Red: Jochabed’s View

Moses was born last night smeared red. Not just with the humanity of blood and water, but with the redemptive Red of God. I am his mother, Jochabed. I saw it.  

I “…saw that he was a beautiful child …” (Exodus 2:2b NKJV) Do you know how beautiful the Red of God is?

Pharoah, the king of Egypt, gave an order to the Hebrew midwives: “If the baby is a boy, kill him ...” (Exodus 1:16b)

But the midwives feared God and are not obeying the king. Their actions are salvation. They are smearing a generation with the Red of God.  

Then Pharaoh ordered: “Throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile River ...” (Exodus 1:22). The children will drown.

But I made an ark for my son. And in the Nile he did not drown. Like Noah and his family, my son sailed through to life.

My actions smeared him with Red.

Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses in the Nile and gave him back to me so I can nurse him until he is weaned. She redeemed him! She smeared him Red.

One day, this beautiful child will stand under a door frame in Goshen and all Israel will do as he does. He will smear the door frame in lamb’s red blood. Israel’s homes will become arks of salvation, safe under the smear of Red.  

And Egypt will wail with a grief never heard in this land before.

One day, Moses, my beautiful child, will stand on the shores of the Red Sea with the freed nation of Israel. God will command them to face the sea because he desires to smear them all in Red. The genocidal army of Egypt will bear down on them in chariots, boxing them in. Cries of panic will burst from the lips of Abraham’s children because they don’t understand. 

What appears to be a boxed-in-death is the day of salvation. It is a movement from death to life, from darkness to light.

A movement from the cross to the resurrection.

On that day, my beautiful child will watch how far and how wide the Red of God bleeds. A sea cannot stop it. Chariots cannot crush it. Panic cannot silence it.

“Don’t be afraid,” Moses will say. “Stand firm and see the LORD’S salvation he will provide for you today … The LORD will fight for you: you must be quiet.”  (Exodus 14:13b, 14 HCSB)

God will tell Moses: “lift up your staff, stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.” (Exodus 14: 16 HCSB)

The sea will divide because God will smear it Red. Like the curtain in the temple when Jesus breaths his last breath on the cross, the curtain will divide, top to bottom. A way will be made.

Used by permission

And in the long, dark night, Israel will traverse through the sea as Jesus will traverse through death in the long, three days in the tomb. But at daybreak, the waters of the sea will crash violently and victoriously down upon the army of Egypt. And at daybreak, resurrection power will raise Christ from the dead, crashing God’s new life upon death victoriously.

Then, my beautiful child will speak to Israel words they must remember.

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.” (Deuteronomy 18:15 HCSB)

Jesus is the Prophet and he will be born smeared Red. Not only with the humanity of blood and water, but with the redemptive Red of God.  

For when John the Baptist sees Jesus, he will know he is beautiful. And he will say: “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 HCSB)