A GUY'S VIEW: We need a deliverer. Pray for a Moses

LAST Sunday, April 4, 2021, marked the final day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The proximity of this week to the day of Passover has caused them to be linked and the entire week called Passover, although Passover is only one day, which was between sunset on Saturday, March 27, and sunset on Sunday, March 28.

Christians ignore God’s appointed times but I feel sufficiently alacritous to use this feast as the context for my observations this week.

The original Passover was probably the strongest evidence of the power of the God of Israel to deliver his people. That was May 4, 1451 BC, but in 2021 the people of Barbados, who consider themselves the children of that God, should now be calling on him to deliver them again.

History has shown us that the deepest bondage is not enforced by chains, but by the control of the mind. The heaviest chains are education and religion. Black people all over the world, who are not still asleep, have firsthand knowledge of this reality.

The power of Egypt’s Pharaoh was untrammelled. He knew no opposition, but he had never met Israel’s God. Egypt was not short of gods, but the Pharaoh’s ignorance of the true universal power led him to believe that he could do as he wished for as long as he wished. He was wrong and deluded.

We are warned that when we feel at peace and safe, destruction comes suddenly. At a time of erupting volcanoes and shaking earth, this is an especially poignant observation. But this was not the Pharaoh’s fate. He was given progressive warnings that led up to the final event that those who follow the Bible directives celebrate as Passover. Widespread death could have been avoided if the earlier warnings had been heeded. Are we heeding our warnings?

Egypt’s leader set his mind against the word which Moses brought to him. His heart was hardened, maybe because of his pride and the place of privilege which he was unwilling to give up.  But many a youngster in Barbados heard from the mouth of his mother when a flogging was being administered, “Hard ears you won’t hear, own way you gine feel.”

Poor people in Barbados are struggling to survive while the rich grow richer. While that is pleasing to those who benefit from an unjust system, it is ungodly, unchristian and heartless. That some people will do better than others is expected and unavoidable, but policymakers cannot in good conscience perpetuate a system that entrenches life below the poverty line for thousands of workers. Persons who are willing to work hard should be able to progress and improve their financial status, so that they can better take care of their families.

Businesses cry that they cannot pay workers who are earning subsistence wages $3 more. And people start a debate around whether that should even be considered. It is instructive that the debate around this issue focuses on companies’ ability to pay, while no one asks how can a family live on $340 per week. What are you sending mothers to do?

Our country is descending into a debt trap from which we may never escape. With no political opposition and no one willing to take alternative advice, we seem doomed. And yet the deliverance we need most is psychological. Yes, it would be useful if we had leaders who would create the environment to help lift persons at the bottom, but all signals tell us that we should not hold our breaths where that is concerned. Self-help is the greatest help.  Those who struggle need to seek a path to life which is independent of governmental policy. In the current scheme of things, politics will not be the source of their deliverance.

When our liberation comes, it will not only be the sufferers who will see the need for a second deliverance. The many who do a little better will recognise that as long as their brothers and sisters suffer, they too are at risk.

Although death was associated with Passover, it is more observed for the safety that was provided to those who sheltered under the blood of the lamb. A violent shaking may be associated with deliverance, but there will always be a safe place for those who know where to find it.

Moses was sent back to Egypt to lead his people out of bondage. Over time, many peoples and nations have labelled significant leaders as their Moses. In Barbados, we once attached that name to a man who did not deliver anyone, not even himself. We have to stop allowing sugary rhetoric to fool us and recognise that there are many Pharaohs who talk like Moses. We can certainly identify our Pharaohs, but we stand in need of a Moses.