Exodus is the story of us.

That’s how someone recently explained it to me. Many people have heard that Moses is the foreshadowing of Jesus, the greater, perfect Deliverer. I’ve also heard that everything in Scripture points toward Jesus. But as I read through Exodus, I wondered about one event. Did this occasion really point to Jesus? Were there that many parallels in Exodus? Turns out there are.

The event that excited me most involved the bricks and straw.

Exodus 5 relates the story. God’s people, the Hebrews, were enslaved for years, forced to work under Egyptian rule. It appears that the country seemed to fear and/or hate the Hebrews since Pharaoh, the king, ordered their infant boys be slaughtered to control the Hebrew population.

Moses, a Hebrew who grew up as an Egyptian, was MIA in the desert for 40 years. He returned, commanded by God to deliver the Hebrews crying out in bondage. “Let my people go” became a near mantra for Moses in the days to come.

The first time Moses uttered these words, we can safely assume Pharaoh grew angry, because when Moses insisted on his people’s freedom, Pharaoh called the Hebrews lazy and ordered them to work harder. He withheld the straw they needed to meet their brick-making quota. This forced the Hebrews to gather the straw themselves. But with only so many hours in a day, they could not meet the demand for bricks. The Egyptians beat them. Their suffering increased. But God heard.

Here is where the brick hit me on the head. God heard our suffering too.

When we humans groaned under the weight of the Law (James 2:10) and couldn’t meet the impossible standard set for us, when we couldn’t escape our situation, and when no one could help, God heard.

And He sent a Deliverer. A rescuer who would not only free us from the captivity of the Law, but invite us to follow Him into the wilderness, to make a new nation of people who followed Him and walked in relationship with Him, and who will eventually lead us to our final home in the glorious Promised Land.

Romans 8:3-4 (NLT) tells us,

“The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us…”

Exodus is our story. Our spiritual history foretold through Moses and the Hebrews. Completed by Christ, the finisher of our faith.

“For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ” John 1:17 (NLT). 

What Jesus parallels have you seen in Scripture lately?

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