us escapes the trying circumstances of life.
Two, in times of trial, we are most vulnerable.
Three, God wants to use all of our circumstances for our good and his glory.
Four, in the struggle with good and evil, victory is with the Lord.

Let’s look at these lessons.

I

First, none of us escape the trying circumstance of life.

How vividly that has been brought home to me during the past two months. My dearest friend, Buford Dickinson, was dead of cancer six weeks after the diagnosis was made. It has been one of the most painful times of my life and certainly my pain does not compare to the pain of his wife and children. Buford had always been a picture of health. He worked at being healthy in a more intentional way than anybody else I know.

It happens all the time, though. I see it in people reaching the prime of their career, or just reaching retirement, filled with anticipations of dreams yet to be. Then, malignancy, that quiet and lethal cell appears in the body, and everything stops dead in its tracks.

It happens dramatically, as well as in a low-key manner. A family is torn apart by divorce. A person’s vocation is terminated because of circumstances beyond their control – skills, talents, and wisdom that only experience can create, suddenly seem to have no meaning because there’s no way to apply them.

The jolting reality of joblessness threatens all that the person is.

The epidemic of teenage suicide seems far removed from us. Then someone we know is one of the numbers that makes the statistic. This tells us that the epidemic is rampant in our time.

The pregnancy that had been such a joy in the life of a young couple, all the hopes and dreams that had been so cultivated and which had so enriched their relationship, suddenly are overshadowed by an ominous cloud – the birth of a Down Syndrome child or a child with some birth defect that immediately announces that all of life will be different.

We don’t need to extend the catalogue, do we? Most of us here have lived long enough, and have had enough experience to affirm the truth. None of us are going to escape the trying circumstances of life.

II

Now, a second lesson. In times of trial, we are most vulnerable. Let me put it another way: the trying circumstances of life give Satan his greatest opportunity to divert us from our journey of faith.

Look at what happened during that last week of Jesus’ life. Boisterous on the surface, courageous Peter, who had jerked out his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane, and cut a guard’s .ear off trying to protect the Master, later on, in the courtyard of Pilate’s palace where Jesus was on trial, Peter then denied that he ever knew Jesus. His own life was at stake and denial was his way out.

We need to always remember that the power of sin in us is great. Satan never ceases to seek control our lives.

First Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas is located in the heart of that exploding city. A pastor of that church said that one of the nicest things that happened during her ministry was the construction of the Dallas Museum of Art across the street from the church. In the Museum’s Plaza, there is a huge piece of art by Rodin which is called “The Gates of Hell.” Taking his inspiration from Dante’s Inferno and Michelangelo’s Last Judgment the sculptor sought to depict the pathos of the human condition: our sufferings, struggles, despair, and temptations.

Shortly after the sculpture was set in place, a reporter called the pastor to ask what it felt like to have “The Gates of Hell” across the street from the church. The pastor was very perceptive and quick in his mind as he made his response. He told the reporter that the Gates of Hell have always been across the street from the church. That was not the museum’s doing. Then in sharing that with the congregation one Sunday morning, the pastor said, “No matter which door we exit today, we will see the gates of hell: always tempting us to love less than God demands, to live less than Christ expects, to be less than the church we were called to be and more like the world than we can afford to be.” (“Plundering the Egyptians”, August 26, 1984).

It’s always true isn’t it? In life as it is, the choice is always before us: The wide gates of Hell and the narrow “Door of Heaven”. Do you know who that pastor was? Walker Railey. In our trying circumstances we are most vulnerable and Satan takes advantage of our suffering and despair to divert us from the journey of faith. It happened over and over again with the Israelites as they fled the Egyptians and wondered in the wilderness prior to their arrival in the Promised Land. “Why did you bring us out here to die,” they groaned to Moses. Even though they had been in slavery back in Egypt, they looked with longing eyes back to the security of that land, and they were confused and frustrated in their journey of faith.

How we need to remember – as the Israelites needed to remember – that as God had promised – there would be a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide us. We need to remember it – always – that no matter how trying the circumstance, we must resist the temptation to turn back to false supports, continue to trust in the Lord, knowing that while deliverance may not come today, deliverance is on the way. What God promised He will provide.

III

And that leads to the third lesson. God wants to use all circumstances for our good and His glory.

Now I know that lesson hit your mind as a heavy, painful thud – especially if you are in the midst of suffering, sorrow, loss, or despair…It’s hard to appropriate this truth when trying circumstance and experiences have you enveloped in their clutches, squeezing your life-energy out. Yet hear me. God wants to use all circumstance for our good and His glory.

Now the final truth: In the struggle between good and evil, victory is with God!

Nothing is more obvious than the presence of evil in the universe. We may debate the origin of evil but there’s no question about the stark, grim, colossal reality of evil in the world — whatever its origin. Yet, there is a checkpoint against evil — a time when evil plays itself out, digs its own grave as it were, and God’s righteousness and justice prevails.

There’s a dramatic picture of it in our scripture lesson, succinctly captured in verse 30: “And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore.” God demonstrated his power, parted

the Red Sea, and his covenant people passed through on dry land. As soon as the Egyptians were in the riverbed, seeking to block the Hebrews’ escape and return them to Pharaoh’s bondage, God released the parted waters and the Egyptian Army was drowned. When the Israelites looked back, all they could see was here and there a poor drowned body beaten upon the seashore. This was a great moment for Israel, the end of a frightful period in their history, a joyous daybreak that had come at the end of a long night of oppressive captivity. Now the meaning of the story is not found in the drowning of the Egyptians soldiers. No one should rejoice at the death or defeat of a human being. Rather, the story symbolizes the death of evil. God’s victory in the struggle between good and evil. That’s the eternal truth captured in that little verse in John: “the place where He was crucified, there was a garden.” That’s the connection between Easter and Exodus. Easter gives universal and eternal meaning to the particular experience of Exodus. Here is God’s ultimate act of both love and power, shattering the tomb, pulling the fangs of death, announcing the triumph of eternal life.

I experienced it more powerfully than ever before in the death of my friend Buford. I’ve told most of you about this.

I was with Jean and her two children and her brother in the room with Buford when he died. Of course it was painful, heart-wrenchingly painful. The day before he struggled to verbalize, the meaning of our friendship, and only a little while before he died the last word that he spoke was to Jean, telling her he loved her.

It was painful, so painful - but oh, so meaningful, exactly as it should have been. Jean and the children holding him in love as he died. Buford loved to sing. When our families were together, we almost always gathered around the piano when we sang those old gospel songs he and I grew up on down in Mississippi. I’m sure Jean was remembering that and a lot more. There in Buford’s room, when we knew he had announced his own, “It is finished” — Jean said - “I feel like singing the doxology.”

And we did — holding each other and holding Buford. It was the worst singing we’ve ever done, for our voices were cracking with tears, but it was the most meaningful singing we’ve ever done. And the most significant affirmation of faith in which I’ve ever participated: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow — Praise Him all creatures here below — Praise Him above ye heavenly host — Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

No one can ever convince me that Buford was not singing with us. What was he saying? In the struggle between good and evil, victory is with God.

Exodus and Easter connected. The power of the inadvertent picture John gave us in that little verse of his gospel came alive. “Near the place where He was crucified, there was a garden.”

So take the lessons with you today - the lessons of Exodus and Easter:

One, none of us can escape the trying circumstances of life;
Two, in times of trial, we’re most vulnerable;
Three, God wants to use all our circumstances for our good and His glory; and
Four, in the struggle is with good and evil, victory is with the Lord.