Exodus – Daniel Hochhalter

There are two occasions in the Bible when God miraculously parted the waters:[1] the more famous Exodus account (Exodus 14:21ff), and the lesser known Joshua account (Joshua 3:7ff).

The Exodus account gets all the acclaim, primarily because it was none other than Charlton Heston standing at the banks of the Red Sea majestically holding his staff over the water. Thus far, the best we have come up with to portray Joshua is a cucumber from Veggietales.

Still, both miracles fall into the category of “something that doesn’t happen every day.” Both go against the laws of physics, Both defy explanation. And both result in making a way for God’s people, sending them from the old into the new.

The Exodus account is dramatic, precariously sticking Moses and the Hebrews between the raging Red Sea and an approaching enemy superpower (Egypt) bent on revenge. So God places a fiery pillar between the two groups, holding the Egyptians at bay. Pretty amazing, but God is not yet finished. God then instructs Moses to lift his staff toward the sea, and amazingly the chaotic ocean separates into a path for the Hebrews to safely pass through.

In the Joshua account, while waiting at the banks of the flooded Jordan River, Joshua reminds the people that God is about to do great things on their behalf in the Promised Land. However, unlike Moses, Joshua does not raise his staff over the water. Instead, the priests are instructed carry the ark of the covenant directly into the river.

Imagine being one of the priests who hears that bit of information: Wait—you want us to do what?

But the command is clear. The priests’ feet are to get wet. They are to traverse the slippery rocks beneath a swift and swirling river. Only then, after getting their feet wet, do the waters part to make a way into the Promised Land.

I prefer the Exodus method whenever God wants to move me. It’s less ambiguous and more straightforward, an uber hardcore miracle—something we can definitely talk about during praise time on Sunday morning. Epic movies with big budgets would be made to tell our story. Even pompous scientists and militant atheists with no sense of awe or enchantment would attempt to insert themselves into the narrative by writing lengthy tomes hoping to invalidate it.

In contrast, no one writes about the Joshua account. Many Christians give it little more than a cursory glance. You won’t find a lot people sharing about how God tossed them into the water before anything happened. It’s not dramatic. It’s not cool.

Besides, Joshua’s account involves a river—a much smaller body of water than the Red Sea.

Yet in many ways, the Joshua method is scarier. The path forward doesn’t appear until you make the first move. In other words, with absolutely no guarantees, you must run the risk of getting swept away by the current before there is any sign that God is about to do something.

All you have to cling to is your faith that God is somehow present—and, you hope, a still, small voice telling you to go. The action could kill you instead of providing a way forward.

Why didn’t God simply part the waters and make a way for Joshua, as he did for Moses?

It’s a question we all ask at one time or another.

I think the answer is found in another tiny but important distinction: In Exodus the Hebrews were running from something—a vengeful army, a life of slavery, possibly even annihilation itself; in Joshua they were going to something—the land promised by God to the generations before them.

Recently I’ve felt forced to go through the Joshua method, asking myself whether I am running from something or to something. I am writing this from a hotel lobby, my temporary home until our prospective house closes. My wife and I are in a transition from Portland, Oregon to Helena, Montana—a transition that’s been bumpy, rough, and uncertain. In the past months, we have deliberated about this move. For over twenty years I have lived in Portland while eagerly hoping to return home to Montana. In Portland I felt on the outside of the culture, never fitting in and complaining ad nauseum, ad infinitum about my life in the city and about the city itself.

When I got a job offer in Montana, I had to ask myself: was this my chance to finally flee city life and return to a less stressful smaller town? Brush the dust from my shoes and leave Portland in my wake? Sayonara, Portland! I’m outta here.

A Moses-style “parting of the waters” would have been the perfect way to do that. All I needed God to do was to part the waters and let me pass.

But what if this move is not about fleeing from something as Moses did, but going toward something as Joshua did? What if this move is for my growth?

I suspect that a “parting of the waters” enabling me to flee Portland would not have been spiritually healthy for me, but would have allowed me to run away from the city with a hard heart and a suitcase full of bitterness.

Instead, I am beginning to believe that God wants me to see this transition as going toward something, a new chapter in the journey. I am going because God wants me to.

The Joshua-style river parting forced me to put my feet in the water before it parted, forced me to remember and appreciate this chapter closing in my life. I thought about the friends I have made in Portland, the people I grew to love there. I celebrated and memorialized the good moments (getting married, buying a house, publishing a book, and being a part of a wonderful church community) as well as my deepest heartaches (the loss of my teaching job and the doctoral degree, the deaths of my father- and mother-in-law, and years of spiritual darkness).

Portland has been a significant part of my story, and if I had left it by fleeing through a parted sea, I never would have grasped the good.

I believe God wants me to remember those years—the good, bad, and ugly—as years that he was working in my life. And to rejoice in what he has done there.

God forced me, like Joshua, to step into the water first, before it would part.

So, with feet clumsily planted on the slippery rocks, I move to a new chapter of my life—in Helena, Montana.

My feet are wet.

The rest of the adventure is up to God.

[1] Technically, there are three “partings of the water” if we count the third day of Creation when God separated the waters to make “land” (Genesis 1:9)—but I omitted this account since no one was around to see it except God.

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Note: I love zombie apocalypse stories because they are a great metaphor for life crises. This blog series on the topic has four parts: 1) waking up in the crisis; 2) defining “alive”; 3) abandoning self-sufficiency; and 4) spiritual weapons and sustenance. All scriptures are NIV unless otherwise noted.

The Walking Dead, a zombie show based on a serialized graphic novel, is one of the most-watched shows on TV, while other zombie books and movies continue to sell like hotcakes.

Why is the zombie genre so popular?

I think one reason is the compelling question at the heart of it: In a zombie apocalypse, what would I do? Or more specifically, excluding the suicide option, what would I do to survive?

This question faces all fictional people in zombie stories, and stirs such passionate interest in actual people that a real-life industry has grown up around it. Amazon.com sells a survival manual, and other websites offer real-life training camps on the topic. In 2011, even the History Channel aired a special (Zombies: A Living History) about outlasting a zombie takeover. The History Channel!

The question of survival can be broken down into more specific questions, such as: Where would I go? With whom would I associate? What about weapons for self-defense? And what about sustenance (food and water)?

Each of these questions has spiritual applications. Let’s tackle them one at a time.

First, where would I go?

Would I go to a city or to the country, and would I settle into a secure, well-equipped home base or stay on the move?

A city contains more scavengeable resources for greater self-sufficiency (or the illusion of it), but it also has more zombies. To get around the zombies to the resources, I’d need massive courage and ninja-like stealth – attributes rarely possessed by a guy of my size and agility. Also, in the city, there’s more danger of getting trapped in tight spaces (narrow streets, tall buildings) with no escape, whereas in the country there are fewer zombies and more escape routes. As for establishing a well-equipped home base, doing so could attract other survivors who’d kill for it; better to stay mobile.

Zombie wisdom says: Don’t follow the crowd to the cities, and don’t settle in one place. It’s safer to keep moving through open country and live off the land, even though resources might be scarce. At least, according to my sources.

In the Old Testament, the dichotomy was the same. As people built cities, they began to “follow the crowd” and develop wealth, resources, and delusions of self-sufficiency, all of which laid the foundation for many evils. Think of the people of Babel building a tower, seeking to become almost godlike: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4). Or think of the Hebrews establishing cities in the Promised Land, then rejecting God as their leader and demanding a human king like “all the other nations” (1 Samuel 8:5).

In actuality, a city in itself is not evil. But symbolically, it is a monument to human strength. Living in a “city” (metaphorically), we can forget our dependence on God and find ourselves trapped in dangerous places, like in the delusion that we are self-sufficient.

Perhaps this is why, before the Hebrews became a nation, God led them away from the cities and toward complete dependence on him in the wilderness, where they had to trust him to provide manna every day (Exodus 16).

Personally, in the real world, I prefer books and computers to rugged outdoor life. But metaphorically, I believe that living in daily dependence on God’s provision – to me, represented in zombie literature by living off the land in remote places – is the way to go.

Second, with whom would I associate?

Would I remain a lone individualist, join a small group, or become part of a large group?

On one hand, a loner requires fewer supplies and can escape more quickly and easily—again, creating an illusion of self-sufficiency—but she has no one to watch her back or cover her blind spots. On the other hand, a large group poses logistical problems and offers little sense of true closeness. The third choice, a smallish, close-knit group, offers real interconnectedness and the best chance of survival.

Zombie wisdom says: Go with a small group. Small groups are stronger and safer than large groups or loners.

Jesus supported this model by forming a small group of disciples who knew each other intimately. He prayed that they, and we, would experience true unity (John 17), which is essential for spiritual strength.

I’m an introvert and I’m also from Montana, where personal freedom is a core value, so I tend to favor being “on my own.” When my world imploded in 2008, I just wanted to withdraw and be by myself. Thankfully, though, my church stressed the scripturally-based point that everyone, even an introvert like me, should join a home community for close relationships. So I found the nearest one and started attending. And this ragtag band of Christians surrounded me and lifted me up. They bound my spiritual wounds and defended me from further attacks of the enemy. They cared for me through prayer, encouragement, and many other forms of support. Had I stayed alone, I might still be living, but I probably would be more dead than alive. In the zombie apocalypse and in real life, living in a small, caring community is best.

So depending on human self-sufficiency, whether in a “city” or on one’s own, is not the best way to survive the zombie apocalypse. Instead, it’s better to depend on the strength of God and a few believers who know you very well.

In my next blog, I’ll wrap up the last two questions: What about weapons for self-defense? And what about sustenance (food and water)?

Category: Exodus

A tale of two miracles

New life in the zombie apocalypse, part 3: Abandoning self-sufficiency