The Hardened Heart: Pharaoh, Pilate, and the Nile of Blood
From my florilegium practice. Scripture read through prayer, prayer read through Scripture. These are my confessions.
Readings: Exodus 7–8; John 18; Romans 1; Psalm 139; Augustine
Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he refuses to let the people go.
Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart.
What is truth? Then Pilate went outside.
Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart.
The Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile... there was blood throughout all the lands of Egypt.
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“I searched for you outside of myself, in created things, yet you were not there... then I looked within, in my own self, and you were not there either... you are... deeper than my deepest self, and higher than my highest height; no dearest self, no reflection of my own values projected against the sky, God who is beyond me yet through a loving heart comes near, and is sent away, and my own self sent away, estranged, through hardness of heart. A hard heart makes me beside my own self, and my whole being lost outside... lost within this endless facade of self-sufficiency, an inward and downward spiral until death... in this end, in such ends, I drink my own blood and starve to death... when I do not let all that is in me... every part of me, everything alive in me, everything that has breath in me... go... I must let my life go... in the wild even, the wilderness, so my life can worship God... yet in chains I bind my own self to delusion. Have mercy on me, God of gods. Help me give my whole heart and soul and mind and strength, and life, my soul, my anima... through my heart master, may I give this all to you.
A hardened heart is like a Nile of blood. That which is meant to bring forth streams of living water, and life to the body, life to the bones, apart from the love and presence of its maker — hardened in rebellion — brings forth blood and ruin to the entire man.
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“This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
Romans 1... although we knew you as God, we refused to honor you... and over time, we are given over to a depraved mind, and you weep over us, as a lost son, yet we remain in your presence (for where can we flee from you? We who exist inside your being), eyes greyed and dark, unable to recognize our Father or our own selves anymore, and like a demented man, violently oppose even your simple acts of love. Have mercy.
~ It is enough for tonight son. Joy comes in the morning.
You told me “joy comes in the morning” for I was distressed in my reading to see so profoundly that the Pharaoh is me, and my hardness of heart, and showing me mercy to stop me, on the dot of the hour of reading, and say to me “joy comes in the morning” and on the next page... the first line:
Then the Lord said to Moses, rise up early in the morning and present yourself.