Prolife Kitchen Table

Episode 34 - The Fullness of Time - Baby Chris Week 34

• Presbyterians Protecting Life

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This week our study of the pregnancies of women in the Bible, using Marie Bowen's book, Pregnant With Promise, we move from Genesis into the Book of Exodus, where we meet Jochobed, the mother of the great leader, Moses.  In the story of Jochobed we learn about God's kindness when we fear Him, when we are in danger, when we are weak, and when we care for others.

Scripture references in this episode include:

Genesis 46:8            Exodus 1-3                    Luke 1:5-7

Acts 7:23-35             Proverbs 22:6               Psalm 31:14-15a

Psalm 139:16             Ephesians 5:15-16       Genesis 18:14

Romans 5:6               Galatians 4:4               2 Peter 3:7-10

2 Corinthians 6:2


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Host:

Welcome back to the ProLife Kitchen Table. I'm Deborah Hollifield, your host, and we've been working through Marie Bowen's wonderful book, Pregnant with Promise, about what we can learn about God from the pregnancy stories contained in Scripture in the book of Genesis.

Host:

Today's story moves us into the book of Exodus, which is one of the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch. The word Exodus means "exit" or "departure", and it is believed to have been written about fourteen hundred years before Christ, and is the story of God's chosen people, the Israelites. The author is generally believed to be Moses.

Host:

Exodus is a book about God's character, laws, and how his people are to worship him, and is the story of deliverance of God's people from slavery and the beginning of God's fulfillment of his promises to Abraham, for his descendants, and their establishment of the land of promise.

Host:

In the story of Jacobed, we learn about God's kindness, when we fear him, when we are in danger, when we are weak, and when we care for others. When Rachel's son Joseph is a teenager, his brothers sell him to slave traders who took him to Egypt. But God blesses Joseph in his captivity, and over time he rose to be Pharaoh's most trusted advisor.

Host:

Through Joseph, his entire family was saved from starvation during a famine, and they moved to Egypt at Joseph's request. God continued to bless the Hebrews in Egypt and they multiplied and filled the land. But after Joseph and his brothers all died, a new pharaoh arose to power who did not know Joseph, and he was afraid of the numbers of the Hebrew people. So he oppressed them with slave masters who treated them harshly.

Host:

So that is the background of how the Hebrew people ended up living in Egypt. And now before we meet Jacobed, we need to hear the stories of two other Hebrew women who were the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah. In Exodus 1:15-22, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, enters an edict that as they assist the Hebrew women in childbirth, the midwives are to kill any male babies as they are born. But the midwives act against the king and allow the male babies to live, because they fear God more than they fear Pharaoh.

Host:

This civil disobedience of the midwives takes on a more current flavor when we think about the events of recent years as Christians have been expected to comply with laws that conflict with the morality that God outlines for Christ followers. And as often happens to those who take a faithful stand against the powerful, they are eventually discovered when it comes to Pharaoh's attention that the boys are allowed to live. He confronts the midwives and asks why they have done this, and they give him an explanation that, well, the Hebrew women are just so strong that the babies are born before we can get here. God rewards the two women by giving them families of their own and continues to multiply the Hebrew people. Sometimes when we choose a different path out of obedience to God and stand for God's principles in spite of the possibility of negative consequences, we too find ourselves being rewarded by God for our obedience. Put a mental bookmark here, and maybe during the break, think about the times in your own life when this has been true.

Host:

So when his first plan to prevent the growth of the Hebrew people fails, Pharaoh persists and issues another command that every baby boy born to the Hebrews should be thrown into the Nile, and this is where we first meet Jacobed. If we jump to Exodus 6:20 we find that the parents of Aaron and Moses and Miriam are named Amran and Jacobed. They are slaves, and therefore under the edict of Pharaoh to throw any baby boy into the river Nile. Jacobed becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son. We are not told what she names her son, but we do know that she says he is a fine child and she cannot bear to throw him in the river.

Host:

She decides to preserve his life and hides him for three months. After three months she realizes she can no longer hide the child, but still she is not prepared to obey Pharaoh's command and drown her son. With great care she fashions a basket and coats it with tar so that it will be waterproof, and then she places her child in the basket among the reeds while her sister stands watch. Like Shiphrah and Puah, Jacobed fears God more than she fears Pharaoh. Perhaps she took her inspiration from the stories of Noah's Ark and God's faithfulness to preserve the lives of Noah and his family from the flood judgment.

Host:

I can't imagine how difficult this was for her. We aren't told whether she prayed for her son's life to be preserved, and we don't know if she was fearful or trusting in God. We are only told the results of her actions. Realizing that she cannot safely parent her son, she makes a daring plan and trusts her baby to God by placing him in the river in the basket.

Host:

After Jacobed does this, her daughter Miriam stays behind to keep watch over him. And in a divine appointment, Pharaoh's daughter comes down to the Nile to bathe with her attendants along the riverbank. She sees the basket and sends one of her slave girls to get it, and when she opens it and sees the crying baby, she feels sorry for him. We know that she recognizes him as one of the Hebrew babies. Then, showing a great deal of courage, his sister Miriam steps up and approaches Pharaoh's daughter and sees an opportunity and grabs it. She asks, shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? In a wonderful turn, Pharaoh's daughter agrees, so Miriam goes and brings her mother who becomes a nurse for her own baby. And even more incredibly, Pharaoh's daughter offers to pay Jacobed, a Hebrew slave, earning wages to nurse her own child!

Host:

From our place in history, we know that God's special plans for this child were fulfilled. This story communicates that God has something special in mind for this baby, even though his mother had no way of knowing that her son would become a leader of his people.

Host:

The Bible is not specific about the work of the Holy Spirit in this episode, but it's not hard to believe that God gave Jacobed the idea to place her son in the basket, and prompted Pharaoh's daughter to come to the Nile at just the right moment and be moved to rescue this child. Our God is an awesome God!

Host:

Centuries later, Moses remains a household name among the Jewish people, and the mighty acts of deliverance God did through Moses are a part of the common Jewish heritage. In Acts 7, Stephen sheds light on the impact of Moses' life and importance in Jewish history in his testimony, when he says that Moses was "educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action."

Host:

And we know that when Moses became an adult, he who was raised as a prince of Egypt, came upon a Hebrew slave being mistreated by an Egyptian. He avenged the slave by killing the Egyptian. He thought that the Israelites would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. Instead they asked, "Who made you ruler and judge over us?" They wondered if he wanted to kill them too. So Moses fled to Midian, where he lived as a foreigner, and then had two sons by his Midian wife, Zipporah.

Host:

After another forty years God appears to Moses in a burning bush near Mount Sinai, and God sent Moses back to Egypt because he had heard the groanings of his enslaved people. Moses leads the people out of Egypt after God performed wonders and miraculous signs. Jacobed and Amran had no way of knowing God's great purposes for Moses. They were simply doing what they could do in the moment to preserve his life. God took their small act of faith and delivered Moses to the daughter of Pharaoh.

Host:

Jacobed and Amran had him for only a short time, but they instilled in Moses a sense of identity with God's people that enabled him to hear God's voice and follow his call to deliver Israel when the time was right.

Host:

There are so many things that parents can do when their children are young to provide them a foundation of faith that will be realized as they grow older and other influences come into their lives. When they learn that those influences are bankrupt, they will be sensitive to the voice of God and to the wise words of their parents.

Host:

Hear the word of the Lord. "Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old he will not depart from it. " Proverbs 22:6 Thanks be to God.

Host:

And now we have arrived again at break time. These are such great stories of women whose weaknesses and strengths we can so easily identify with. And how wonderful is it that God shines through their lives, because we can take encouragement from them that God will redeem all our choices and circumstances of life for our good, the good of our children, and his own glory. So take a minute to praise God, and then come back and hear the story of Baby Chris's thirty-fourth week in the womb.

Announcer:

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Host:

This week 34 Baby Chris Devotional is titled The Fullness of Time.

Host:

Hear the word of the Lord. "But I trust in you, Lord. I say you are my God. My times are in your hands."

Host:

At thirty-four weeks, the amniotic fluid that has been protecting baby Chris in the womb has reached its maximum level and will decrease in the coming week to make room for his final prebirth growth spurt. All the digestive enzymes in his digestive systems are now active and ready to process food. His body continues to plump up with fat to help regulate his body temperature. His lungs are almost fully developed. And most importantly, nearly all babies born prematurely at 34 weeks will survive without complications.

Host:

For the new parents, these last few weeks of pregnancy are days of both excited anticipation and growing anxiousness. Mothers often grow increasingly restless, wandering the house, doing a final cleaning, setting things right, partly to prepare for her days of recovery and settling into life with a new baby, and partly to distract her from the worries that pop into her mind. Will my husband be home when I go into labor? Will we make it to the hospital on time? Will my labor be long or my delivery painful? Will everything be alright?

Host:

Labor is expected to begin at forty weeks gestation, but the actual date is often imprecise because of confusion about the date of the last menstrual period or intercourse, developmental size, and a myriad of other unpredictable circumstances. But we do know for sure that at some point after this week the baby will be born one way or the other.

Host:

The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to chronological or sequential time, while Kairos means the right, critical or opportune moment.

Host:

When the Psalmist said that we should number our days, it means that we should use our chronos time wisely, because we have a limited supply or measurable minutes and hours. But when the Psalmist tells us that God ordains the particular days and lengths of our lives, and when Paul tells us to make the best use of your time, God's involvement in that number is Kairos time.

Host:

The Bible refers both to a particular time of completion and a particular time of new beginnings as the fullness of time. Sarah and Abraham were promised a son at the appointed time. God told the prophet Habakkuk that there was an appointed time for the fulfillment of his judgment. "For still the vision awaits its appointed time, it hastens to the end, it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not delay. Christ died at the right time for the ungodly."

Host:

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes of the birth of Jesus as an event that was planned by God to occur at the right time to effect the redemption of those living under the law, and that "God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."

Host:

Peter reminds us that the "Lord is not slow in keeping his promises," and that the day of the Lord is certain.

Host:

Just as the timing of a pregnancy and birth involve both Chronos and Kairos time, so does the timing of our response to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives by trusting our future to Christ as our Savior.

Host:

Just as a mother or child does not know the exact day or hour of birth as a child from the womb, neither do we know the expected day or hour of our rebirth as a child of God. We cannot know when our Chronos time on earth will run out, and our Kairos opportunity to receive eternal life in Christ will be lost. Our only certainty is that our Kairos time is now.

Host:

Hear the word of the Lord. "I tell you now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." 2 Second Corinthians 6:2

Host:

Thanks be to God.

Announcer:

We hope you enjoyed this week's reflection. We encourage you to share it and join us next time on Pro Life Kitchen Table. May God bless you.

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Deborah Hollifield

Host