Ex. 17:1 ??From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.? 2 The people quarreled with Moses, and said, ?Give us water to drink.? 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 complained against Moses and said, ?Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst??? 4 So Moses cried out to the LORD, ?What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.?? 5 The LORD said to Moses, ?Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.? 6 I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.? Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.? 7 He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, ?Is the LORD among us or not?? (Exodus 17:1-7)
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When God invites his people to enter into some new phase of their life, it can often be hard to remember that God is with us. Sometimes it seems that old way of living was easier. We know it so well after all.? The familiarity of old patterns of life make it all too easy to look back at ?the good old days? and miss the joys of what God has planned for our future. The people of Israel had this problem as they were called from their slavery in Egypt into freedom in the land promised to them by God through Abraham.
Up to this point in the book of Exodus the people of Israel have seen a lot, which should remind them that God is with them in this new life ahead of them. They have seen the ten plagues God sent upon Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn?t let them leave. The tenth one, the death of every first-born thing in Egypt, was so convincing that Pharaoh and the Egyptians finally urged them to leave in haste. Then Israel had the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night to guide them. Despite these miraculous displays of God?s power, when Pharaoh changes his mind and chases after them the people cry out:
Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ?Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians?? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. (Exodus 14:11-12)
In their distress the people of God begin to wonder if the slavery they knew was better than the freedom that God is offering?? The labor was hard and our masters harsh, but at least we knew what the next day would bring and now we aren?t even sure we?ll see tomorrow! Of course hindsight we know that they had nothing to worry about, as God in his providence pulls them through.
It is not too long before the people begin to get hungry out in the wilderness and the complaining begins again. ?If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.? (Exodus 16:3) We are starving! Anything would have been better than this! So God provides them with Manna and Quail to quench their hunger.
But now in this passage of Exodus, the people are grumbling yet again. ?Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?? You?d like to think that by this point God?s people would have seen enough not only of God?s power, but also his provision that they might be able to trust him. That maybe they could at least start to believe that what God is offering is better than what they had in Egypt. Of course we can say that as an outside observer, but in the thick of difficult life transitions it is easy to forget God is with us. In cases like these God?s freedom is not an easy freedom. For Israel it meant giving up all the things that their life in Egypt had taught them to value: food, possessions, and security and to begin valuing what God thinks is important, dependence on Him. If we really think about what God may be calling us to give up that our culture highly values, it starts to be easier to understand why Israel didn?t think God was with them.
At this point we might be tempted to say, OK so this passage is telling us we just need to trust God. Yet, the thing that strikes me the most about this passage is that they name the place where all this mistrust reaches it height. These days we tend to only mark our successes, but here the people of Israel mark and remember their failure to trust and their arrogance in testing God. This is likely an important reminder for the next 40 years as the next generation is prepared to enter the Promised Land that their parents, due to their mistrust, will never see. It makes me wonder if we as individuals and as congregations need to be more open and honest about our failings. I say this not just so that we can ?get right with God? or even so that the next generation learns from our failings (although these are important). One of our general thanksgiving prayers I think brings us closer to the reason for remembering our failings in thanking God ?for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.? (BAS page 129)
Part of the reason we like the familiar, and perhaps why Israel kept looking back to Egypt, is that that we find it hard to give up the illusion that we are in control (at least partially) of our lives. This illusion is especially tempting today as we are constantly encouraged to be ?individuals? or ?independent?, or ?to take control of our life.? Looking back to Egypt also allows them to live in the illusion that what their culture valued was most important. We like these kinds of illusions and they are hard to shake. We like to think we can manage our life, and our sin well, and we like to think our values are the right ones. In reality we are so out of control and our values are so messed up that the only way to set things right is for the Father to send Jesus. Jesus manages to live a life of complete obedience and dependence on the Father that we, like Israel, could not. Jesus is able to give up everything our culture values, to save the world he created.
Lent is a season to strip of this illusion that we are in control or that Ironically as we take on Lenten disciplines, we are called to remember that our works in and of themselves don?t make us any better in God?s eyes, but instead remind us of our need for him. Lent is a time to let God remind us that what He values is more life giving than what the world has to offer. It is a time to learn to be content in our complete dependence on God.