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Third Sunday of Lent
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt, March 19, 2017


Knowing What Was Really Going on Changes Everything


Text: Exodus 17:1–7

For those of us who have been Christians for a while, it is helpful to look back and reflect on all that God has done in our lives over the years. I’m able to look back at times where I had felt that God was cursing or punishing me but now see his love and wisdom in those times. There have been times where I have been angry at God or felt betrayed by him and then later realized that he had been moving in powerful ways in my life and the lives of my family. This morning I want us to consider our passages from Exodus 17 and 1 Corinthians 10 and see how God is always faithful to his word and plan and if we will follow him we will see his blessing.

Before we look at our Exodus 17 passage let’s consider the events of the previous few chapters of Exodus. In the last part of chapter 13 and chapter 14 the children of Israel have left the bondage and slavery of Egypt to begin their journey to the land that God had promised them. Exocus 13:21–22,

And 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. 22 The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

So the physical presence of God went before them as a reminder who it was that had freed them from the captivity of Egypt. At no time were they without the physical reminder that God was going before them. In chapter 14 they find out that Pharaoh had changed his mind and sent his armies after the children of Israel so they were now trapped by the Egyptian army behind them and the Red Sea in front of them. As Pharaoh and his army drew near they cried out to Moses,

“Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians.” And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Exodus 14:10–12

The Lord then commands Moses to lift up his staff and stretch out his hand over the sea and divide it. Moses does so, the waters part and the children of Israel walk across the floor of the Red Sea on dry ground. After the Israelites are across the armies of Egypt decide to follow and the walls of water being held back now come crashing down upon the army drowning them. Chapter 15 is the song of celebration that Moses and Israel sang to the Lord praising him for his deliverance. It was a wonderful song of praise and remembrance of what the God who was present had done for them. At the end of chapter 15 they come to the wilderness of Shur and began to look for water. They travel three days before they find water but it is to bitter to drink and once again the people cry out to Moses,

“What are we supposed to drink?” And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, 26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.” 27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.” Exodus 15:22–26

Then in chapter 16 they leave Elim and begin grumbling against Moses because they are running out of food and wish they were back in Egypt where they had plenty to eat, forgetting the fact that they had been slaves who were been severely mistreated for 400 years. Again Moses turns to God and God provides manna from heaven every morning and quail rains down into their camp for meat. Moses then says to Israel in verse 8,

“When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.” Exodus 16:8

So before we look at our text from chapter 17 we see that God has remained present with Israel and faithfully delivered them from captivity and bondage. He has performed an amazing miracle in parting the Red Sea and defeating their enemy. He has changed bitter water to sweet water and then led them to a camp where there was twelve springs of water. He has provided them the bread of angels and had meat in the form of quails drop out of the sky at their feet, as much as they could eat.

Now let’s consider our passage for this morning in light of what we have just seen. Let’s read Exodus 17:1–4,

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.2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people 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?” 4 So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

Are you starting to see a pattern here? Israel finds that they are lacking something that they need and they begin to complain amongst themselves and then to grumble against Moses. Remember that the pillar of cloud is with them by day and the pillar of fire by night that they might not forget that God was with them and had promised to bring them to the land of their inheritance if they are faithful. In all the situations that they had encountered so far Moses had himself not been the solution to their problems, God was. Each time they cried out to Moses what did he do, he cried out to the God who had promised to meet their need and did so every time. The word used for quarrel is a legal term which means “to bring a lawsuit” or legal proceedings. So the threat to Moses is most likely to perform an official execution but Moses pointed out to them that in actuality they were charging God with being unfaithful to his word. It was God who was on trial not Moses. Israel should have cried out to God for mercy and provision but instead they acted as if he wasn’t even in their midst. Surely Israel could have seen that Moses suffered from the same physical needs that Israel did but he knew to turn to God for his needs. God was teaching Israel trust and obedience. He was showing them that they could not meet their own physical needs but should trust in the provision of God.

The time of man’s greatest need is often the time of God’s richest gifts and blessings. Teresa and I have found that some of the greatest material blessings from God came at those times when we had nothing left but cried out to him. When we were in seminary and virtually broke we made it our policy to tell no one of our needs but to daily bring them to God our provider. We were overwhelmed at the creative ways that God provided for us and it almost always came from places that we would never have thought of. We discovered that it was in our times of dependence on God’s provision that we experienced his greatest blessings. Israel saw their need for food and water as a sign that God was no longer really with them and was unfaithful to his word, when in reality God longed to provide them with the living water that flows from the throne of God (Ezekiel 47:1–12; Zechariah 13:1, 14:8). He wanted them to depend upon him for the simple things in life so they would be prepared to trust him for the really difficult times ahead as they entered the Promised Land. That would be a time where they would face their enemies and would need to know what it was to trust God.

I love the answer that God gives Moses in response to his plea because it reminds of his love and patience with his people even when they are acting so foolish. Let’s read verses 5–7 of Exodus 17,

“And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 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.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 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?”

There are two very important points that I want us to see this morning from this answer.

1. God told Moses to pass before the people and to take elders to be witnesses to what was about to happen. Notice that God tells Moses to take the staff with which he had struck the Nile in Egypt and had used to part the Red Sea. Moses knew that this was God’s command and not some conjuring trick and I suspect that he didn’t doubt for a minute that water would gush out of the rock when he struck it. The name Horeb is not speaking of an actual rock in the desert but of a lower summit that leads to the top of Mt. Sinai, the place where God gives Moses the law. God is going to be standing there on the summit of Horeb and Moses is to strike this rock or summit with his staff. The result is that clear, fresh, living water pours out from the rock and the people are able to drink freely. God demonstrated that he was not guilty of abandoning his people and never again in their journey in the wilderness do we read of them lacking water.

In the scriptures rock is often a metaphor for royalty and here God is showing that he is the divine King who makes provision for his people. Instead of giving up on them for their disrespect and arrogance God instead shows them patience and mercy at least for now.

2. Dr. Edmund Clowney in his book, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament suggests that when God stood upon the rock at Horeb and commanded Moses to strike the rock with his staff it was because God was taking upon himself the judgment for Israel’s sin of unbelief and this points us to what God was going to do through Christ our savior. Israel was deserving of God’s judgment being poured out upon them. After all that he had done to demonstrate his love and power, they continually turned away from him and his promises at the least hint of discomfort or suffering. God would have been totally justified in wiping them off the face of the earth but instead chose to take their punishment upon himself and provide them with the water they craved. I cannot fathom such love as this. Moses wanted Israel to remember their unfaithfulness to God and the mercy that they were shown and so he named the place Massah (which means testing) and Meribah (which denotes the legal charges Israel brought against Moses and God).

Remembering that God is the great King above all kings and the Lord of all creation was to be an integral part of Israel’s worship and it should be in ours also. We see this reflected in Psalm 95 that we read this morning. This Psalm begins with a demonstration of how God should be praised and glorified.

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! 2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! 3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.4 In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. 5 The sea is his, for he made it,  and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

Then in the final four verses there is a final warning from the Lord to listen to his word and obey him.

“Today, if you hear his voice,8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

In our Epistle reading this morning the Apostle Paul is referring to this generation that saw and experienced the mercy of God but rejected him. Let’s read 1 Corinthians 10:1–5,

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Paul had just finished an exhortation at the end of chapter 9 encouraging the church at Corinth to think of their Christian life as running a race. His primary point was not that they had begun but that they needed to finish the race to win. He then draws their attention to the Old Testament example of Israel in the wilderness. He compares the example of Israel passing through the Red Sea and baptism. Christian baptism stresses the union of the believer with Jesus Christ in much the same way as the Israelites had all gone through the ordeal and deliverance of passing through the water by virtue of their identification with their leader Moses. All the members of the church in Corinth had been baptized into Jesus Christ and had in this experienced God’s deliverance, but if they did not remain faithful to God their baptism was no guarantee that God would be pleased to save them anymore than we was to save Israel when they turned away from him.

In addition to his baptismal analogy Paul is warning the Corinthians that they should not find false comfort in the fact that they all came to the Lord’s Table in the celebration of the Eucharist. He reminds them that all Israel received the divine provision of food and drink from God’s spirit who went with them wherever they went and in much the same way the church receives the Spirit’s nourishment in the Lord’s Supper. Paul points out that the spiritual Rock that provided Israel with living water was Christ and he was even then the divine, life giving King. Paul was building on the rabbinical tradition that the same rock followed Israel through all their wilderness wanderings. Whether it was the same rock or the stream continued to follow them doesn’t much matter. The point is that Christ was present with them in the wilderness and God standing upon the rock to take the blow from Moses staff was a foreshadowing of Jesus coming to take our sins upon himself on the cross. Despite all these blessings from God Israel remained stiff-necked and disobedient to God’s commands and the result was that most of them died in the wilderness and never entered the Promised Land. Of the original group that left Egypt only two, Joshua and Caleb entered the land that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants. Let’s continue with 1 Corinthians 10:6–12,

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. 12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

The Corinthian church had fallen for the same lies of the enemy as Israel. They both thought that their safety and security was assured because of the outward blessings that God had lavished upon them. Israel saw circumcision as the sign of their covenant relationship with God and they were right, it was but that relationship necessitated that they be obedient to the Lord that had established the sign for them. The Corinthians saw baptism as the symbol of their covenant relationship with God and it was, but it also necessitated that they walk in loving obedience to the Lord who had given it to them. Both of them forgot that God had called them into a relationship where he was their God and the focus of their existence and their reason for life. God desired intimacy with them and had withheld nothing from them that they needed but he expected their love and devotion in return.

In our gospel reading this morning from John 4 Jesus offers the woman at the well the same living water that was offered to Israel even though he knew all that she had done. He was offering her a new beginning where he was the source of refreshment. John 4:13–14,

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Israel was so short sighted that they couldn’t see all that God was offering them even though he revealed himself in many miraculous ways. The Corinthian church at the time of Paul’s had become fooled into believing that they were somehow special and were free to do and act however they wanted. I’m afraid that much of Western Christianity has fallen for the same old lies and deception. God is seen as loving, understanding and just wanting us to be happy. He is not seen as holy, and just but the cosmic grandfather. Israel found out that God would deal with their insolence and unfaithfulness and they lost all that they had gained. God has not changed, he is still holy and requires that we bow down before him in repentance, faith and surrender. The good news is that Jesus is still the living water and the only hope that we have for life as God intended both now and in the age to come. The promise and the acceptance still have the same requirements and blessings. God’s desire is still that he would be our God and we would be his people.

Who is the “we”? It is those who see the offer for what it is and lay down everything else to follow whatever path God desires for them. The pay-off? We get God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and their kingdom becomes our kingdom as well. It’s not found through baptism or the Lord’s table, these are outward manifestations of an inward reality and are the means of grace that God uses to impart his power and strength. So what should our response be? Again we see it plainly in our Psalm this morning.

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods…..
Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

Amen

©2017 Rev. Mike Moffitt

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