I will sing!

Every Easter, my childhood parish choir sang this song: "I will sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider fell into the sea." And I would cringe. After all, what kind of a human being celebrates the drowning of many horses and their riders??!

As I grew older, I just refused to sing that line, even as part of the choir. I wanted no part in rejoicing over anyone's death. I was a pacifist to the core before I knew what the word pacifist meant. 

Obviously, I had never read the Bible and I had no idea that these were the very opening words of an actual song sung by a historical person- Miriam- after she was delivered along with her entire community from 400 years of slavery. 

Miriam was born into slavery. That is all she knew. Until she stood in the waters of the river Nile as a young child and watched an incredible miracle. The daughter of the man who had ordered all Hebrew baby boys to be murdered, heard her baby brother's cry and chose to single him out for adoption into the oppressor's household. Miriam stood and watched as her baby brother was picked up by their oppressor's daughter, not to kill him but to give him a license to live. Not only that, pharaoh's daughter gave Miriam's baby brother Moses the best nourishment ever: his own birthmother's breast milk in his birth family's home for years. 

As a little child Miriam had seen the impossible happen right before her eyes. And yet, for some reason unknown to Miriam, God continued to allow her community to suffer slavery. 

Decades later as an old woman, Miriam watched the impossible happen again: God parted the sea to allow her community to escape their slave owners pursuit and closed the sea back over them as the Egyptian horses and riders entered it, forever drowning the horses and riders. 

And Miriam rejoiced!! Not in their death but in her deliverance!!

But still, what kind of a God drowns horses and humans in a sea? Couldn't He execute His justice in a less macabre way? 

The God who drowned them in the sea is a God of infinite mercy. He gave them 10 chances to repent before he took their lives. Again and again, 10 times the Lord revealed His nature as the One True Living God as he destroyed the credibility of the false gods they worshipped by issuing plagues related to those idols. Each time their idols failed to save them, they knew that what they worshipping was false and there was a True God. Yet, they remained stubbornly rejecting the Truth for the delusions they had carried for so long. 

If someone was brutally attacking your children, how many chances would you give him to step back before you shot him? If he was attacking my children, I wouldn't even give him one chance. 

The pacifist in me dies to resurrect justice. 

But God Himself created those horses and riders, God Himself gave them everything He then took away from them, including their very lives. He had a right to take away their lives that you and I will never have. Yet, He gave them 10 chances to turn away from their bad choices and turn towards Him: their salvation. 

And then, in His infinite mercy God executed justice. Not vengeance, not even vindication, just justice. 

So Miriam took out her tambourine and sang of God's victory over her life. 

Sadly, Miriam too died in the wilderness because of her choice to defy God after watching Him perform miracle after miracle. 

After all, it's not the observance of miracles but the miracle of obedience to the Truth that releases life. 

We have all been gifted a brand new day of life. Don't wait to see miracles. Rush to obey the One True Living God. 

And while you're at it, don't forget to sing!