A, Lent 3 - Exodus 17:1-7 "Between the Rock & your hard place"

Moses was trapped between a rock and a hard place with those God called him to serve. The people grumbled, because with their eyes, with their understanding, and with their wisdom they could not see that it was God leading them his way, through Moses.

God had set the Israelites apart when he gave them the Passover meal and the restrictions that came with it. Not to mention, God commanded all first born to be consecrated to him, they were made holy to him. These were God’s chosen people, God loved them, and God was saving them.

Then they were freed from the tyranny of Pharaoh; washed clean of oppression through the waters of the Red Sea. But before the faithless Israelites crossed over they panicked, because they saw they were trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the water. So they blamed Moses for bringing them out into the desert to die.

After they crossed the Red Sea they wandered around in the desert for three days. They were thirsty and so the people, yet again, grumbled saying, “What are we to drink?” They had found water, but it was bitter. The place was called Marah, which means bitter.

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. He said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” (Exodus 15:25-26)

But they still did not trust God or the man God had chosen to lead them. They became hungry and complained yet again to Moses that it would be better to die in Egypt than out in the desert. So God gave them Manna in the desert.

It’s in this context that: The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, travelling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarrelled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?”

3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

5 The Lord answered Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarrelled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:1-7)

If it’s not obvious, a pattern is showing itself amongst the Israelites and God. This pattern has not changed. God still comes to us today, calling individuals to do his bidding amongst us. He is gracious to us in so many ways, so much so, we aren’t even aware of most of his gifts. Yet like the Israelites we think we know better and place faith in ourselves without trusting that the Lord’s way is right. And when our way self-destructs or runs out of puff, God and those who do his bidding get the blame.

When the Israelites camped at Rephidim they were being tested by God. It might have appeared there was no water to drink, but they were called to a deeper wisdom and understanding built on faith in God and not in themselves.

As we’ve heard they had been in similar situations before. They had God’s witness in the very fact that; they were alive; God beat Pharaoh through Moses in delivering the plagues on Egypt; they had survived the night of the Passover; they were delivered from Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea, they were receiving Manna from heaven, and through Moses God had made the bitter water sweet at Marah. All extraordinary events in themselves and a testimony to the wisdom and glory of their almighty God.

But Moses was between a rock and a hard place. He stood between an unchangeable God who loved and had chosen the Israelites; God was an unmovable rock in his faithfulness. And on the other side stood those God had chosen, stubborn and hard hearted, unwilling to learn from, and admit to, their mistakes. These hard people in a hard place failed to put their faith in their God who had done everything for them. Quick to forget, and even quicker to return to their old ways they attacked and mistrusted Moses.

But it is not Moses with whom they had the problem. We know Moses was not perfect himself. He was like all other people too. In fact he became frustrated after thirty-eight years of grumbling Israelites in the desert. No doubt he too would have faced all the issues with personalities that one confronts today. Moses too was a sinner like the Israelites, but he was a sinner chosen by God to lead them on God’s behalf. So when the people grumbled against him, they were really grumbling against God. “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?” Moses said to the people.

In First Corinthians Saint Paul tells us, “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. 6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.” (1 Corinthians 10:1-6)

In these days, we are no longer required to bind ourselves to many laws but rather now we are called to drink from the one spiritual rock, Jesus Christ, no matter how hard or spiritually dry the place seems where we stand. We are called not to panic by what appears to be happening, to us, to the church, or to the world, but rather trust in the faithfulness of he who is unseen.

Make no mistake. God tests you, God also disciplines you! Why? Because he loves you and has chosen you, and has delivered you through water and word out of bondage! Just as Jesus was baptised with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matthew 3:11c); in that he was baptised into his ministry and bore the fires of God’s wrath on the cross for us all. We now have been born into the benefits of Jesus’ way, the way of the cross.

God now tests you and refines you with all sorts of crosses, constantly calling you to repentance so you might remain justified and righteous in Christ. What Christ Jesus has done for you is quite extraordinary, trusting what he has done brings glory to God!

We are also told of Christ, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3: 12)

And in Psalm 95 we’re warned, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.” So I declared on oath in my anger, “They shall never enter my rest.”’

So as you’re called to live between the Rock of your salvation and the hard place of your heart, see your hardships as refinements in Christ Jesus. God seeks to remove your chaff, so you might be a part of his bountiful harvest. Irrigated and refreshed by his way despite the aridness of your own understanding and wisdom!

Just as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman he says to us all, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. …whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:10,14)

With this living water within and the mountain of witnesses and evidence before us, know the answer to this question of faith, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Amen.