Signature Written in Water

John Hancock, was the first of the American patriots in 1776 to sign the Declaration of Independence. today he is best remembered for his flamboyant and stylish signature, which, according to legend, he proudly wrote large and clearly enough that King George would be able to read it without his spectacles.

God, too, wrote his signature large and clear across the tyranny of Egypt. In a world of power politics, God wrote his signature firmly with water. Psalm 114 says,

When Israel came out of Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a foreign tongue
The sea looked and fled,
the Jordan turned back . . .

The story of the Exodus is framed by two natural boundaries, the Red Sea and the Jordan River, and both defer to the life-giving presence of God. In the poetic words of the psalm, the Red Sea took one look at Yahweh as Israel’s champion – and fled away without a whimper of protest, yielding up a pathway instead of being a barrier to freedom.

Pharaoh had magicians, slave-masters and military might, but at the Red Sea, Yahweh gave him a lesson in sacred governance. Instead of Pharaoh’s cruel and abusive politics of raw power, God demonstrated a different way to exercise authority so that it bestowed life and hope to its subjects rather than intimidating and exploiting them as Pharaoh had done. Water was the primary instrument that illustrates God’s formidable power directed to his people’s well-being. God uses the weak things of this world to humble the mighty.

Across the wide desert, at the threshold to the new land, the Jordan surrendered its role as gate-keeper and guardian to the land, retreating like a chastened security guard complying with a directive from Yahweh, opening the road for Israel to march in.

At the outset of the exodus, the waters of imprisonment broke open, and a generation later at the end of the long ordeal, the “No Trespassing” water-boundary became a welcome-mat to a nation in search of home.

The lyrics of Psalm 114 ask why such natural forces would so readily step aside.

Why was it, O sea, that you fled,
O Jordan, that you turned back?
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
Who turned the rock into a pool,
the hard rock into springs of water.

This psalm celebrates how completely the mere presence of Yahweh tames nature into trembling submission. When God wrote his name, the un-crossable sea and the unstoppable river instantly recognize that ‘resistance is futile’.

But with Yahweh, surrender does not mean defeat; it means surrendering to Life. This is a God who chooses to befriend a man like Jacob, mentioned in v.1 and 7, that most unlikely candidate for grace. This God who turns hard-hearted men into reluctant saints, turns hard dolomite rock into flowing pools and causes flint stone to fracture and release artesian springs to flow out into desert sand (v.8), daringly adopts a foolish and stubborn nation to showcase his grace.

Perhaps that is why, centuries after the Exodus, someone composed this psalm to remind Israel of God’s wonderful purposes and continuing presence beyond the Red Sea, the River and water from the Rock. And perhaps that explains why Gentiles like me see our own story reflected in Israel's, and why we so proudly sign our name as devoted followers of Israel's God.