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This Sunday we begin a new sermon series, “Keys for Survival,” in which we will follow the ancient stories of Exodus: God liberates Israelites from slavery, and then guides them through a long desert journey to the Promised Land.

This is a good time for us to mine scriptural wisdom about surviving a desert journey. We now walk through a kind of desert ourselves, hoping for the Promised Land of normalcy, but not knowing when we’ll arrive.

We begin this Sunday Aug. 23rd, with Moses’ birth story, Exodus 1:22-2:10, and the inspiring creativity of his mother who manages to save her baby’s life. Our first key to survival, then, is tenacious creativity. We’ll learn a good deal about this from several biblical women featured in this great story.

Exodus 1:22-2:10
Birth and Youth of Moses

Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.’
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. ‘This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,’ she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?’ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Yes.’ So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.’ So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, ‘because’, she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’