Septuagesima
Ex.
17:1-7
1/28/24
You
and I never think about water. We just assume
that we will go to the tap in the kitchen for water to drink. We will have water
for cooking. We can turn on the shower and there will be water for bathing. The washing machine will have water for
washing our clothes. During the summer we can water our flowers. Water is simply a given in our lives.
The
only time we think about water are those rare occasions when there is a
problem. When there is a leak, we are
reminded about how much we don’t like plumbing problems. When there is a boil order, we are annoyed by
the brief inconvenience. Recently, many
of us had to remember to let the faucets drip to make sure that our pipes
didn’t freeze.
However,
the situation is very different in other parts of the world. It is estimated that around 800 million
people in the world do not have access to safe water. Between two and three billion people
experience water shortages for at least one month per year. For hundreds of millions of people, acquiring
water is a time consuming job that occupies each day. People in places like Africa have to walk
miles in order to get water and then carry it back home. Water is a central
concern upon which life depends.
In
our Old Testament lesson we find that water was a crucial issue for the
Israelites. They had no water and the
situation seemed to be life threatening.
However, rather than trusting in God they complained and put him to the
test. They questioned whether the Lord
was among them or not.
Our
text begins by saying, “All the
congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by
stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but
there was no water for the people to drink.”
It is important to recognize that the journey was made according to the
Lord’s direction. He was in charge.
In the previous chapters the
Israelites had encountered water that was not drinkable. The people had
grumbled against Moses, and God had told Moses to throw a log into the water to
make it drinkable. Then when the people
had no food, God had begun to give manna in order to feed them. The Lord had provided for their needs.
Now the people had no water. Yet rather than trusting Yahweh to provide, they
quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses was
not just any individual. He was the one
Yahweh had used to bring Israel out of slavery in Egypt. After God brought
Israel through the Red Sea we are told, “Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the
Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD
and in his servant Moses.”
Quarreling with Moses was rejecting
God. Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do
you test the LORD?” However, the people chose to ignore what God had just
done for them. The people were thirsty
and so they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of
Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”
The real issue here is not water. It is a question of whether Yahweh was with them. We hear at the end of our text, “And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?”
Yahweh had delivered them from
Egyptian slavery in the Passover. He had
rescued them from the Egyptian army by bringing them through the Red Sea. He was providing manna for the people to
eat. And yet, when faced with this new
challenge the people questioned whether Yahweh was among them. In fact they
quarreled with Moses and grumbled against him because they believed he was not.
Yahweh had allowed this circumstance
to arise. It was a moment when Israel was called to faith in God. It was an opportunity for them to trust that
God was with them, and that he would continue to provide as he had in the past.
But Israel failed to trust. They failed to believe that Yahweh was among them.
This experience is not unique to
Israel. It is something that we face as
well. We encounter times when we need to
trust the Lord. Health problems bring
hardship to life and we wonder how long we will have to deal with these
things. Financial concerns cause worry
and uncertainty. Questions about employment and other decisions in life produce
anxiety.
God allowed Israel to encounter the
circumstance of no water. He did it so
that the people would be called to faith.
God allows the situations I have just mentioned for the same
reason. They become occasions that call
us to trust in God. They lead us to turn
away from ourselves and toward him.
We don’t want to hear it, but this is
something that we need. The old Adam in
us doesn’t want to trust in God. He
wants to rely on himself. He wants to
ignore God and sail through life.
God uses these circumstances to
crucify the old Adam in us. He uses them
to force us to turn away from ourselves and towards him. He leads us toward himself. We recognize as
parents that sometimes the best thing for our children is not what they
want. Sometimes situations they don’t
want are the best things for them in order to help them grow and develop.
Scripture
teaches us that God acts like a father.
Proverbs says, “My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline or be weary
of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in
whom he delights.” The writer to the Hebrews
quotes this text and then adds: “Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who
disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the
Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it
seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his
holiness.”
Israel
was facing one of these moments as they questioned whether God was with them.
They quarreled with Moses and he said to Yahweh, “What shall I do with this people? They are
almost ready to stone me.” God told
Moses to take his staff. This was the
staff with which Moses had struck the Nile Rivers as God turned it into
blood. It was the staff he had lifted up
when God parted the Red Sea.
Yahweh told
Moses, “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you
shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will
drink.” God said that he would be
present and would demonstrate this fact.
He had Moses strike the rock with his staff, and water came forth for
the people. The people had tested God
saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”
God had shown them again that he was.
Is the Lord among us or not? It is the question that confronts us when we experience challenges and difficulties. God has answered this question once and for all in an eternal way. During Christmas we celebrated the fact that God sent his Son into the world. The angel told Joseph, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Then Matthew tells us, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’(which means, God with us).”
Jesus Christ is Immanuel. He is God with us. He was God with us as he entered his baptism in
order take our sins upon himself. He
made his way to the cross in order to be the sacrifice for us. Peter tells us in his first letter that we
were “ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not
with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood
of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Because of Jesus’ death, you have the
forgiveness of your sins. You are forgiven for the times you have failed to
trust in God.
Buried in death, God raised Jesus up
on the third day. Through Christ’s
resurrection God defeated death forever.
Peter said, “Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great
mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
The risen Lord declared that all
authority in heaven and earth have been given to him. Then he promised his disciples, “And
behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Ascended and
exalted into heaven Jesus Christ is still Immanuel – God with us. He has poured forth his Spirit who has called
us to faith in the waters of baptism and now sustains us as the children of
God. The life giving Spirit is the
presence of the risen Lord among us. He comes to us through the Word he
inspired as we hear the good news about Jesus.
And our Lord continues to be among us
in a tangible way. The Lord is still the incarnate One. He is still true God and true man. In the Sacrament of the Altar he comes into
our midst bodily as he gives us his true body and blood to eat and to drink.
Through this body and blood he delivers the forgiveness that he won on the
cross. Here he feeds the new man so that we are strengthened in faith.
Is the Lord among us or not? Yes he
is. God has revealed the presence of his
love and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
Christ continues to be with us through His Spirit and Means of
Grace. In Christ we find the
demonstration of God’s love and care.
Because of Christ we find that we can trust and believe in God no matter
what is happening.
We do this as we walk by faith. But in the resurrection and ascension of
Jesus we have the promise that the walk of faith will become one of sight. John wrote, “Beloved, we are God's
children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know
that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see
him as he is.” We trust and believe in
the Lord who will return in glory on the Last Day. The Lord is among us now, and we look forward
to the day when we will share forever in his resurrection.
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