When we have settled in our mind who Jesus is, we then have to work through the issue of who Jesus is for us. The issue provides us with a relationship and it ‘s important that we look at our side of the relationship and see how we are influenced by Jesus being who we say he is. He is someone for us. And we aren’t the same for it. Paul put it in terms that we are a new creation. We have to look at that and see how it is that the living LORD God has brought us into relationship with him. The nature of a covenantal relationship and the quality of promises the covenant assures us of the purposeful activity of the LORD God. When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun. (2 Corinthians 5: 17, NEB)

It’s not unusual to find ourselves standing tall in the quick sand of uncertainty when we consider the prospect of who we are in our relationship to Jesus. We’ve been conditioned to hope and long for a possibility we in no way want to express in words that would suggest over self-confidence. Our fear of committing the sin of presumption paralyses us and we are unable oftimes to walk into the reality of the promises made to us.

Perhaps we should begin at the beginning. In the Book of Exodus the LORD God instructed Moses to address the Israelites who were encamped opposite the mountains in the wilderness of Sinai, saying: You have seen with your own eyes what I did to Egypt, and how I have carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you here to me. If only you will now listen to me and keep my covenant, then out of all peoples you shall become my special possession; for the whole earth is mine. You shall he my kingdom of priests, my holy nation. (Exodus 19: 4-6a, NEB)

Now these were not easy words for Moses to deliver to the Israelites. It must have crossed his mind that this wasn’t quite how he perceived the events of the preceding 50 days. And we would he safe in assuming that this wasn’t the perception of the Israelites either. The events that had transpired over that brief period were filled with tension and despair, on every side. The pharoah changed his mind and chased after them to recapture them. The Israelites themselves despaired of their situation and longed to return to their slave masters in Egypt rather than meet death in the wilderness.

Time and again man’s despair was addressed by the intervention of the LORD: the sea-bed was turned into dry land and the Egyptians were left lying dead on the sea-shore. In the wilderness of Shur the Israelites complained for lack of sweet water and their thirst was satisfied. In the wilderness of Sin the Israelites complained for lack of food, fearing starvation, and the LORD provided for their need with quail and bread. At Rephidim they complained for lack of water and the LORD directed Moses by a rock in Horeb where water gushed out sufficient for all their need.

The demands of the Israelites were met arid at every occasion the LORD was praised and exalted. But as each new need was discovered the praises faded away like an echo dying in the wilderness. Lips that shaped words of thanksgiving reshaped all the more powerfully the fears of death and oppression that lay hold of them. They once cried with the same voice of despairs and the LOPD heard their crying and took heed of it, remembering the covenant he and made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Now, free of Egypt, the Israelites still feel the torment of the bondage that held them captive - deliverance does not come easy.

And to these folk Moses was to say that in spite of all that had gone on in the wilderness, they had been carried on eagles’ wings to Sinai!

The LORD’s perspective is different from man’s. The LORD sees all that takes place within the broader picture of what his purpose holds for us. Moses was not informing the Israelites so much of what hadn’t happened as he was telling them of the LORD’s interpretation of what had! The deliverance of Israel was part of the LORD’s plan — he had promised it to Abraham in Genesis 15: 13 — but the people of Israel could not recognize the blessing of fulfilled promise when yet their feet stung from the hot sands of the Sinai peninsula!

But more than perceptions are recorded here. We also are given a glimpse of the LORD’s purpose and plan for his chosen people: that they shall become his special possession, that they shall be his kingdom of priests, that they shall become his holy nation. This is spoken in a language of anticipation. The heart’s desire of the LORD is revealed and it is full of hope and promise.

This is the theme that is developed by Saint Peter in his first epistle: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, and a people claimed by God for his own, to proclaim the triumphs of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2: 9, NEB)

No longer presented in terms of anticipation, we hear Saint peter address God’s scattered people - and that would most certainly include you and me — in terms of affirmation: you are a chosen race… you are a royal priesthood… a people claimed by God for his own. We are challenged to take the words as seriously now as when he first penned them. And we should take these words in the spirit of fulfillment they were intended by the Apostle and understood by the people addressed. Saint Peter was certainly conscious of what he was doing. He knew, for instance, that if he were to talk in such a way, using that peculiar constellation of words and phases, the people would only naturally think back to the LORD’s words of promise to Moses. Conscious of this association, Saint Peter understood the powerful revelation of God’s purpose and plan by both the physical deliverance of the Israelites from slavery as well as the eternal reality of Jesus’ deliverance of all mankind from the slavery of sin. Knowing this, it’s important that we begin in walk in the reality of what we are for the purpose for which we stand assured: to proclaim the triumphs of him who has called you and me out of darkness into his marvelous light.

The triumph of Jesus is the empty tomb and the growing awareness of his risen life. Our proclamation gives a contemporary voice to the LORD’s fulfillment of generation after generation. You and I know where we once stood — in the dark recesses of our bondage and we know what it is to be called out of darkness into the marvelous light of the Risen One.

It’ s not enough to know who Jesus is. We also have to know who we are because of who Jesus is. And the knowledge of who we are will confirm our faith and enable us to stand tall, firm on the conviction of where we stand.

That is the point from where we begin to move out into ministry in our daily lives. Confident of who we are, we are free, free at last to proclaim the triumphs of the LORD as we help others in the despair of the wilderness they find themselves.