Meet the People of the Bible: Moses' Story
		Greetings, my people!  I am Moses.  I experienced God’s call when he spoke to me from the Burning Bush on God’s mountain, Sinai.  That is why my face is so radiant and my hair is gray and white.  God told me to go to Pharaoh and tell him to release the Israelites from their slavery and let them return to the land of Canaan that had been promised to their ancestor, Abraham. Well, I didn’t want to go very much but the Lord said that he would be with me and that he would give me the words to say to Pharaoh.  So, when Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, through the power of God, ten plagues rained down on the Egyptians, but from the worst plague, the killing of the first-born in all the land of Egypt, the Israelites were spared during the first Passover.  On that night, each Israelite family procured a one-year old lamb and slaughtered it spreading the lamb’s blood over the doors of their houses.  The Angel of the Lord saw the blood of the lamb and “passed over” their houses and struck down the first-born of Egypt.  The Passover has been celebrated by Jews ever since as part of the observance of God’s covenant and, according to three of the four evangelists, it was the Passover meal that Jesus himself celebrated with his disciples on Holy Thursday.  Even after seeing God’s power in the plagues, Pharaoh chased us to the edge of the Red Sea, when God parted the waters and let the Israelites pass through on dry land and let the waters wash away Pharaoh’s chariots and charioteers.  God then gave the Israelites the Law.  God’s people had grown so much what started out as Abraham and Isaac’s and Jacob’s family had grown into a whole nation of people and they were so numerous that they had forgotten that they were indeed one family.   The Law was given so that the Israelites could live together in peace, harmony, and justice.  God gave the Israelites dietary laws, laws on religious practice, laws about lending, laws about offering sacrifice, laws about purity, laws about celebrating holidays, laws on marriage and divorce, and laws about caring for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the alien.  God’s Law was given to me on Sinai and recorded in the Torah.  In fact, Torah is the Hebrew word for “The Law” or “The Teachings.”   While much of the law given in the Torah is specific to the ancient Israelite culture, the principles underlying the law are timeless, and are contained in the 10 Commandments, and one of the most important prayers in the whole Bible, The Shema.  Let’s turn to that prayer now.  Open your red Bibles to Deuteronomy Chapter 6, verses 4 & 5.  When you’ve located those verses, take out the timeline on green card stock that is inside the folders given to each family and write those two verses in the box at the bottom of the sheet.  When your family is finished put your hand on the shoulder of the person sitting next to you and when everyone is done we will recite the verses together. [Allow time for people to write the Shema on the green card stock] The words “Shema Yisrael” are the Hebrew words at the beginning of this prayer and they mean “Hear [O] Israel.” That is why the prayer is called simply the Shema.  Now that you have it written down on your timeline, let’s all recite it together.  “Hear, O Israel!  The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” Good!  Our Lord Jesus himself called this the Greatest Commandment.  Now it just so happens that the very next line in Deuteronomy says “Drill these words into your children”—you can look it up in the Bible on your lap if you don’t believe me!  So my helpers are going to pass out the albums for everyone age first grade on up.  Anyone who can recite these two verses from memory before a Generations activity leader will get a sticker for their album.  Each month we will have a new Bible verse to commit to memory and whoever has all eight stickers in their album by the end of the year will get a special prize.  That verse will be available at the end of the GOF session and also in the bulletin and on the St. Mary website.  Don’t worry, my children, if you miss a session and don’t get your sticker.  You can still recite the Scripture passage for an activity leader at a later session and still get your sticker. We are about ready for our break out session so let me sum up the lesson.  Sarah told us about the Covenant with God’s people.  The Covenant is God’s promise to always be there for us and our promise to always love and worship God.  Sometimes we don’t live up to our part of the Covenant so throughout all of history God renews the Covenant with us.  Jacob told us how all of God’s people are really one family, that we can trace back through our ancestors in the faith all the way to his family.  And God gave me—Moses— the rules for his people so that they might live in peace, harmony, and justice.  These rules are the Law, and the greatest law is to love God.