Happy Birthdays!

Reading Through the Bible in 2010 (32-34)

“Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor abated.” Deut. 34:7

Two of my favorite people in the world celebrate birthdays today! One is our oldest son, Ethan; the other is our youngest granddaughter, Rachel. Ethan pastors a church in Alaska and Rachel attends third grade in Illinois. They are celebrating 3,000 miles apart but they are very close together in my heart.

I had the joy of seeing them both enter the world.

When Ethan was born in Muscatine, Iowa, spring was in the air that floated in through my hospital window. They laid him on my bed and he looked all around. He was only an hour old, but I felt like he had always been a wonderful part of my life. “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” As Charlie and I beamed at him, we both knew what all new parents know, never was there such a child!

Thirty-five years later I shook the snow off of my boots as I entered the hospital in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Katie and Norman had called and said, “It’s time to come, Mom! Things are starting to happen.” As I watched Rachel enter the world, I’ll never forget the looks on her parent’s faces. Joy and relief and amazement as they looked at the perfect little face – never was there such a child!

Ethan and Rachel were both born on March 12: a man and a girl a generation apart, in different states – one in spring like weather, one in near blizzard conditions. Now they live their lives 3,000 miles apart. But besides some similar family genes and my great love for both of them, they have something that bonds them together supernaturally. They each love the Lord their God with all their hearts. His Spirit is very easily seen in their lives.

Far away on the other side of the world, many generations ago, there was another set of parents who looked at their third baby and thought, “Never was there such a child!” Their names were Amram and Jochebed and they named their tiny offspring, Moses. Prior to his birth, the King of Egypt had ordered the death of all little boys born to Israelite women. These parents thought their boy so special that they trusted God and risked putting him in a basket and hiding him in the waters of the Nile River. When the daughter of Pharaoh came to bathe, she found Moses and took him to her palace. There, she raised him as her own child for forty years right under the nose of Pharaoh himself. (Daughters seem to twist their fathers around their wrists fairly easily} However, when Moses identified with his birth family and killed an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew man, he was forced to flee into the desert wilderness for forty years. Then, one day he met God in a burning bush and was told to return to Egypt and “Let my people go.” Moses spent the next forty years of his life leading the Israelites up to the Promised Land. Moses recorded all of this in the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch.

Today we read the last chapter of Deuteronomy describing the final days and the death of Moses. “His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor abated.” God took Moses to the top of Mount Nebo and showed him the Promised Land that He had sworn to give his forefathers. Moses could see it all just fine; his eyes were great. His physical health, too, was robust – he could climb to the top of mountains just as he did forty years before.

Moses didn’t die up there of natural causes. He died because his work was finished and it was time for God to take him to his true home. Jude 9 tells us that the archangel Michael personally cared for his body. God buried him not on the mountain but in the valley opposite Beth Peor. No one knows where to this day. It’s a good thing. Otherwise’ we would all go visit his gravesite and chop off little pieces of rock to bring home and set on our desks. There would be signs and shrines and crowds. This most special man, the humblest of all men who ever lived, would not have wanted that. He lived to glorify God and only one recorded time, himself. He would have been most pleased to be buried alone with God.

It can be truly said of Moses, never was there such a child!

Happy Birthday, Ethan Charles! Happy birthday, Rachel Joy! Like Moses, your love for God will take you many places. May your eyes and your vigor always focus on serving the Lord Jesus Christ all the days of your lives.