Water from a Rock
Exodus 17:1–7
March 19, 2017
Third Sunday of Lent
L ET’S SEE WHAT’S IN OUR “LENT IN A BAG” today. A bottle of water. We live in a place of great water abundance. The delta, the convergence of rivers, streams of various sizes that flow into bays. We occasionally experience drought but never severe enough to dry rivers or cause great thirst.
With quality tap water available 24/7 and bottled water for sale in every grocery and convenience store, we haven’t experienced the plight of the freed slaves in the Sinai desert. It was a new experience for them as well. They had been born as slaves, but they were slaves in Egypt, the breadbasket of ancient times. The Nile River, supplied by melting snow and heavy summer rains in Ethiopia, supply water to the desert area of Egypt. Even today over half of Egypt’s population live in the Nile River valleys. So, these newly freed slaves never knew a time without bountiful, flowing, fresh water.
A weary and downtrodden people leave a life of oppression — but a life of familiarity — and journey into the Sinai desert led by a man they hardly know. They hope to arrive safely in the land that was promised to their ancestors, a land they have never seen. Each step takes them — men, women, children, and livestock — farther away from the known and deeper into the unknown.
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SO, HERE THEY ARE, in the desert. No rivers, no lakes, no wells, no water. Dry, parched land as far as the eye can see. And they thirst. And they complain. In fact this is the fourth time they have complained. Complaining is a defining theme of the wilderness wandering story.
Exodus 14 — The Israelites reach the shores of the Red Sea and see the Egyptians in hot pursuit. They say to Moses, “Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert.” God delivered the Israelites and allowed them to cross the sea in safety.
Exodus 15 — The people find water but it’s bitter. They complain, “What shall we drink?” God instructs Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water, making it sweet to drink.
Exodus 16 — They are hungry and complain to Moses, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” God provides manna for the people.
Exodus 17 — Today’s reading — the Israelites arrive at a place called Rephadim and find no water. They quarrel with Moses: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” This seems a reasonable demand. When you are thirsty, you ask for something to drink. What they’re actually saying is more like, “You give us water to drink right now!”
Even those who experience the greatest saving event in the Old Testament can fall away in ingratitude and disobedience.
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GOD INSTRUCTS MOSES TO TAKE the staff with which he had struck the Nile. (a reminder of God’s powerful action in the past) and strike a rock. Water gushes forth and all are filled.
On the one hand, the fact that the people complain to Moses and to God is a typical human reaction when faced with the experience of extreme. It leads to questions: “Is the LORD among us or not?” This question “Where is God?” is a question that is echoed in every situation in which the people of God are suffering. In the wilderness, people more often than not may be faced with an acute sense of God’s absence.
However, on the other hand, rooted in the questioning of God and Moses is the notion of amnesia. The people have forgotten God’s powerful intervention of miraculously provided food. The people have forgotten God’s powerful intervention at the sea, saving the people from the charging Egyptian army.
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ON THIS THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT, we confess that our memory is short. In the face of uncertainty, when it seems that the numbers and resources are falling short:
● We forget the ways in which God has remained with us.
● We forget the ways God has blessed us.
● We forget God’s presence through both drought and harvest.
● We forget God is with us in famine and feast.
● We forget the words that we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own
forever.
● We forget what God has done for us.
When life is hard and the world’s chaos seems particularly painful, we are inclined to stomp our feet and pout, “Is God among us or not?” We confess that our memory is short.
● In the midst of life, we might be tempted to complain.
● In the hard times, we might be tempted to give up.
● In the dry times, we might thirst for safer times.
● In the desert places, we might wish for slavery over freedom.
● In life, we might long for the familiar rather than the promise.
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HOWEVER, IN THE MIDST of our own wilderness, we might just find that God is providing life-giving water.
In the midst of our parched lives we might just find that God quenches our thirst.
In the periods of our lives when we experience deprivation of some sort, we are ensured of God’s constant presence providing us with what we need.
The life-giving gift of water is symbolic of the ultimate goal that we may not only survive but also flourish.
— Keith Cardwell
