Preparing for the Saturday Bible lesson that I host weekly at my home I was reading from the story of Moses and his big sis’ Miriam.The story took place when a ruthless king felt threatened by the proliferation of a minority group in his empire. The solution was simple: throw all the baby boys born to the minority group in the Nile River. One day, a mother could not bring herself to throw her beautiful baby boy in the river. She hid him for three months and then thought to herself, “The king never said to ‘drown the babies’, just to ‘throw them’ in the Nile. I’ll throw my baby in the Nile, but in a nice little basket that I’ll waterproof with tar.” When the mother was done, she let the basket in the Nile and sent big sis’ Miriam to watch what would happen. Miriam kept following her little brother until, … well, you know the end of the story.
Miriam was a faithful big sis’ in watching over her kid bro’. Little did she know that 80 years later she would owe him her freedom. Big sisters can be rather annoying. If you had one, you know what I mean. They forever feel like a second mom watching over you. Sometimes it’s nice, but sometimes it’s frustrating. Moses knew the feeling. He was the leader of the whole nation, and though God trusted him with that job, big sis’ has her doubts. One time she went as far as starting a rebellion against her kid brother saying that he was too proud. The story says that God punished Miriam with a loathsome contagious skin disease. She was quarantined out of the camp for seven days. You’d think that Moses would have sighed a sigh of relief saying, “That’s what you get!” but he didn’t. He actually stopped the whole nation in its tracks to wait for Miriam. Moses himself went everyday to bring her food and take care of her. Miriam was faithful to watch and wait on Moses when he was in a precarious situation in a basket on the Nile, and now Moses waits and care for her when she is in a precarious situation in the desert. While this story seems to be about ‘What goes around comes around’, I saw something more in it today. We are often very quick to condemn people for something wrong they do. Not just in everyday life, but particularly in politics and religion, the court of public opinion is not only very unmerciful, but very ungrateful. No matter what is written on their tombstones, people’s whole lives are often judged on a single indiscretion. Yes Miriam did something wrong and needed to be called out on it. But in spite of it, little bro’ never forgot the previous good she did to him, and neither did the nation she helped him lead. We certainly would not want to be judged by our failures or indiscretion without having our successes be remembered; may we therefore extend that same courtesy to others!
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