Jul 18: Through Water to New Life

Marc Chagall: The Parting of the Red Sea
Private Collection in New York, 1966

Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading I: Ex 14:5-18

“But you [Moses] lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground. Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers(NRSV, Ex 14:16-17).”

Father, as we remember the story and retell it to our children, you brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt through the sea into physical freedom and then eventually through the Jordan into freedom from the sin left behind in the dessert. In the sacrament of baptism you bring us through death into resurrection and new life in you. May we recognize that at every moment in every time and place, Father, you call every human being through the Word into newness of life in your Holy Spirit, life in which we are challenged to grow at every moment forever and ever.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.