Change always seems to be a slow process.  That includes changing one’s mind.  Moses, in his epic argument with God at the burning bush, has to be slowly, argument by argument, moved down the path toward resigned agreement.  From “I’m not important enough” to “I don’t know You” to “they won’t believe me” to “I don’t talk good” to finally, “just send someone else, please”, God has to respond to all of these excuses as Moses slowly moves from No Way to Ok.  Good thing God is patient.

But it’s not just Moses we see moving slowly toward the inevitable conclusion.  Pharaoh does the same thing… twice.  First, it is his trust in his court magicians.  When Aaron’s staff becomes a snake, the magicians do the same and Pharaoh laughs at this man of God.  It’s the same when the Nile turns to blood, though Pharaoh’s reaction is more angry this time.  When Aaron brings frogs out of the Nile, however, Pharaoh is beginning to learn.  When his magicians do the same thing, he nonetheless turns to Aaron and Moses for relief.  “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away.”  And sure enough, the next plague of gnats cannot be reproduced, and Pharaoh loses his trust in his magicians.

The other slow change is in Pharaoh’s willingness to let the Hebrews go.  From their first encounter where Pharaoh makes the word even harder on the Hebrews to their last where he finally gives in and chases them out of Egypt, Pharaoh slowly changes his mind.  And even then he is quick to recant this change, but that is a story for a later day.

Seldom do we change our minds quickly, and the larger or more important the issue, the slower the change.  Some have likened this to an ocean liner changing course when we expect a speedboat’s maneuverability.  When someone you know is pondering God’s big questions in life, give them time.  Change always seems to be a slow process, and that includes changing one’s mind.

This passage about Moses almost getting killed on his way to Egypt is one of the more confusing passages in the whole bible.  God has finally convinced Moses to go free His people in Egypt.  After 5 different excuses, God is angry with Moses and so gives him two special signs to perform.  But it isn’t this that causes God’s wrath to fall on Moses.  It isn’t his previous murder of an Egyptian slavemaster, nor his marrying a Midianite.  So what is it that causes God to come against him in anger?

Moses has just been called to be the leader of God’s people.  He will be the voice of God to them and will give them His law.  But Moses hasn’t followed the law they already have in a pretty significant way.  He has neglected to circumcise his youngest son and in so doing, he has ignored God’s strictest law to date.  When God called Abraham to be the father of His people and the bearer of God’s great Covenant, the sign of that Covenant was circumcision.  In fact, any male who was not circumcised was to be “cut off” (yup, God likes puns as much as I do) from His people.

It is interesting that it is Moses’ foreign wife who saves the day, circumcising his son with a flint knife.  This requirement of her husband’s God disgusted her, so her reaction is understandably harsh.  She throws the skin at Moses’ feet and declares him a “bridegroom of blood”.  But even she realized that if Moses is to be the leader of his people and bringer of the law, he’d better be keeping it himself.  This is a good word for all of us in church leadership today, and yet another reason to thank God for His amazing grace when we fail.