What Is That In Your Hand?
Exodus 4:1-5; John 10:11, 17-18
This is our third in a series of sermons on Questions God Asks Us. The question God asked Moses is also asked of you and me. “What is that in your hand?”
Indeed, what is in your hand is the bridge between the world as it is and the world God is creating.
Moses and His Staff
For Moses, the world as it was could be summed up in one word: slavery.
The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. They were a people in bondage to a foreign nation. Moses was exiled in Midian, yet he never forgot his people living in bondage far away.
In the context of the world as it was for Moses, he heard the call of God to go to Egypt to free the Israelites from slavery. Moses hesitated and questioned God’s call, wondering if he had what it would take to fulfill such a task. Who me? Why me? How am I to do this? Moses was afraid but God didn’t give up on Moses. God asks Moses, “What is that in your hand?” Moses looked at his hand to the shepherd’s staff. God told Moses to throw it on the ground and when he did it turned into a snake. God then told Moses to seize it by the tail and when Moses picked up the snake by the tail it turned into a staff once again. Moses is then told that the staff will be used to perform signs before the Pharaoh and lead the people out of Egypt and into the land of their ancestors.
The staff in Moses’ hand was the bridge between the world as it was (his people in slavery) and the world God was creating (freedom).
WHAT IS THAT IN YOUR HAND?
Scouting
Scouting is an important part of a boy and girl’s life. Scouting not only teaches vital lessons of life. These lessons taught and learned places in the hands of young boys and girls, men and women the qualities and experiences that can be the bridge between the world as it is and the world God is bringing to pass.
When the values and principles of scouting such as being trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave clean and reverent become a part of a boy or girl’s life they have the tools to create a different world that what they find. These principles become the thing in their hands, the bridge between the world as it is and the world as God is creating it.
What is that in your hand?
Covenant Cookies
Lauretta Pierce lived for a time in New Jersey, moved to Atlanta and now lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Not too many years ago she did not have anything to offer anyone, not even herself. The right side of her face was swollen, disfigured, paralyzed with over one-hundred stitches due to an abusive relationship. Her daughter was desperately ill. She went through a divorce, became homeless and hopeless.
Lauretta Pierce found hope through the words of scripture, words that told her she was of value and she had a future. Words that helped her realize God loved her. She began to believe God had a plan for her life. She prayed that God would use her to touch lives with the same hope she had found in the scriptures.
In her hands was the ability to cook. She began baking cookies similar to fortune cookies and placing in them scripture texts. She gave these cookies, called Covenant Cookies, away for almost two years. People began telling her how much a particular verse of scripture in a Covenant Cookie had met a particular need in their life. Word began to spread and today Covenant Cookies are translated into 5 languages and also Braille.
Laurette Pirece has written a book about her experience of how Covenant Cookies came about. She titled the book If God Could Use a Cookie. Laurette Pierce took what was in her hands, the ability to bake cookies and used it as a bridge between the world as it was for others to a world of faith, hope and new life sustained by the grace of God.
What is that in your hand?
Jesus the Good Shepherd
In John’s Gospel, Jesus takes upon himself the image of the good shepherd. The shepherd image came from the Hebrew Bible. God in the Old Testament was a shepherd to Israel. The Psalmist spoke of God as his shepherd.
The Good Shepherd loves his sheep. He cares for his sheep, provides for his sheep, protects his sheep, and even lays down his life for his sheep. Jesus, the Good Shepherd took what was in his hands, his life, and laid it down for the sake of the world – so that the world as it is can become the world God desires it to be, and so that you and I can move beyond whom we are to the people God created us to be.
What is that in your hand?
What is that in your hand? What do you have the power, the knowledge, the skills, the wisdom the desire and passion to do? God invites you and me to take what is in our hands and use it to make the world a better place, a safer, secure, loving, caring world for others.
For what is in your hands is the bridge between the world as it is and the world God is bringing to pass.
