A Remarkable Grace
Sermon
CALLED TO JERUSALEM: SENT TO THE WORLD
Sermons For Lent And Easter
I. An Unexpected Wilderness
With surprising gentleness the huge jetliner settled upon the runway and began its ambulatory procession to a gate. The flight crew offered its usual greeting: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Moscow." At three o'clock in the afternoon on the first day of February, 1991, a cloudy overcast made the hour seem even later. It was just six months before the short-lived coup d'etat by the military and the KGB and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union as we had known it.1
Being in Moscow still seemed unreal. The opportunity had come suddenly, less than a month before, as an invitation to establish contact with evangelical Christians in the U.S.S.R. I would have time in Moscow and Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. After a half-day orientation tour of each of the cities, I was on my own, free to go and come as I would. A delegation of Christians met us at the aiarport. Before the baggage was delivered, an invitation to preach at the oldest Baptist church in the metropolitan Moscow area had been extended ... and accepted!
There was a sense of exhilaration as the days unfolded. Many spoke some English. CNN broadcasts in English were available on television sets in hotel rooms and public lounges. Leading Western newspapers were available on newsstands in the hotel lobby. Major international credit cards, including Visa and Mastercard, were welcome, and instant long-distance telephone service back home was as easy as slipping a major credit card into the lobby phone.
Traveling in the subways and street cars one encountered a friendly, sometimes curious, welcome. "Americansky?" "Yes!" There would be a smile, a handshake, and not infrequently a hug. Folks readily offered help and directions. Late into the evening on the day of arrival, it was decided to board the subway for a visit to Red Square. Except for the honor guards at Lenin's tomb and two city policemen, the square that had held 250,000 demonstrators a few days earlier was deserted. The policemen seemed to welcome the opportunity for conversation. Otherwise it was lonely duty on a cold and windy night ... minus 34 degrees Fahrenheit!
There was both excitement and apprehension about the changes. In the West, Mikhail Gorbachev was given much of the credit and high approval ratings. The President of the United States had grown to like, believe and trust him. So had most in the Western world. One expected to hear praise and gratitude from the people of the Soviet Union, too. But it was not so.
When Mr. Gorbachev was mentioned, it was as if there could never be an encouraging word - not anywhere, neither in Moscow nor in Leningrad. Nearly everyone agreed that Communism was no longer a viable system for the Soviet Union. A guide in Leningrad said: "No nation in history has given Communism and Leninism a better try. For 70 years we have lied, killed, covered up and fabricated - all to make the system work. The people know it now. We can never go back. We must be rid of it. Mr. Gorbachev is not willing to make a full change. Capitalism and Communisim, as we know them, are not compatible. Going halfway is the worst of both worlds."
Food store shelves in the cities were empty, for sure. An entrenched bureaucracy tends to sabotage the changes from a controlled to a free society and economy. It is axiomatic that as values, mores, institutions and socio/economic/political systems change, there is a period of confusion and functional disintegration and dysfunction before the new order is operative. In the U.S.S.R., honest flea markets flourish. So too does the Black Market ... and the Soviet versions of the mafia. Where confusion reigns, such enterprises have a heyday, legally and illegally. The bribe becomes the currency of commerce and supply.
People are caught in the middle. Prices, floating on supply and demand, reflect real costs. Incomes paid by the state, fixed on a controlled price system, remain the same. The people want freedom, but they are angry at the wilderness of the transition, and at the seemingly hesitant or incompetent leadership by Gorbachev and others. They were wandering helplessly in a wilderness they did not understand, could not control and may not survive. They hungered for freedom from the slavery and fear of the old system. "We are tired of being afraid," one poster had proclaimed in a recent demonstration. But they had not expected the price. "Why did Mr. Gorbachev start something he did not have the courage or wisdom to finish?" They asked it angrily, and often. This question would become more vehement in the months ahead.
II. Questions Of Integrity And Leadership
In like manner, and for some of the same reasons, the people murmured against Moses almost 35 centuries ago. "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst (Exodus 17:3)?" The people were so angry that Moses believed they might rise up as an angry mob, stoning him to death (Exodus 17:4). This was not the first time the people would complain about food or water, and it would not be the last, either.2
Before we jump to easy conclusions about the morality or the faith of these ancient people, it is well for us to remember how difficult this must have been for them. They had hated the slavery of Egypt, to be sure. But even in slavery there had been some security and perhaps even moments of serenity. At least there had been food and water, a fact they never allowed Moses - and God - to forget. They wanted freedom and the Promised Land, but they wondered whether they would even survive the wilderness long enough to get there, just as Soviet citizens are heard to wonder today.
It the traditional exodus route around the apex of the Sinai peninsula is correct,3 they may have believed there was good reason to question Moses' judgment. Assuming that they were going to Canaan, the land promised to Abraham and affirmed to the patriarchs, then Moses must be lost! Everyone knows that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. The trade route along the Mediterranean and up through Gaza - or even a strategic approach through the east side of the Jordan valley - was obvious and direct. Why was Moses (and God!) sending the whole migration around the horn of the Sinai?
Archaeologists and historians have wondered, too. Perhaps, since Moses had been reared as a son of Pharaoh and must surely have held a commission in Pharaoh's army until his untimely killing of an Egyptian official, he knew the locations of the military fortifications in the Sinai. A trade route would also be a military route and would have exposed the people of the exodus to continuing military harassment from the survivors of those who had been drowned in the sea that first night. Perhaps Moses headed for the deep wilderness of the Sinai so that this host of people could "get lost" on purpose, much like we send modern nuclear submarines into the vastness of the Atlantic or Pacific to "get lost," thereby preserving their strategic usefulness as an intimidating "deterrent response strike force."
Whatever the reason, the "southern route" severely lengthened the trip, deepened the problems of day-by-day life, and raised questions for many about their survival of the journey itself. Many must have questioned Moses' leadership, his judgment and his good sense. In any journey (not to mention a "migration") careful planning must be given to even the most basic logistics: food, water and protection. Places for encampment and strategies for protection from attack by armies and/or marauding bandits must be anticipated. The larger the traveling group, the more complex are the problems ... and the more pressing!
Moses should have known well the Sinai peninsula. He had crossed it years earlier as a fugitive and grazed his father-in-law's flocks in that region. It is partially desert. At best it is an arid gravelly plateau in the north and hilly country in the south near the three peaks that encircle the Mount Sinai of tradition.4 It does rain, but not more than once each year. There is no evidence that it has ever been different. The Sinai can and does support the lives of wandering Bedouin tribes and grazes their flocks, just as it has done for thousands of years. On the other hand, "watering and feeding" people and flocks is different from supporting a migration of several hundred ... or tens of thousands. In any event, to people accustomed to the plenty of the delta region of Egypt, the Sinai was a fearful place. No wonder they often complained: "O that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic (Numbers 11:4-5)."5
No wonder they might have asked, "Whose great idea is this? It it God's, or is it Moses'?" "Is the Lord among us or not?"
III. A Remarkable Grace
In the moments of our despair, it is not an easy thing to maintain either an emotional or an intellectual balance. Our memories are selective to the moment. It is as if we choose to recall and recite only those things that nourish and support our sense of panic or despair. Isn't it so!
Without this in mind, one might wonder how these people could ask such a question. Unlike our apprehensive Soviet contemporaries, schooled for nearly a century in the denial of a God and of any destiny that is not self-generated and self-delivered, the Israelites were surrounded with evidences of the presence of God. There were the promises to the patriarchs and well-remembered national mythologies about those early years.6 There had been the plagues sent by God to cause Pharaoh to allow the exodus. There were the parting of the sea and the drowning of the Egyptian army that pursued them. God had sent Moses to them and they had seen God stretch out his arms to save him. How could they have asked, "Is the Lord among us or not?"
During the Sinai wanderings, God did not leave his presence without a witnessing manifestation. That the route taken, whichever it was, was not Moses' sole choice (or at least, that it was not a decision made without God's approval!) should have been clear from the fact that "the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night (Exodus 13:21)." Moreover, with a remarkable grace, God responded to their real needs as well as to their complaining.
Just as we might have expected God to "throw up his hands" at the grumbling ingratitude for all done thus far, and just as we might have expected God to be angered by the short memories of blessings past that ought to have given patience and courage for the moment, just at this moment, God bends down and helps again.
There is a shortage of water and God commands Moses to strike a particular rock which God will indicate. "And Moses did so (Exodus 17:6)." That water gushed forth is not the heart of this text. It is, instead, the powerful faithfulness of God to address the real needs of his people - and his willingness to do so!
Though not in today's text, there will be complaints first about food, and then about the boring "manna" God provided. Again, God is faithful. There is manna, and there is quail: "I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel; say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God' (Exodus 16:12)."
In every case, the miracles themselves are not the heart of the story. The faithfulness of God is. Even to this day one can strike a rock in the Sinai and release water. A hard smooth crust forms over weathered limestone, covering a soft inner surface which opens, in turn, to hidden underground streams. This is "an ancient Bedouin technique of digging down into an apparently long-dried-out bed of a wadi in order to reach the sub-surface waters left over from the winter rains."7
To this day, there is an annual migration of quail flying from Africa to Europe which settles on the Sinai peninsula for short periods to regain strength after the long flight across the sea. Doubtlessly skilled from the Egyptian delta practice of "throwing sticks" for fowling, the Israelites could easily gather fresh food.
More than 500 years ago pilgrims described "manna." More recently two Hebrew University scholars Freidrich Bodenheimer and Oskar Theodor found the manna to be "particularly sweet ... most of all like honey when it is left for a long time to solidify."8 Though the supply is unpredictable in our day, an adult can gather "some four pounds of it in a single morning."9 It may well be that Moses, knowing the Sinai, was called upon to use all of his resourcefulness. On the other hand, it is God who called, led and empowered Moses, from the days of his watery cradle, for this moment.
It is a remarkable grace. Folks want freedom, but there's little willingness to be inconvenienced for it. Whether Israelites in the wilderness or citizens who hunger to be free from one system and members of another, we all want liberty without risk. Stubborn, murmuring and willing to put both Moses and God to the test (Exodus 17:1-3), they rise up in anger, enough for Moses to fear for his life. Still, faithfully, God provides.
IV. "God In The Dock"10
All of these things provide delightful stories, to be sure. But what do they mean for us? Here are five insights worth pondering and remembering.
1. God in the Dock - The second verse of the chapter goes to the heart of the issue. And Moses said to them, "Why do you find fault with me? Why do you put the Lord to the proof (Exodus 17:2b)?" God, and Moses as God's agent, are clearly on trial. This is a reversal of what we usually say we believe. In confession we approach God as our judge. But in today's lesson, God is in the dock. C. S. Lewis writes: "Modern man is the judge. God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge, if God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and god in the dock."11
"Is the Lord among us or not?" the people demanded. That is to ask whether God is on our side or not. Abraham Lincoln is said to have rephrased the question: "Are we on God's side or not?" When God says, "I will be with you on my terms," we respond instead, "Be with me on my terms." As a pastor, I have lost count of the number of times and circumstances wherein it has been said: "If I ever get out of this, I will be in church every Sunday." That is to say nothing more or less than one accepts God on one's own terms. God is the eternally entrapped genie who is allowed out of his lamp only to do our bidding. Such an attitude is "stiff necked" and closed to the Spirit of God to come, to heal and to give the gift of faith.
2. Trust and Faith - Just as Abraham left Haran with the promises of God but with no idea just where he was going, so faith is always trusting, and trusting is always risky. To believe in God is to take risks with God. Parish councils and individual stewards at pledge time are noteworthy for the lack of willingness to take even a small and controllable risk of spiritual and fiscal generosity. "I can't make a pledge. I'll give as I can. You never know what will happen." Whether walking with God in the wilderness or reaching with God for mission, there are risks to be taken because we have God's word. Those who do not take them will always be the murmurers, the grumblers, the fault finders and the proof seekers.
3. Honest Expectations - One wonders just what it is that the exodus people expected. One wonders what we expect. Do we really believe that God is supposed to make all things easy, that there are no realistic prices for freedom, justice or personal and spiritual healing? Do we believe we can have Jesus and change nothing? Did the Israelites think they could travel to Canaan without inconvenience and trial?
Similarly, does suffering mean the absence of God? It surely did not on Good Friday. In all of the terror and pain of those hours, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19)." On the other hand, are affluence and success proof of God's presence and blessing? We know better. The rightness of the issue is not necessarily tested in a moment. It must be seen by the long view.
4. God Promises to Meet Our Needs - God meets our needs, but not necessarily our wants. Moreover, this meeting of our needs is always caught up in the decisions and commitments we are making in other areas of our lives. There are prices to our disciplines in faith. There are prices, too, to our self-indulgence.
5. Still God Comes to Us! - Even in the face of an angry mob scene, God comes and provides the promised care. His pattern has not changed. The plan of salvation has been evident since the Fall. God came looking with judgment and with grace. In time, he would come in the quiet of a night in Bethlehem. This is the absolutely incomparable message of the gospel, that God comes to man, man does not go to God ... God does things for us, anticipates us, comes in quest of us, and carries us all the way.
That is the profoundly personal and solidly historical answer to today's question. "Is the Lord among us or not?"
He is, absolutely! He is "Emmanuel!" A remarkable grace!
End Notes
1. This sermon was written some weeks prior to the August 19, 1991, coup d'etat. It has been slightly revised. The parallel will remain useful, but by the time of publication, it will no doubt need updating.
2. See Exodus 16:2-3 and Numbers 11:4-6; 14:2-3; 20:2-5; 21:4-5.
3. Ian Wilson, Exodus: The True Story Behind the Biblical Account, (San Francisco, Harper and Row, Publishers, 1985), pp. 150-158. Herein is a full discussion of the several proposed "routes" of the exodus, including one of the finest maps on the topic on page 154. This sermon does not provide opportunity to discuss the reason for the confusion over exodus routes or the date of the exodus. None of the sites mentioned in Exodus and Numbers - not even Kadesh-Barnea, at which the Israelites remined for as much as 38 years - has been identified by archaeological study. The one exception is the Egyptian mining town of Serabit al-Khadim in the Sinai.
4. G. E. Wright, "Mount Sinai," The Interpreter's Dictionary of The Bible, Vol. 4, George Arthur Buttrick, Editor, (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1962), pp. 376-377. Like other sites of the exodus, the location of Mount Sinai (Mount Horeb in the "Elohist" tradition) is unsure. Site suggestions range from the hills of Midian in Saudi Arabia to Jebel Halal in the Negev. The unbroken tradition, since Saint Helena's chapel there in the fourth century, has caused most to accept Jebel Musa, one of the three peaks (and not the highest!) in the southern tip of the Sinai.
5. Wilson, op. cit., p. 149.
6. A "myth" is not necessarily an untruth or an unfounded legend. Myths are the stories a people tell about themselves that embody their self-understandings of origins, purposes and values. George Washington's "cherry tree" and Abe Lincoln's "log cabins and honest store clerk days" are two of our "national myths" which teach our children what we believe to be good and what we want to become.
7. Wilson, op. cit., p. 149.
8. Ibid., p. 150.
9. Ibid.
10. C. S. Lewis, "The Grand Miracle," A Collection of Essays on Theology and Ethics from God in the Dock, Walter Hooper, editor, (New York, Ballantine Books, 1983), pp. 146-150.
11. Ibid., pp. 149-150.
With surprising gentleness the huge jetliner settled upon the runway and began its ambulatory procession to a gate. The flight crew offered its usual greeting: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Moscow." At three o'clock in the afternoon on the first day of February, 1991, a cloudy overcast made the hour seem even later. It was just six months before the short-lived coup d'etat by the military and the KGB and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union as we had known it.1
Being in Moscow still seemed unreal. The opportunity had come suddenly, less than a month before, as an invitation to establish contact with evangelical Christians in the U.S.S.R. I would have time in Moscow and Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. After a half-day orientation tour of each of the cities, I was on my own, free to go and come as I would. A delegation of Christians met us at the aiarport. Before the baggage was delivered, an invitation to preach at the oldest Baptist church in the metropolitan Moscow area had been extended ... and accepted!
There was a sense of exhilaration as the days unfolded. Many spoke some English. CNN broadcasts in English were available on television sets in hotel rooms and public lounges. Leading Western newspapers were available on newsstands in the hotel lobby. Major international credit cards, including Visa and Mastercard, were welcome, and instant long-distance telephone service back home was as easy as slipping a major credit card into the lobby phone.
Traveling in the subways and street cars one encountered a friendly, sometimes curious, welcome. "Americansky?" "Yes!" There would be a smile, a handshake, and not infrequently a hug. Folks readily offered help and directions. Late into the evening on the day of arrival, it was decided to board the subway for a visit to Red Square. Except for the honor guards at Lenin's tomb and two city policemen, the square that had held 250,000 demonstrators a few days earlier was deserted. The policemen seemed to welcome the opportunity for conversation. Otherwise it was lonely duty on a cold and windy night ... minus 34 degrees Fahrenheit!
There was both excitement and apprehension about the changes. In the West, Mikhail Gorbachev was given much of the credit and high approval ratings. The President of the United States had grown to like, believe and trust him. So had most in the Western world. One expected to hear praise and gratitude from the people of the Soviet Union, too. But it was not so.
When Mr. Gorbachev was mentioned, it was as if there could never be an encouraging word - not anywhere, neither in Moscow nor in Leningrad. Nearly everyone agreed that Communism was no longer a viable system for the Soviet Union. A guide in Leningrad said: "No nation in history has given Communism and Leninism a better try. For 70 years we have lied, killed, covered up and fabricated - all to make the system work. The people know it now. We can never go back. We must be rid of it. Mr. Gorbachev is not willing to make a full change. Capitalism and Communisim, as we know them, are not compatible. Going halfway is the worst of both worlds."
Food store shelves in the cities were empty, for sure. An entrenched bureaucracy tends to sabotage the changes from a controlled to a free society and economy. It is axiomatic that as values, mores, institutions and socio/economic/political systems change, there is a period of confusion and functional disintegration and dysfunction before the new order is operative. In the U.S.S.R., honest flea markets flourish. So too does the Black Market ... and the Soviet versions of the mafia. Where confusion reigns, such enterprises have a heyday, legally and illegally. The bribe becomes the currency of commerce and supply.
People are caught in the middle. Prices, floating on supply and demand, reflect real costs. Incomes paid by the state, fixed on a controlled price system, remain the same. The people want freedom, but they are angry at the wilderness of the transition, and at the seemingly hesitant or incompetent leadership by Gorbachev and others. They were wandering helplessly in a wilderness they did not understand, could not control and may not survive. They hungered for freedom from the slavery and fear of the old system. "We are tired of being afraid," one poster had proclaimed in a recent demonstration. But they had not expected the price. "Why did Mr. Gorbachev start something he did not have the courage or wisdom to finish?" They asked it angrily, and often. This question would become more vehement in the months ahead.
II. Questions Of Integrity And Leadership
In like manner, and for some of the same reasons, the people murmured against Moses almost 35 centuries ago. "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst (Exodus 17:3)?" The people were so angry that Moses believed they might rise up as an angry mob, stoning him to death (Exodus 17:4). This was not the first time the people would complain about food or water, and it would not be the last, either.2
Before we jump to easy conclusions about the morality or the faith of these ancient people, it is well for us to remember how difficult this must have been for them. They had hated the slavery of Egypt, to be sure. But even in slavery there had been some security and perhaps even moments of serenity. At least there had been food and water, a fact they never allowed Moses - and God - to forget. They wanted freedom and the Promised Land, but they wondered whether they would even survive the wilderness long enough to get there, just as Soviet citizens are heard to wonder today.
It the traditional exodus route around the apex of the Sinai peninsula is correct,3 they may have believed there was good reason to question Moses' judgment. Assuming that they were going to Canaan, the land promised to Abraham and affirmed to the patriarchs, then Moses must be lost! Everyone knows that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. The trade route along the Mediterranean and up through Gaza - or even a strategic approach through the east side of the Jordan valley - was obvious and direct. Why was Moses (and God!) sending the whole migration around the horn of the Sinai?
Archaeologists and historians have wondered, too. Perhaps, since Moses had been reared as a son of Pharaoh and must surely have held a commission in Pharaoh's army until his untimely killing of an Egyptian official, he knew the locations of the military fortifications in the Sinai. A trade route would also be a military route and would have exposed the people of the exodus to continuing military harassment from the survivors of those who had been drowned in the sea that first night. Perhaps Moses headed for the deep wilderness of the Sinai so that this host of people could "get lost" on purpose, much like we send modern nuclear submarines into the vastness of the Atlantic or Pacific to "get lost," thereby preserving their strategic usefulness as an intimidating "deterrent response strike force."
Whatever the reason, the "southern route" severely lengthened the trip, deepened the problems of day-by-day life, and raised questions for many about their survival of the journey itself. Many must have questioned Moses' leadership, his judgment and his good sense. In any journey (not to mention a "migration") careful planning must be given to even the most basic logistics: food, water and protection. Places for encampment and strategies for protection from attack by armies and/or marauding bandits must be anticipated. The larger the traveling group, the more complex are the problems ... and the more pressing!
Moses should have known well the Sinai peninsula. He had crossed it years earlier as a fugitive and grazed his father-in-law's flocks in that region. It is partially desert. At best it is an arid gravelly plateau in the north and hilly country in the south near the three peaks that encircle the Mount Sinai of tradition.4 It does rain, but not more than once each year. There is no evidence that it has ever been different. The Sinai can and does support the lives of wandering Bedouin tribes and grazes their flocks, just as it has done for thousands of years. On the other hand, "watering and feeding" people and flocks is different from supporting a migration of several hundred ... or tens of thousands. In any event, to people accustomed to the plenty of the delta region of Egypt, the Sinai was a fearful place. No wonder they often complained: "O that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic (Numbers 11:4-5)."5
No wonder they might have asked, "Whose great idea is this? It it God's, or is it Moses'?" "Is the Lord among us or not?"
III. A Remarkable Grace
In the moments of our despair, it is not an easy thing to maintain either an emotional or an intellectual balance. Our memories are selective to the moment. It is as if we choose to recall and recite only those things that nourish and support our sense of panic or despair. Isn't it so!
Without this in mind, one might wonder how these people could ask such a question. Unlike our apprehensive Soviet contemporaries, schooled for nearly a century in the denial of a God and of any destiny that is not self-generated and self-delivered, the Israelites were surrounded with evidences of the presence of God. There were the promises to the patriarchs and well-remembered national mythologies about those early years.6 There had been the plagues sent by God to cause Pharaoh to allow the exodus. There were the parting of the sea and the drowning of the Egyptian army that pursued them. God had sent Moses to them and they had seen God stretch out his arms to save him. How could they have asked, "Is the Lord among us or not?"
During the Sinai wanderings, God did not leave his presence without a witnessing manifestation. That the route taken, whichever it was, was not Moses' sole choice (or at least, that it was not a decision made without God's approval!) should have been clear from the fact that "the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night (Exodus 13:21)." Moreover, with a remarkable grace, God responded to their real needs as well as to their complaining.
Just as we might have expected God to "throw up his hands" at the grumbling ingratitude for all done thus far, and just as we might have expected God to be angered by the short memories of blessings past that ought to have given patience and courage for the moment, just at this moment, God bends down and helps again.
There is a shortage of water and God commands Moses to strike a particular rock which God will indicate. "And Moses did so (Exodus 17:6)." That water gushed forth is not the heart of this text. It is, instead, the powerful faithfulness of God to address the real needs of his people - and his willingness to do so!
Though not in today's text, there will be complaints first about food, and then about the boring "manna" God provided. Again, God is faithful. There is manna, and there is quail: "I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel; say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God' (Exodus 16:12)."
In every case, the miracles themselves are not the heart of the story. The faithfulness of God is. Even to this day one can strike a rock in the Sinai and release water. A hard smooth crust forms over weathered limestone, covering a soft inner surface which opens, in turn, to hidden underground streams. This is "an ancient Bedouin technique of digging down into an apparently long-dried-out bed of a wadi in order to reach the sub-surface waters left over from the winter rains."7
To this day, there is an annual migration of quail flying from Africa to Europe which settles on the Sinai peninsula for short periods to regain strength after the long flight across the sea. Doubtlessly skilled from the Egyptian delta practice of "throwing sticks" for fowling, the Israelites could easily gather fresh food.
More than 500 years ago pilgrims described "manna." More recently two Hebrew University scholars Freidrich Bodenheimer and Oskar Theodor found the manna to be "particularly sweet ... most of all like honey when it is left for a long time to solidify."8 Though the supply is unpredictable in our day, an adult can gather "some four pounds of it in a single morning."9 It may well be that Moses, knowing the Sinai, was called upon to use all of his resourcefulness. On the other hand, it is God who called, led and empowered Moses, from the days of his watery cradle, for this moment.
It is a remarkable grace. Folks want freedom, but there's little willingness to be inconvenienced for it. Whether Israelites in the wilderness or citizens who hunger to be free from one system and members of another, we all want liberty without risk. Stubborn, murmuring and willing to put both Moses and God to the test (Exodus 17:1-3), they rise up in anger, enough for Moses to fear for his life. Still, faithfully, God provides.
IV. "God In The Dock"10
All of these things provide delightful stories, to be sure. But what do they mean for us? Here are five insights worth pondering and remembering.
1. God in the Dock - The second verse of the chapter goes to the heart of the issue. And Moses said to them, "Why do you find fault with me? Why do you put the Lord to the proof (Exodus 17:2b)?" God, and Moses as God's agent, are clearly on trial. This is a reversal of what we usually say we believe. In confession we approach God as our judge. But in today's lesson, God is in the dock. C. S. Lewis writes: "Modern man is the judge. God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge, if God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and god in the dock."11
"Is the Lord among us or not?" the people demanded. That is to ask whether God is on our side or not. Abraham Lincoln is said to have rephrased the question: "Are we on God's side or not?" When God says, "I will be with you on my terms," we respond instead, "Be with me on my terms." As a pastor, I have lost count of the number of times and circumstances wherein it has been said: "If I ever get out of this, I will be in church every Sunday." That is to say nothing more or less than one accepts God on one's own terms. God is the eternally entrapped genie who is allowed out of his lamp only to do our bidding. Such an attitude is "stiff necked" and closed to the Spirit of God to come, to heal and to give the gift of faith.
2. Trust and Faith - Just as Abraham left Haran with the promises of God but with no idea just where he was going, so faith is always trusting, and trusting is always risky. To believe in God is to take risks with God. Parish councils and individual stewards at pledge time are noteworthy for the lack of willingness to take even a small and controllable risk of spiritual and fiscal generosity. "I can't make a pledge. I'll give as I can. You never know what will happen." Whether walking with God in the wilderness or reaching with God for mission, there are risks to be taken because we have God's word. Those who do not take them will always be the murmurers, the grumblers, the fault finders and the proof seekers.
3. Honest Expectations - One wonders just what it is that the exodus people expected. One wonders what we expect. Do we really believe that God is supposed to make all things easy, that there are no realistic prices for freedom, justice or personal and spiritual healing? Do we believe we can have Jesus and change nothing? Did the Israelites think they could travel to Canaan without inconvenience and trial?
Similarly, does suffering mean the absence of God? It surely did not on Good Friday. In all of the terror and pain of those hours, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19)." On the other hand, are affluence and success proof of God's presence and blessing? We know better. The rightness of the issue is not necessarily tested in a moment. It must be seen by the long view.
4. God Promises to Meet Our Needs - God meets our needs, but not necessarily our wants. Moreover, this meeting of our needs is always caught up in the decisions and commitments we are making in other areas of our lives. There are prices to our disciplines in faith. There are prices, too, to our self-indulgence.
5. Still God Comes to Us! - Even in the face of an angry mob scene, God comes and provides the promised care. His pattern has not changed. The plan of salvation has been evident since the Fall. God came looking with judgment and with grace. In time, he would come in the quiet of a night in Bethlehem. This is the absolutely incomparable message of the gospel, that God comes to man, man does not go to God ... God does things for us, anticipates us, comes in quest of us, and carries us all the way.
That is the profoundly personal and solidly historical answer to today's question. "Is the Lord among us or not?"
He is, absolutely! He is "Emmanuel!" A remarkable grace!
End Notes
1. This sermon was written some weeks prior to the August 19, 1991, coup d'etat. It has been slightly revised. The parallel will remain useful, but by the time of publication, it will no doubt need updating.
2. See Exodus 16:2-3 and Numbers 11:4-6; 14:2-3; 20:2-5; 21:4-5.
3. Ian Wilson, Exodus: The True Story Behind the Biblical Account, (San Francisco, Harper and Row, Publishers, 1985), pp. 150-158. Herein is a full discussion of the several proposed "routes" of the exodus, including one of the finest maps on the topic on page 154. This sermon does not provide opportunity to discuss the reason for the confusion over exodus routes or the date of the exodus. None of the sites mentioned in Exodus and Numbers - not even Kadesh-Barnea, at which the Israelites remined for as much as 38 years - has been identified by archaeological study. The one exception is the Egyptian mining town of Serabit al-Khadim in the Sinai.
4. G. E. Wright, "Mount Sinai," The Interpreter's Dictionary of The Bible, Vol. 4, George Arthur Buttrick, Editor, (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1962), pp. 376-377. Like other sites of the exodus, the location of Mount Sinai (Mount Horeb in the "Elohist" tradition) is unsure. Site suggestions range from the hills of Midian in Saudi Arabia to Jebel Halal in the Negev. The unbroken tradition, since Saint Helena's chapel there in the fourth century, has caused most to accept Jebel Musa, one of the three peaks (and not the highest!) in the southern tip of the Sinai.
5. Wilson, op. cit., p. 149.
6. A "myth" is not necessarily an untruth or an unfounded legend. Myths are the stories a people tell about themselves that embody their self-understandings of origins, purposes and values. George Washington's "cherry tree" and Abe Lincoln's "log cabins and honest store clerk days" are two of our "national myths" which teach our children what we believe to be good and what we want to become.
7. Wilson, op. cit., p. 149.
8. Ibid., p. 150.
9. Ibid.
10. C. S. Lewis, "The Grand Miracle," A Collection of Essays on Theology and Ethics from God in the Dock, Walter Hooper, editor, (New York, Ballantine Books, 1983), pp. 146-150.
11. Ibid., pp. 149-150.
