Moses was chosen for the major human role of liberator and lawgiver in God’s great drama of deliverance of his Hebrew people out of bondage in Egypt. His story as recounted in the Old Testament book of Exodus still reads with all the excitement of one of today’s action movies. In fact, the saga of Moses and the Hebrew people as they escaped bondage in Egypt bound for the Promised Land has been a movie and television favorite for decades. I was only 13 years old when Cecil B. DeMille’s production of “The Ten Commandments” appeared in theaters for the first time. Charlton Heston never escaped his identification with Moses in that iconic film — and didn’t want to, such was the film’s popularity, and his own.
KirklandI was 32 years old and was on the editorial staff of The Baptist Courier when Burt Lancaster portrayed Moses in a CBS miniseries appropriately titled “Moses — The Lawgiver,” and about 20 years later I watched with just as much enthusiasm as the gifted actor Ben Kingsley gave a splendid interpretation of that pivotal Old Testament character in TNT’s “Moses.”
I still was not done with that tragic figure, who, due to disobedience to God, was allowed to glimpse, but not enter, the land of promise. Fourteen years ago, I joined a group of editors and other religion writers at DreamWorks studio in Pasadena, Calif., for a preview showing of the studio’s initial offering to a waiting public — an animated musical adaptation of the life of Moses entitled “The Prince of Egypt” that came out late in 1998.
The story of Moses, the Exodus and the Ten Commandments is great drama no matter the medium, but the Bible still is best at telling the inspiring and instructive story of the life of Moses. That story, as told in the pages of Scripture, is also “very realistic” and for sure it is not “prettified.”
For the first 40 years of his life, Moses — who at birth was spared a death that was common to other Hebrew infant boys routinely killed in an attempt by the Egyptians to avoid a potential threat from a growing Jewish population — was raised in splendor in Pharaoh’s palace. There, he received the finest academic training available in that day, preparing this prince of Egypt to reach the pinnacles of success.
No doubt, his education in the palace was supplemented by a growing awareness of his own Jewish identity and of God’s desire to rescue the Hebrew people from Egyptian slavery and guide them to a land promised to Abraham and his descendants. One day, Moses killed an Egyptian who was abusing a Hebrew slave, thinking, perhaps, that this violent act resulting from righteous indignation might trigger a revolt by the Jews against the Egyptians. If so, his timing was off, and fellow Jews railed against him rather than rally behind him.
Facing the punishment of death for his action, a frightened Moses fled to the desert and the land of Midian, probably in what now is Saudi Arabia. And so Moses, who had studied under the best teachers Egypt had to offer, had now entered “God’s university” for a 40-year course of study that would turn this impetuous young man — now tending sheep for his father-in-law while raising a family — into a seasoned man of God, prepared for leadership.
As a student in this “school of self-discovery,” Moses was taught by an effective “faculty.” Professor Obscurity taught Moses, a former “somebody,” to cope with being a “nobody” in the eyes of others. Professor Time taught him to wait on the Lord. Professor Solitude taught Moses the value of silence and reflection to deepen his understanding of God and of himself. Professor Discomfort prepared him physically and spiritually for the trials that he and the Hebrew people would face in the Exodus itself and during their 40 years in the desert — an area that Moses knew well from his days in exile.
Like Moses, believers at times are required to enter “schools of self-discovery” in a variety of “deserts” — none of them of our own choosing. Far more important than the circumstances of our “down times” and their causes is our response to them. Fear and pride can well up in us, and we defiantly declare,”I don’t need this.” Eventually, fatigue and anxiety may set in, prompting us to complain, “I’m just tired of all this.” However, for the greatest degree of learning to take place, it is necessary, though difficult, for us to say simply, “I accept it.”
Viktor Frankl was a leading Austrian (and Jewish) psychotherapist who was imprisoned by the Nazis during the second World War. Out of his experiences, his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” was born and still is read today. Frankl said this: “Everything can be taken from a man but the last of the human freedoms — the freedom to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
Sometimes, as the popular commercial makes it clear, “life comes at you fast.” And more times than we like to remember, we did not select some of the situations in which we find ourselves. How well we do in life, with its mix of pinnacles and pitfalls, can be measured by how we react to what God has allowed to happen to us. We can, and should, remain teachable, for we have much to learn about ourselves and our God, whose school is always in session.