Aaron - Faith in the Shadows

July 27, 2003, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM

Rev. Ronald Burcham

Typed from audio transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the movie classic, The Ten Commandments, can you tell me who played the part of Moses? Even if you haven't seen the movie, you know it's Charlton Heston, right? Everyone knows that Charlton Heston played the part of Moses. Okay. In that same movie, who played the part of the character called Damon? A little bit more difficult now, right? Remember Damon was the one, although he was an Israelite, who kind of worked for the Pharaoh, worked for the Egyptians. Remember him? Edward G. Robinson. He played the part of Damon. All right, last one. Same movie. Who played the part of Aaron? I haven't a clue. I don't know. I didn't pay any attention. I have no idea of who played the part of Aaron. Isn't it interesting that when they cast the characters and they cast the people for that movie to describe how God delivered His people out of Egypt and into the promise land, they paid a lot of attention, rightly so, to who would play Moses but they would pay more attention to a fictional character called Damon who does not appear in the Old Testament than they would to casting the character Aaron who plays a vital part in God's plan of delivering His people out of Egypt and into the promise land? Nevertheless, isn't that characteristic of Aaron? Aaron is never out there in front. We read a lot about Aaron, but really he is not all that well recognized. When you think of Aaron, you immediately think of Moses. However, if you think of Moses, you don't necessarily think of Aaron. Aaron is kind of in the background. He's in the shadows, if you will. He's working there. He's being faithful to God in all that he does, but he doesn't receive the recognition. He just isn't all that, well, he's just not as popular. Yet, his work is essential. His faithfulness, faithfulness in the shadows, faithfulness in the background, is essential to God's work and what God wanted to accomplish at that time.

Think for a moment, if you will, about Aaron. Aaron is remarkable in his faithfulness and in his devotion to God and to his kid brother, Moses. You realize the family relationship between Moses and Aaron? Let's go back to that Old Testament time. We've got the people of Israel. They're in captivity in Egypt. They'd gone over with Joseph when Joseph brought his family over. They started growing larger and larger and larger. Soon, the officials in Egypt get worried that this new group of people, these Hebrews, might take over; so they enslave them. Well, then a couple of hundred years go by and this nation of people keeps growing larger and larger and larger and larger. It's in that context that a person named Amram and his wife, Jochobed, decide to start having children. First, they have Miriam. Several years later, then they have Aaron. Three years after that, they have another bouncing baby boy. Not good to have a bouncing baby boy, though. You see, now the Pharaoh has really gotten nervous about the Hebrew people; so he has declared that every male child that is born of a Hebrew is to be killed and thrown into the Nile. Well, what are they going to do? Here's this little family, and they have a bouncing baby boy. They hide him for three months. You can only hide a baby for so long, after all, so what are you going to do? They devise a plan. They're going to send him up the river, so to speak. They put him in a little basket and put him in the Nile with the hopes that God's going to take care of him. God does. The Pharaoh's daughter is out there, sees the little basket, and says, "Isn't he cute? I'll call him Moses." Sends him back with Miriam for her mother to nurse him; but, as soon as he's on solid foods, he goes back off into the palace.

Now, the emphasis this week is not on Moses, though. It's on Aaron. We have 3-year-old Aaron who is looking at his little baby brother, scratching his head wondering what's happening. He's here for a while, then he's gone, then he's back, and now he's gone again. Moreover, he grows up knowing that his kid brother is living in the Pharaoh's palace. He is living with the Pharaoh's daughter. He has all that he could ever want, all the food, the riches, the clothes, the education. He's living the life of luxury. Meanwhile, Aaron is still living the life of a slave. Certainly, Aaron probably heard about the fact that Moses was out and about once. He saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite, so he ends up killing the Egyptian. The Pharaoh finds out. Now all he knows about his brother is that he had to flee the country for his life, and he lives in a far-away land. Scripture tells us that he lived with Jethro for a very long period of time, years upon years. So this is Aaron's picture of his brother. Unfair as it was, he got to live in the palace, have everything he wanted. Meanwhile, Aaron has to be a slave, hard labor. His brother is dumb enough to make a mistake like that, has to flee the country, and really doesn't know about him. The most amazing part of the story of Aaron to me is in our scripture lesson for today when God says to Moses that I'm going to send Aaron to you and when Aaron sees you, what did it say, "his heart will be glad." His heart will be glad? Why would his heart be glad? This distant brother that he really doesn't know who gave up this life of luxury from a dumb mistake now lives in a foreign land, and his heart is going to be glad and filled with joy to see his brother? That speaks more of Aaron's faithfulness and Aaron's character to me than anything else that's written about him, that he was so faithful to God, that he had such a good heart about him that he held no animosity towards his younger brother who had all that he could ever want and yet he was glad to see him. And even more than that because then when God says, "Listen to what he has to say," and Moses says to him, "Listen, Big Brother, I'm going to take the lead here and you're going to be my sidekick and you're going to back me up. And the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to approach the Israelite leadership and convince them it's time for us to leave. Then we're going to go face to face with Pharaoh, and we're going to tell him that we're leaving." Right, sure we are, Little Bro, that's what we're going to do? No, that's not what scripture says. It says that Aaron went with Moses, and he talked to the leaders of the Israelites. Moses couldn't talk to the leaders of the Israelites. They wouldn't know him. They wouldn't respect him but they would Aaron, one who grew up as a slave. And then besides that, Aaron goes with him and he stands face to face with Pharaoh knowing that his life could be taken from him. He goes head to head with his magicians by throwing the staff on the ground, and it eats up the snakes of the other magicians. However, Aaron, in faithfulness and obedience to God and in all humbleness, does all of that. Yet when you read through scripture, who jumps out of the pages? Moses. Now I'm not diminishing Moses' role by any means. He is another hero of the faith that we will look at in a couple of weeks. But let's not pass over Aaron who is a hero of the faith, a faith in the shadows, if you will. In the shadows of Moses, sort of in the background, behind the scenes, there's Aaron faithfully serving God, faithfully doing what God asked him to do. And even though he's not in the limelight, he's in the shadows; his work is every bit as essential as that of Moses or anyone else in the Old Testament.

For me, Aaron is someone that all of us should be able to relate to. In reality, most of us, when we faithfully serve God, don't we do it in the shadows? Don't we do it in a behind the scenes kind of way? Will the annals of history remember any of our names? Fifty years from now, a hundred years from now, will anybody really know the name Ron Burcham? No. No one will really recognize that. No one will know. Will the annals of history record your name? Will you be recognized as a hero of the faith, one that did great things for God? Most of our work is done in the shadows. Most of our work is done and it's unnoticed. It's certainly unnoticed by the public at large. However, even bringing it down a little closer to home. Is it even noticed among our family here at Gloria Dei? How much of God's work is done among us and we don't know it? If I read off a list of all the people that give of their time and their talent to Gloria Dei and to the glory of God, of all the Sunday School teachers and the Midweek teachers, those who serve on boards and committees, those who help out keeping our grounds, those who make sure the lights are turned on and the air conditioning is set to the right temperature, and the list could go on and on and on and on, how many of those names would you recognize? How many of those people, if you passed them in the hall of the education wing, would you recognize what they did? Most of our work happens in the background, in the shadows, but that doesn't mean it's any less essential to God's plan or any less important to the work that God has given to all of us.

Unfortunately, though, there is a temptation. The temptation is to believe that it's not important. When you work in the shadows, when you work behind the scenes, when no body seems to really notice and you don't get the recognition for what's happening, the temptation is to believe that what you do really isn't all that important, that what you accomplish in the whole scheme of things really isn't going to make any difference whatsoever. It's easy for us to fall into the apathetic way of thinking, that it really doesn't matter what we do and it really isn't going to make a difference. And I have to tell you that temptation is greater for our congregation than congregations that are smaller than us. In a small congregation, there are only a certain amount of people that do the work the Lord has given them to do. People feel a little bit more ownership. They know that if they don't do it, then no one will do it. But when we get into a congregation the size of ours, it is easy for us to have the false belief, the false idea that someone else will do it. Someone else will teach the class. Someone else will go out with the youth group. Someone else will show up for the workday. Someone else will talk about their faith to someone at the office or their neighbor. Someone else is going to do it, that really what I do or don't do isn't all that important. There are hundreds of other people that come here each week, and I'm certain and I'm sure that someone else is going to do it. Someone else is going to put something in the offering plate. They're going to give of what God has given to them and support the ministry here. Someone else is going to make sure that the ministry is going to happen and continue on, that missions are going to be funded. Someone else is going to accomplish it. Well you know what the problem is? There are hundreds of people saying, "Someone else is going to do it." You're the someone else.

We cannot give into the temptation to believe that we're not important, that we don't count, that we can't make a difference, that what we do just really, in the whole scheme of things, won't matter anyway. Every person, every member of the body of Christ, is essential; and every member of the body of Christ can make a difference.

Maybe the best way to think about this is a story that maybe you've read, probably you've read, it was in Chicken Soup for the Soul, the original book; but it's worth repeating because I think it really describes what each of us should feel in our hearts. It's the story about a gentleman walking on the beach. He's walking on the beach, and he notices off in the distance a figure coming towards him. As the two of them get closer and closer together, he notices that this other figure keeps bending down and doing something and straightening up and the guy just keeps bending down. And as he gets closer and closer, he notices that this guy is bending down and picking up starfish and throwing them back out into the ocean. The guy thinks to himself, "This is crazy." He walks a little while longer. He picks another one up, and he throws it out. He walks a little further. Finally, he gets close enough. Curiosity is just overwhelming this guy. He says, "What are you doing?" And he says, "If the starfish stay here, they're going to die. They've got to get back into the ocean, so I'm picking them up and throwing them back in the ocean." The other guy looks at him and says, "Look along the beach. There are miles of shoreline here. There has to be literally thousands of starfish. Do you really think you can make a difference?" The guy reached out, picked up one, and threw it out. "I made a difference for that one."

You make a difference. As insignificant as the devil wants to convince you that it may be, as much as you want to think that really it doesn't matter, every member of the body of Christ can make a difference. Just as important as Aaron was in God's plan of deliverance, of sending someone to deliver his people out of the hands of the Egyptians and into the promise land, so you play an important role in God's plan now, God's plan of delivering people out of the hands of sin and bringing them into a faith relationship with Jesus Christ or helping them grow in that relationship with Christ. Just as much as Aaron played a vital role, each one of you plays a vital role. The annals of history may not record your name; it may not remember who you are. But the 3-year-old that you taught to sing Jesus Loves Me will remember you. The teenager that you sat down and you spent some time to listen to them, they will remember you. The neighbor whose kids you invited to VBS and they started coming and got reconnected with God, they'll remember you. The mission work that is funded by your sacrificial giving, they'll remember you. You'll make a difference. Not all of us are out there in the spotlight. Not all of us will be remembered throughout time like Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. However, the work in the shadows, the work behind the scenes is just as essential. It's just as much a part of God's plan as any other work. As Aaron made a difference, you and I will make a difference. Amen.

Copyright 2003 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church