Onions and Meat Pots - Our Desire for Another Savior - Mike Chipman
The stories of Moses and the Exodus out of Egypt have intrigued children and scholars alike. Bible authors wrote about it throughout the Scriptures as a pivotal event of God’s goodness to his covenant people. Inspired people have created artwork and movies representing the events, which involved plagues, a sea standing on end, and a good God who heard the cries of his people. It stands as a picture of redemption, and the characters that make up the story often stand for virtue (Moses) or evil (Pharaoh). Yet, when I read back through, I can’t help but focus on the people of God, and I see many things in common with his people today. Sadly many times, we, like Israel in the wilderness, desire nothing more than a return to captivity, rather than to trust in the God who delivered us.
When one reads back through the account, you can’t help but wonder why anyone would want to go back into captivity. The people of God were slaves. Their infants were being slaughtered. Pharaoh fancied himself a god and stood in opposition to the one true God of the universe - the God the Hebrew people worshipped. Yet, not long after the people witnessed the Red Sea crash onto the Egyptian army, they started to dream of Egypt again - that land of plenty and promise. Exodus 16 records the conversations. “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger…” Rather than trust the one who turned the Nile to blood to provide for them, they were desperate to eat the pots of meat and drink from the flagon of slavery. It continues - long after the Lord rained bread from heaven, led them with a pillar of fire/smoke, and gave them the perfect law to follow, they still longed for the Not-So-Promised Land of Egypt. Numbers 11:5 records, "We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic." That cost nothing? Infanticide. Slavery. Idol Worship. All a small cost to pay when compared to free onions and meat pots.
The people Isaiah preached to weren’t much different. Ten of the 12 tribes were now considered “Lost Tribes” after the Assyrian sack of the northern kingdom. The Lord saved Judah from Assyria, but He told of a future exile in Babylon. Rather than change their ways, they still acted as blind and deaf captives. Isaiah 42:22 says, “But this is a people plundered and looted; they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons; they have become plunder with none to rescue…” The people of God would once again become captive to pagans - who worshipped other gods and who exchanged the truth about God for a lie. They desired captivity rather than freedom - meat pots and onions rather than the infinite mercy and grace of their covenant Lord.
Later, Jesus would speak of the kind of freedom that he gave to the child of God. He offered that freedom to all who would abide by his Word. Yet the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, gave Jesus a history lesson, responding, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” (John 8:32) Never been enslaved, eh? Seems like I just read that not only were they enslaved, but they also desired to be enslaved again. Not only that, they acted as if they were enslaved in all those years leading up to the exile - with pagan idol worship and pandering to the political leaders of the day.
It would be really easy to point fingers here. Of course, we would never actually do that, but we probably would read Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees and think, “I know some people who need to hear that,” completely disregarding the onions and meat pots we long for from the world.
“We just need to get back to the good old times....” (back when people weren’t totally depraved?)
“People today aren’t taught respect.” (like I obviously was?)
“The {political affiliation} are running this country into the ground. We need {political figure} in office to create a better country for us.” (the idols of today are flesh and blood, but still just as powerless)
What is our message? Those old times were better? Some old guy is going to save us? We’d never preach those things (I hope) but they litter our social media feeds. Are we presenting our readers with a return to captivity or hope for their lives? Jesus said, “I am the light of the world,” so why would we suggest that some alternate form of darkness as coequal with the Savior? When we preach anything in addition to Christ as the hope for this world, we offer our listeners a return to Egypt. Rather than offering them an actual balm for their souls, we offer them onions and a pot of meat. Over the past year of pandemics, elections, and social upheaval, I have watched many Christians (mostly the one in the mirror) turn away from their Savior and turn toward some idol. That idol could be a political figure or ideology. It could be their own anger at the establishment. It could even be the hope for “normal” as if there has been such a thing since Genesis 3. Whatever it is, we have also participated in exchanging the truth about God - as the Redeemer and Light of the World - for a lie. The lie is that God isn’t quite cutting it, and if we could only go back into blind captivity, we might be able to experience the good days again.
The same Jesus who initially set you free is still there waiting for your return. That return is characterized by repentance. Rather than being conformed to this world, he would have us be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Rather than belonging to the world, he would have us be in the world, preaching a message of hope. The message of hope is that he alone is Savior, and he alone can take the broken things of this world and make them whole again. Let us be ones who offer Jesus as the only hope for freedom from the bonds of sin and death.