The Power of Exodus
The story of the exodus has had staying power in the African American church because the narrative speaks so readily to the troubles faced by its congregants. African Americans through the generations found in Exodus a God who attends to the oppressed who cry out to him:
I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. (Ex. 3:7–8)
African Americans read of a God who opposes the powerful who dehumanize God’s children. They came to believe that God heard their prayers just as he heard the prayers of the Israelites: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.” This is the language of election and indicates that the oppressed are God’s possession. This is God in history, who not only knows the location of the elect but knows the quality of their existence and sees their slavery as a divine illegality.
African American congregations note that God not only sees the misery of his elect; he also hears the people’s cry: “I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.” Seeing and hearing leads God to act: “I have come down to deliver them.” The Book of Exodus reminds us that liberating action is God’s natural response when the oppressed suffer. Because God knows the pain of the Israelite slaves, God comes down to judge the oppressors and deliver the oppressed. The importance of the Old Testament—and particularly the Book of Exodus—for the African American church is its affirmation that our God is a God who sees, hears, and acts on behalf of the afflicted.