My name is Aaron. You know, Moses’s brother.
The guy who was asked to speak for him
to Pharaoh because Moses has a stutter.
That was seven plagues ago.
Since then Egypt's gone through blood, frogs,
wild animals, cattle disease, boils, and hail.
Now God tells us again,
“Come. Come to Pharaoh."
Moses and I, we go to Pharaoh
and tell him that if he doesn't let the Israelites
go and worship God,
then a plague of locusts will come
and eat away all the trees and crops in Egypt.
Pharaoh says he'll let the Israelites
go and worship,
but only the men.
Not the women, or children, or cows.
But this isn't good enough. It has to be *all* of us!
And we need the cows to sacrifice.
So sure enough, the locusts come
and cover up the whole land
in a thick black cloudy swarm.
Predictably, Pharoah pleads for mercy
and God sends a change in the wind
and hurls the locusts into the sea.
No sooner have the locusts gone
but Pharoah's heart is hardened again
and he says he will not let the Israelites go.
So this time, Moses holds out his arm
towards the sky
and God sends a total darkness
over the land of Egypt
lasting for three days nonstop.
Now Pharoah can't take much more of this.
He promises Moses that the Israelites can
go and worship God, women and children too.
Only the cows need to stay behind.
Still, Moses stands up tall
and tells me to say to Pharoah,
"Not only must you provide us
with Egyptian cattle for our sacrifices,
but our own cows are coming too,
because we won't know
what we're gonna sacrifice
until we get there."
And again, Pharoah gets angry
and his heart gets hard.
He screams at Moses to get out.
"Make sure you never see me again,
because the next time you see my face,
you shall die."
And Moses, like some icy cool cowboy,
knowing the final plague,
the killing of the Egyptian firstborn,
and the moment of our freedom
are just around the corner,
feeds me this line to tell Pharoah.
"You're right, I will never see your face again."
Moses seems to have changed a lot
since God first told him to tell the Israelites
they were going to leave Egypt.
He seemed scared then,
and came up with all kinds of excuses
like his stutter and the possibility
that the people wouldn't listen to him.
And now he's getting smart with Pharoah,
the most powerful person
in the whole of Egypt?
The truth is, we're still both afraid.
We're just better at doing
what we have to do anyway.
And that's why God has kept saying to us,
"Come. Come to Pharoah."
Come, not leave, or go.
Which is after all is what we're about to do.
Go and leave Egypt.
Pharoah is at the top of the heap
of everything that's bad about Egypt.
The slavery and the cruelty,
the inequality, and the oppression.
In his system he's worshiped like a god.
So I don't think it's surprising
we're feel scared
when we have to enter his palace.
When God says to Moses and me,
"Come to Pharoah,"
not only is God saying,
"You need to come up close
to stand up to Pharoah,"
God's also calling us to us
from right inside that place.
God's saying, "If you're afraid, don't worry,
because I'm here with you too."
It makes me realize, Pharoah is not a god
and he's not a monster either.
He's just a human being
who forgot what it means to be a human being.
It's like God is calling to us
from Pharoah's divine core,
his human essence,
where the capacity to do good or evil
comes from: God is already there.
That's also why as we leave Egypt
or wherever we go actually,
it's like coming home.
Producer: Sarah Lefton
Animation Director: Nick Fox-Gieg
Animation: Colleen MacIsaac
Jeanne Stern
Editorial Director: Matthue Roth
Theme Music: Tim Cosgrove
Written and Narrated by: Joel Stanley
Sound Recording: Steve Paul