one child born among many

About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. The baby’s sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him. Soon Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said. Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked. “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby’s mother. “Take this baby and nurse him for me,” the princess told the baby’s mother. “I will pay you for your help.” So the woman took her baby home and nursed him. Later, when the boy was older, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her own son. The princess named him Moses, for she explained, “I lifted him out of the water. (Exodus 2:1-10)

Having a baby boy was illegal in Egypt. However, anyone who truly feared God wasn’t going to kill a baby simply because of its sex. So babies were hidden everywhere. And probably, baby Moses wasn’t the only child in a basket floated down the Nile.

But he was the only one found by the daughter of the Pharaoh, the supreme ruler of Egypt. And he was the only one who was raised in the Pharaoh’s household. And he was the only one who grew to manhood and was used by God to set his captive Israelites free from Egyptian slavery.

We try to make too much of stuff. One lone little basket floating down the Nile. There were probably a lot. There were a lot of Israelites and they had a lot of baby boys. It made no sense that there would just be one. And besides, the God of the universe is big enough to single out who he wants from the crowd.

We do the same with Jesus. One lone little boy born in a small stable, alone itself on the desert.

There were lots of children born that night in Bethlehem. But there was only one who was the Messiah. Isaiah told us, in Isaiah 53:2: He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. There was nothing special to the birth of Jesus to the casual eye.

Yes, he was the anointed of God made manifest in human flesh. Yes, he was conceived by the Holy Spirit with a young virgin woman. Yes, in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body (Colossians 2:9).

But God never intended for people to look at the baby Jesus or the baby Moses, for that matter, as being the one who would deliver his people. At least, not until it was time.

When it was time, they boldly strode upon the stage of history and took their places as deliverers.

But until then, they were just one of many.

It is hard to see God’s will like that: working underground, incognito. But he did. Mary knew where Jesus came from, and I would imagine she didn’t tell anyone. They would have thought she was crazy. Joseph knew because of the dream, but even so, that took some faith in that dream being real.

I would imagine that Moses’ mother felt that same way, looking at her baby son, knowing that God had a plan for him and putting him into that basket.

Both babies were gifts. Moses means “a gift” in Egyptian and Jesus (or the Hebrew equivalent Joshua) means God our Deliverer. Same thing, really.

Both sent by God to deliver. But both sent as one among many at first, no different than the others until it was time to be different.