The Exodus story is the most referenced story across the whole Bible.

It's the road out of slavery, the road through the wilderness, and the road into the land of inheritance.

This is the theme of the road, or the highway, or simply the way.

Now, one of the most iconic images in the Exodus story

is when Israel leaves Egypt, Pharaoh's armies chasing after them,

and the sea of weeds is in front of them blocking them in.

But miraculously, God splits the waters.

There's a wall of water on the right, a wall of water on the left, and dry ground

below them as a safe passage. This image is a direct hyperlink to none other than the creation

story in Genesis 1. And so in this episode, we begin at the beginning. And we see how Genesis 1

shows that the creation of the land is a type of Exodus liberation.

Yahweh is said to split the waters in the middle and separate between the waters and the waters.

The land was trapped under dark waters and then liberated when God exposed the dry ground

so that the fruit can go out of the land.

In the biblical imagination, chaotic waters represent nothingness and non-life.

And so to walk through the waters and to be safe is a picture of God holding back chaos to make a passage through.

The waters in the Exodus story represent this death boundary

that the Israelites can't get past unless God does something for them that they can't do for

themselves. Today, Tim Mackey and I discuss the chaos waters of Genesis 1. We see how it connects

to Noah's flood and Israel's passage through the sea.

And then we connect all of this to the symbol of baptism, going through the waters of death

in order to find life on the other side.

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