Third Sunday in Lent
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
Object:
Israel is underway in this story, as the church is underway. Israel's story is our story. She has been redeemed out of slavery in Egypt, just as we have been redeemed by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ out of our slavery to sin and death. And now, like Israel, you and I are making our way through the wilderness toward a promised land of rest. We are midway between our redemption and our final salvation in the Kingdom of God. The goal toward which we press lies out there ahead of us (cf. Philippians 3:12), as the promise land lay out ahead of Israel.
But as we journey on this pilgrimage of ours toward our final salvation, surely we, like Israel, find ourselves in a desolate and forbidding wilderness. Israel was threatened by heat and thirst, hunger and scorpions and jackals. We, in our comfortable lifestyle, know none of those things. But we do know fear of illness and death, don't we -- fear of disrupted loves and disappointments in relationships; fear of violence and terrorists, of crime and sudden calamities, of a world that has lost all sense of good and that is plunging into chaos. And in the midst of our own private and corporate wildernesses, we are like the Israelites. We look for someone to blame.
It is notable in our text that Israel, despite all of the wonders of the exodus that she has experienced from God's hands, directs her eyes solely to the human realm. She blames Moses for her difficulties. He has led her out of slavery into her trouble. He is blamed for her thirst and privation. His purpose is to kill the adults and children and cattle. He is at fault. Here is a people who has been delivered from the pursuing troops of the Pharaoh and led safely on dry land through the Reed Sea, not by Moses' power but by God's. Here is a folk who has been guarded at front and rear by God's protection in pillar of fire and cloud. Here is a company that has been delivered into a foretaste of "the glorious liberty of the children of God." And yet, when she faces renewed dangers, she forgets all God has done and considers her fate to be entirely in the hands of a human being.
We are very much like that, aren't we? We remain in our vision of life on a human level. Our lives, we think, are in the hands, not of God, but of the politicians, the military, the multinational corporations. Our successes and failures are due to our bosses, our spouses, or yes, to luck or chance. Maybe a teacher misguided us, or our parents didn't raise us right. Maybe we grew up in the wrong kind of environment or were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or just maybe we ourselves have to work a little harder, or learn better how to get along, or read that new "how to" book in order to improve our lot. Our pilgrimage, we think, is a solely human journey, and God has nothing to do with it.
One of the reasons Moses is such a towering figure in the Old Testament, however, is because he knows who is in charge of all life. Moses knows that he is not leading his people. God is. And Moses knows, in the midst of difficulties, to whom to turn. He does not try to justify his leadership or to make excuses for the people's situation. No. Moses prays to God for help in his desperate situation. Moses knows that the Israelites really are questioning not him, but God's guidance. They are putting not him but God to the test.
Moses' cry to God for help is genuine. He does not know what the answer will be to his plea for aid. He himself cannot fathom why God has brought them into such a wilderness situation. He simply, in faith, turns to his Lord whom he knows is always present, because he realizes that we have to do in our wildernesses not just with human beings, but with the Lord who is always with us.
The incredible happening is that for his disobedient people, God supplies their need. If you read through the stories of Israel's wilderness wanderings, you find a continual history of complaint (cf. Exodus 15:22-25; Numbers 11:4-6; 14:1-3; 20:1-13). And yet, God, in the face of all of our complaints, our forgetfulness of him, our lack of trust, supplies his faithless people with water to quench their thirst. And that water is not provided from an unnoticed spring or succulent desert plant, but from a rock, because God is Lord over nature's ways too. He could send ten plagues upon the enslaving Egyptians and roll back the waters of the Reed Sea. So too, as the Lord of all nature and history, he can bring forth drink from stone. But Moses names the place of that supplying water Massah and Meribah, meaning "proof" and "contention," as the perpetual reminder of the fact that Israel -- and we -- constantly complain in all our difficulties, and never remember with what forgiving mercy we are being supplied by our God.
The final verse of our text says that Israel's question was, "Is the Lord with us or not?" But actually, through most of the story, Israel never even considers that question. She forgets entirely that it is God who is guiding her pilgrimage, despite the fact that Moses early (v. 2) tries to remind her of God's leading. And we, who repeatedly hear in our churches that God is with us and guiding us, seem always to think not of God, but solely of human matters. We remain on our profane and secular level, and never see God's working among us.
May I remind you, then, that God is guiding your individual lives and the life of this church on a pilgrimage toward his good kingdom? That he has redeemed us all out of slavery to sin and death by the sacrifice and resurrection of his Son? And that Jesus Christ has promised that he will be with us always, even to the end of time? We are not alone as we journey through all the difficulties and terrors of our wilderness existence. Jesus Christ goes with us, a front guard and a rear guard, and our Savior always in our midst. And more than that, he tells us that in our time of thirst for good and need for victory over evil and even death, his is the Spirit that can give us water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14). "If anyone thirst," he teaches us in John's Gospel -- if any of you are arched for comfort and guidance, for strength and goodness and love -- "come to me and drink," (John 7:37) our Savior says, and never thirst again.
But as we journey on this pilgrimage of ours toward our final salvation, surely we, like Israel, find ourselves in a desolate and forbidding wilderness. Israel was threatened by heat and thirst, hunger and scorpions and jackals. We, in our comfortable lifestyle, know none of those things. But we do know fear of illness and death, don't we -- fear of disrupted loves and disappointments in relationships; fear of violence and terrorists, of crime and sudden calamities, of a world that has lost all sense of good and that is plunging into chaos. And in the midst of our own private and corporate wildernesses, we are like the Israelites. We look for someone to blame.
It is notable in our text that Israel, despite all of the wonders of the exodus that she has experienced from God's hands, directs her eyes solely to the human realm. She blames Moses for her difficulties. He has led her out of slavery into her trouble. He is blamed for her thirst and privation. His purpose is to kill the adults and children and cattle. He is at fault. Here is a people who has been delivered from the pursuing troops of the Pharaoh and led safely on dry land through the Reed Sea, not by Moses' power but by God's. Here is a folk who has been guarded at front and rear by God's protection in pillar of fire and cloud. Here is a company that has been delivered into a foretaste of "the glorious liberty of the children of God." And yet, when she faces renewed dangers, she forgets all God has done and considers her fate to be entirely in the hands of a human being.
We are very much like that, aren't we? We remain in our vision of life on a human level. Our lives, we think, are in the hands, not of God, but of the politicians, the military, the multinational corporations. Our successes and failures are due to our bosses, our spouses, or yes, to luck or chance. Maybe a teacher misguided us, or our parents didn't raise us right. Maybe we grew up in the wrong kind of environment or were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or just maybe we ourselves have to work a little harder, or learn better how to get along, or read that new "how to" book in order to improve our lot. Our pilgrimage, we think, is a solely human journey, and God has nothing to do with it.
One of the reasons Moses is such a towering figure in the Old Testament, however, is because he knows who is in charge of all life. Moses knows that he is not leading his people. God is. And Moses knows, in the midst of difficulties, to whom to turn. He does not try to justify his leadership or to make excuses for the people's situation. No. Moses prays to God for help in his desperate situation. Moses knows that the Israelites really are questioning not him, but God's guidance. They are putting not him but God to the test.
Moses' cry to God for help is genuine. He does not know what the answer will be to his plea for aid. He himself cannot fathom why God has brought them into such a wilderness situation. He simply, in faith, turns to his Lord whom he knows is always present, because he realizes that we have to do in our wildernesses not just with human beings, but with the Lord who is always with us.
The incredible happening is that for his disobedient people, God supplies their need. If you read through the stories of Israel's wilderness wanderings, you find a continual history of complaint (cf. Exodus 15:22-25; Numbers 11:4-6; 14:1-3; 20:1-13). And yet, God, in the face of all of our complaints, our forgetfulness of him, our lack of trust, supplies his faithless people with water to quench their thirst. And that water is not provided from an unnoticed spring or succulent desert plant, but from a rock, because God is Lord over nature's ways too. He could send ten plagues upon the enslaving Egyptians and roll back the waters of the Reed Sea. So too, as the Lord of all nature and history, he can bring forth drink from stone. But Moses names the place of that supplying water Massah and Meribah, meaning "proof" and "contention," as the perpetual reminder of the fact that Israel -- and we -- constantly complain in all our difficulties, and never remember with what forgiving mercy we are being supplied by our God.
The final verse of our text says that Israel's question was, "Is the Lord with us or not?" But actually, through most of the story, Israel never even considers that question. She forgets entirely that it is God who is guiding her pilgrimage, despite the fact that Moses early (v. 2) tries to remind her of God's leading. And we, who repeatedly hear in our churches that God is with us and guiding us, seem always to think not of God, but solely of human matters. We remain on our profane and secular level, and never see God's working among us.
May I remind you, then, that God is guiding your individual lives and the life of this church on a pilgrimage toward his good kingdom? That he has redeemed us all out of slavery to sin and death by the sacrifice and resurrection of his Son? And that Jesus Christ has promised that he will be with us always, even to the end of time? We are not alone as we journey through all the difficulties and terrors of our wilderness existence. Jesus Christ goes with us, a front guard and a rear guard, and our Savior always in our midst. And more than that, he tells us that in our time of thirst for good and need for victory over evil and even death, his is the Spirit that can give us water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14). "If anyone thirst," he teaches us in John's Gospel -- if any of you are arched for comfort and guidance, for strength and goodness and love -- "come to me and drink," (John 7:37) our Savior says, and never thirst again.
