To begin, let me just note that some of what follows is quoted.2
"In 1817 a group of 1,400 families, consisting of about 9,000 souls, set out under the leadership of [one] Johann Koch, a miller of [the town of] Schluchter in Wuerttemberg"3 (i.e., in Southwest Germany) to emigrate to the Caucasus region of Central Russia. From studies in the Book of Daniel and the Revelation, they were convinced that somewhere there in the east, " ‘near the original cradle of the human race’ ... the Savior would [return and] commence his personal reign."4
It was the era of the Napoleonic wars in Germany - a time economically and personally stressful if not disastrous; and thus many were open to the idea of emigration.5
Thus, "they looked eastward for a place of refuge, where the elect could escape from the plagues that would afflict mankind."6
Having disposed of their immovable property in their native land, they placed their families and goods on rafts and sailed down the Danube past ... Vienna, Presburg, and Belgrade, singing Millenial hymns, until they reached the Black Sea ... Because of epidemics and various adverse conditions unforeseen, only a few ever reached their destination - less than 100 souls.7
(No, they did not all die along the way, many just dropped out; and, as well, others came later.)
However, those who did make it found Central Russia
a forbidding region of mountains and dry barren valleys ... [These] new villages undoubtedly experienced the most trying ordeals of all the German settlements in Russia. The climate here was hot and dry, and the soil could be made productive only by irrigation. Epidemics of fever were frequent in the early years and killed off hundreds of settlers. The neighboring Persians and Kurds often attacked the new villages, plundering, destroying and carrying off people into slavery. For many years only the fittest could survive, and the growth of the colonies remained at a standstill. The harsh conditions, however, in time sobered up the erstwhile religious fanatics and turned them into exemplary Christians who prayed and toiled to eke out an existence from the barren soil. Their industry and ingenuity eventually triumphed over the wilderness and [they] built oases of prosperity in this forbidding frontier land.8
Dear friends,
I have read the above - not especially to entertain you, nor just to show what amazing things some of our stubborn German forefathers were capable of - rather, I have read it so that we can (now) take more seriously what is involved - when someone thinks that God has chosen him to lead his people out to this or that place in the desert.
I mean, we know now what happened as Moses obeyed the command of God to lead his people out of the trying and adverse circumstances of slavery in Egypt, into the desert and there - at the holy mountain - to worship him.
But, at that time, they didn't know how it was all going to turn out.
So, when you think about it, it is not at all strange to see this doubt - yes, turmoil - that Moses must go through if he is to agree to lead his people:
‘Who am I that Ishould go to Pharaoh, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?’ (v. 11)
And, further, it is not really so strange to see the doubt and reluctance of the people back in Egypt as Moses returns and offers to lead themfrom slavery and to the promised land.
But first, to the holy mountain, in the desert, where they were to meet God.
I think, today, that this text - "the appearance of God in the burning bush" - that this text is familiar enough.
We are all familiar with the simple fact of this miracle. We all remember, more or less, how the people of Israel had been made slaves in Egypt, how they apparently had had to work to make those great pyramids that the world still admires. And we are also likely to remember the story of Moses and how he got out there in the desert to the place of that burning bush.
For it seems that the Egyptians had been engaging in a bit of population control: The Hebrews were becoming too many, so the Egyptians decided to limit them by killing their children.
They were more straightforward in their population control than some people are today - instead of covering up their population control with terms like "fetus," "right to have control over one’s body," "psychological and social danger factors," etc., they just took the little fellows and drowned them.
And then we remember how Moses was saved from this fate by the Egyptian princess who found him, and how he grew up - apparently with his own mother as his nurse - but with all the privileges of the Egyptian palace.
And so there you have it: Moses - by birth and tradition a member of a religious-cultural minority group - "primitive" and of nomadic tradition - but by adoption and education - Moses - a member of the majority culture - well-organized, technologically competent, but also - Godless. (I mean, yes, they did have their god; but it was not God himself, but rather their own projection.)
So Moses is there in Egypt, a part of two cultures. And it may have seemed as if the Egyptian culture had gotten the upper hand in him - for he was considered a part of the royal family, and that would mean a position in the Egyptian government.
Yet, underneath, this tension ... the conflict - which came to thefore that day when he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave; and then Moses killed the Egyptian and had to flee - away - out into the desert, out into that area where the nomads roamed:
- yes, some still practicing the religion of their fathers
- yes, back to the place of the God of their fathers...
"[And] God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ ... And he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ " (vv. 4, 6)
The story is a familiar one to us:
- We remember as children the bush that did not burn.
- We remember the call to Moses, how he didn’t want to go. But how finally he did. (I can recall quite clearly this text being used for a sermon on the occasion of missionaries being sent to another country.)
- We remember this text for what it says about God - that here God reveals to his people his sacred name.
- And we remember - I recall specifically - how this text has been used to show clearly how God in the Old Testament is not just a God of law and wrath but also a God of mercy:
I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt,
and I have heard their cry ...
I know their sufferings,
and I have come down to deliver them ...
(vv. 7, 8a)
Yes, the text is familiar to us from many points of view.
But, today, I want to concentrate on yet another aspect - one which may be a bit neglected, but which, I think, is the point where many of us relate to this text more closely -
I mean, today, I want to try to look at this text, i.e., the event, from the point of view of the Hebrews, the Hebrew slaves, in Egypt:
Because, I really don’t think that too many of us are in the position of Moses - struggling to decide on whether or not to take on a position of leadership.
There are only a few of us who struggle with the call to become missionaries.
Rather, it seems that many more of us are in the position of those Hebrew slaves in Egypt - confronted now with the question: Whom will you serve?
I remember, when I was a boy, growing up in the United States, that there was one part of this story I could hardly understand; and that was:
- why these slaves were so reluctant to go!
- why they resisted the leadership of Moses!
And then, once they had gotten out into the desert - how it was that some kept wanting to go back! As the saying goes "to the fleshpots of Egypt." I mean, as a good "freedom-loving" American, I just couldn’t understand why anyone would not do just about anything to escape from slavery!
I think now, after having been in and out of a few minority situations, after learning a few things about what Christians can or cannot do in supposedly "free" societies, after seeing the tremendous propaganda effect, the pull of advertising, the power of the State, and the pressure of society, I think now it has become somewhat more clear.
Yes, and when you consider the "freedom" that those German colonists had to emigrate to Russia to wait for the Second Coming, and what then happened to that freedom, then you begin to look at things in a somewhat different light.
For it seems now that freedom, although important - and certainly no one wants to be simply a slave to another - although freedom is important - it seems that equally important, in this story and also for us, is: "But whom will you serve?"
For certainly, after the people of Israel had come out, they could not just do what they wanted. Just as, for us, children cannot, generally, do what they want, but are bound to do what the parents want. And parents cannot always do what they want, but must often comply with what the government wants or what "the boss" wants.
And so, yes, freedom is indeed important, but equally as important is the question: "But whom will you serve?"
And, it seems to me that many, many of these Israelites, though, not "quite content," were still, more willing to serve the Egyptians, and by implication their false gods, than to take the risk necessary to serve God himself.
Slavery is serving the wrong god.
And freedom is serving the true God, a God of justice.
For what is freedom, anyway? It is being free or able to do what you should do. And inner freedom is really wanting to do what you really should do.
That is freedom: political and economic freedom - being free and able to do what you should do; and Christian freedom, or inner freedom - really wanting to do what you should do.
I think that a lot of those Israelites did not especially like being slaves in Egypt - no doubt about it. But I think that a lot of them liked even less the prospect of worshiping God and the risk that that entailed. And so they remained slaves - until God - out of pure grace, for none of them deserved it - until God - with great signs and wonders brought them out. And still some of them wanted to go back: away from the freedom of God, and back to a godless society, back to the security of slavery.
Dear friends,
Where is that security of slavery in our lives?
I mean, yes, we do talk a lot about having political freedom, but do we in fact serve and worship God as we ought? Or, are we secure, nicely conformed to the ways of "our society," but also enslaved to it? You know, sometimes, especially in these matters, a person can be enslaved and hardly even know it. Sometimes the slavery is just so comfortable compared to risking "trouble."
So I would ask you today to test yourself by asking yourself a few simple questions: First, since one of the obvious features of "our society" is its lack of Christian character (I mean, when the noted historian, John Webster Grant, writes about the breakdown of Christendom in Canadian society, I don’t know of anyone who can dispute him. I think we all agree that religion just doesn't play the role in people’s lives, in general, that it did 100 years ago.), then you and I need to ask ourselves the question: How is my life, how are my goals in life, substantially different from those around me?
I’m afraid that for some of the Israelite slaves (although they were obviously a lower social class), their goals in life were not too much different from those of the Egyptians: to eat, sleep, and get that pyramid built - These were slaves indeed!
So now we must ask ourselves: Is our goal mostly to eat and sleep and go to Disneyworld and help build the next skyscraper office building? Or, do we maybe do some of this, but long and strive after something much different? Do we also strive after the service and help for other people and not just ourselves, strive after the praise and worship of God and not just ourselves?
Let me leave that thought with you for this afternoon, to carry around with you for this week; and then, let me also add the following:
How, specifically, can my life be oriented (or reoriented) to concern itself mostly with the needs of others and the praise and worship of God? Think about that this week. Carry that thought with you when you go to work in the grocery store, or the hospital, or when you make a few rounds with the haybine this week.
How, specifically, can my life be oriented or directed to concern itself mostly with the needs of others and the praise and worship of God ...
God ... has already done everything necessary to save us and make us willing servants of him. And he continues to speak to us in our daily devotions and in Bible reading to give us ideas on how to better serve him. Yes, he continues to speak to us. Let us listen to him and claim our freedom, no matter what the risk!
May God bless you and free you from any and all slavery! Amen
1. This sermon, with only slight modification, was delivered on June 26th, 1988 at Emmaus Lutheran Church, Drayton Valley, Alberta.
2. The following quotations combine (a) a detailed account of one particular emigrating party by George Eisenach (Pietism and the Russian German in the United States, Berne, Indiana: The Berne Publishers, 1948, pp. 50-55) together with (b) a description of that emigration movement in general by Adam Giesinger (From Catherine to Krushchev: The story of Russia’s Germans, Battleford, Saskatchewan: Marian Press, 1974, pp. 39-42); for, in fact, there were several parties which set out at that time to emigrate from South Germany to Russia.
The use of lengthy quotations and the device of reading the whole story (and adding comments) is there mostly for the sake of homiletic style. The emigration itself is well-known in the literature concerning Germans in Russia (Both Eisenach and Giesinger cite a variety of secondary sources); but to the average congregation in North America, even those with descendents of Russo-Germans (as is the case in Drayton Valley), the events described would appear most unusual, perhaps even bizarre.
3. Eisenach, pp. 53-4.
4. Ibid., p. 52.
5. The actual emigration, of course, took place just after the Napoleonic wars, but reflects ideology generated during that period. Notable in this regard are the writings of Jung-Stilling and the influence of Madame de Kruedener, "the Lady of the Holy Alliance," who was a close friend of Tsar Alexander. (See Eisenach, pp. 5 1-2.)
6. Giesinger, p. 39.
7. Eisenach, p. 54.
8. Giesinger, pp. 41-42.