DECEMBER 11, 2025
Exodus 2:6
“She… saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. ‘This is one of the Hebrew babies,’ she said.”
Last week and again so far this week we have been looking at the backstory to Christmas Day and the celebration of Jesus' birth. Advent as we have said is a period of waiting that keeps us from rushing to Christmas Day. God's purposes and plans unfold for us from creation, and we have been stopping to take in the episodes of this gradual unfolding revelation.
Our verse today is part of the account of the Israelites being stuck under heavy oppression from the Egyptians. Pharaoh, the king, was paranoid, he thought if the Israelites kept growing in number, they might rise up against him. So he gave a brutal order: every baby boy born to the Israelites was to be thrown into the Nile.
One Israelite woman gave birth to a baby boy, but she managed to keep him hidden for three months. When she couldn’t hide him anymore, she crafted a little basket-boat, placed him inside, and set it among the reeds by the riverbank. That’s where Pharaoh’s daughter stumbled upon him. The baby cried, and in that moment her heart softened. She knew exactly who he was, one of the children her father had ordered to be killed. However, dispite what Daddy had ordered this daughter experienced compassion welling up inside her.
Can you imagine what that moment felt like for her? Torn between loyalty to her father’s command and the undeniable pull to protect this tiny, helpless child.
Our verse today is part of the account of the Israelites being stuck under heavy oppression from the Egyptians. Pharaoh, the king, was paranoid, he thought if the Israelites kept growing in number, they might rise up against him. So he gave a brutal order: every baby boy born to the Israelites was to be thrown into the Nile.
One Israelite woman gave birth to a baby boy, but she managed to keep him hidden for three months. When she couldn’t hide him anymore, she crafted a little basket-boat, placed him inside, and set it among the reeds by the riverbank. That’s where Pharaoh’s daughter stumbled upon him. The baby cried, and in that moment her heart softened. She knew exactly who he was, one of the children her father had ordered to be killed. However, dispite what Daddy had ordered this daughter experienced compassion welling up inside her.
Can you imagine what that moment felt like for her? Torn between loyalty to her father’s command and the undeniable pull to protect this tiny, helpless child.
Do I obey?
Do I rescue?
What do I do?
We’ve all faced moments like that, when our heart says one thing and our head says another. What’s amazing here is how God worked through someone who didn’t even follow Him, someone from a family that actively opposed His people. Yet her compassion became the very thing God used to save Moses, setting His larger plan in motion.
That plan of God kept unfolding, eventually leading to another baby, born in Bethlehem, who would show us what compassion looks like in the middle of violence and brokenness.
So here’s the question today for all of us, I believe, how might God use our compassion?
We’ve all faced moments like that, when our heart says one thing and our head says another. What’s amazing here is how God worked through someone who didn’t even follow Him, someone from a family that actively opposed His people. Yet her compassion became the very thing God used to save Moses, setting His larger plan in motion.
That plan of God kept unfolding, eventually leading to another baby, born in Bethlehem, who would show us what compassion looks like in the middle of violence and brokenness.
So here’s the question today for all of us, I believe, how might God use our compassion?
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