Life Of Moses - Part 2: When the Soul Meets its Pharaoh
Nov 3, 2025 • Fr Elijah Estafanous
Moses returns from the burning bush to face Pharaoh, and we discover that this is our story too. Drawing on St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses, we follow the soul’s ascent to God, the inner Pharaoh that resists freedom, and the purifying path that leads from bondage to the Promised Land. The plagues are not random punishments. They reveal the passions that enslave us and the grace that heals us when we turn to Christ.
We walk through Moses’ five excuses at the bush, God’s patient answers, and the gift of an “Aaron” in our lives for support and discernment. Then we look at each plague as a mirror for the heart. Water to blood shows truth distorted. Frogs expose impulses that leap out of an unguarded heart. Flies, boils, hail, and locusts uncover thoughts, guilt, rage, and greed. Darkness reveals how a heart can live in light yet only see night. The death of Egypt’s firstborn teaches us to kill the first stirrings of sin before they grow.
The same sun that melts wax hardens clay. God does not force grace. He invites. When the soul yields, Egypt gives way to Exodus, darkness to light, and the tyrant loses his grip. Christ’s cross is the cure that turns fire into light and pain into healing.
We walk through Moses’ five excuses at the bush, God’s patient answers, and the gift of an “Aaron” in our lives for support and discernment. Then we look at each plague as a mirror for the heart. Water to blood shows truth distorted. Frogs expose impulses that leap out of an unguarded heart. Flies, boils, hail, and locusts uncover thoughts, guilt, rage, and greed. Darkness reveals how a heart can live in light yet only see night. The death of Egypt’s firstborn teaches us to kill the first stirrings of sin before they grow.
The same sun that melts wax hardens clay. God does not force grace. He invites. When the soul yields, Egypt gives way to Exodus, darkness to light, and the tyrant loses his grip. Christ’s cross is the cure that turns fire into light and pain into healing.