200315 Sermon on Exodus 8:16-21 (Lent 3) March 15, 2020 I’d like to begin today by speaking about the background to our Old Testament lesson. Moses was an Israelite who was born during the time that the Israelites were enslaved under Pharaoh in Egypt. This was a time of persecution. The Egyptians didn’t want the Israelites to become too strong, so all the baby boys were supposed to be killed right after they were born. But his mother loved him and hid him for three months. Eventually it was too hard to hide him, so she put Moses in a basket in the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter found him, had pity on him, and raised him as her son. When Moses grew up he learned that he was an Israelite and pitied his people stuck in slavery. One day he saw an Egyptian striking his slave. Moses became angry, killed him, and buried him. He thought that nobody knew what he had done, but soon learned that word of his slaying was more commonly known. Fearing that he would be caught and punished, he went to Midian, which is the land that is east of the Sinai peninsula. There he met his wife, Zipporah, had children, and worked for his father-in-law Jethro.One day Moses was shepherding a flock by Mt. Horeb, which is another name for Mt. Sinai. God spoke to him there from the midst of a burning bush. What God said to Moses is that he should go back to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let his people go into the wilderness to worship God. This was not something that Moses wanted to do. He would rather keep working for his father-in-law. He wasn’t a good speaker. God would not hear of his objections, but he did give Moses some help. His brother, Aaron, would help him.So Moses went back to Pharaoh and told him what God had said. Pharaoh was not impressed. Not only did he not let the people go, but he wanted to show the Israelites who’s boss. He forced the Israelites to make bricks without straw, making their work more difficult.Moses and Aaron eventually went back to Pharaoh again. They were going to perform signs to back up what the Lord had said through Moses. When they appeared before Pharaoh Moses told Aaron to throw down his staff and it became a snake. But then Pharaoh called for his own academics and intellectuals. They were able to do the same thing. The only thing was that Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Nonetheless, Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he didn’t listen.Then God told Moses to warn Pharaoh about the first plague. All the water in the land would be turned to blood. Moses did as the Lord told him, and all the water was turned to blood. However, Pharaoh’s leading lights were able to do the same thing by their own arts and practices.Then God sent the second plague—a plague of frogs. Frogs went everywhere. They were in people’s houses, in their ovens, and in their cupboards. The Egyptian scholars, though, were able to do this same thing. Pharaoh eventually had had enough of the frogs. He asked Moses to pray for him. Moses did this and the frogs all died. Great heaps of dead frogs were everywhere. But then Pharaoh changed his mind. He didn’t want grant any freedom to his slaves.This brings us to today’s reading. The third plague was the plague of lice. Everyone and all the animals got infested with lice. Here there is an important change. Although the Egyptians magicians tried to produce lice by their occult practices, they were not able to do so. The magicians testified to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God. We are not able to replicate this.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hard.Then there is the swarms of flies. Maybe it was like those no-see-ums that we get from time to time. Here we also see a difference. God distinguished between where the Israelites lived and where the Egyptians lived. This plague struck the Egyptians, but not the Israelites.I won’t go through plagues five through nine. I’ll just say that the pattern that has already been established continues. Pharaoh and his people suffer. Pharaoh relents to the Lord’s demands, but then he change