March 8, 2026
Message

The setting for many of the Common Lectionary’s Scripture texts for the Season of Lent involve the wilderness or desert.  This was true two weeks ago, as we looked at the Holy Spirit driving Jesus into the wilderness to face the temptations of the devil, and it is true in our text for today.  Before we read the Scripture, imagine, for just a moment, the heat of a desert; not the comfortable heat of a beautiful Spring day, but the oppressive, bone-bleaching heat of a humid Summer day in the midst of a severe drought.  In June of 1990, I was in Cairo, Egypt, and it was one-hundred-and-nineteen degrees when we woke up one morning; maybe some of you have experienced a similar extreme temperature.  Now think about a dry season in your spiritual life; perhaps, a time spent in the wilderness of sin or a period in the desert where resources felt thin and the future looked bleak.

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Verse 7 reveals the tension found in our text for today: “. . . ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” [Exodus 17:7, NKJV]  That is wilderness question, is it not?  Rarely, if ever, do we question God’s presence in the good times, but stick us in the desert and God’s perceived absence will come up eventually. “. . . ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” [Exodus 17:7, NKJV] is at the heart of our Lenten journey, which causes me to ask: “Does our immediate comfort depend on God’s felt-presence in our lives, or is God’s promise to be with in uncomfortable times enough?”  The Hebrew people asked the question in the desert that we all occasionally whisper in the dark, “. . . ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” [Exodus 17:7, NKJV]  Today, I want us to look at what happens when our expectations of God collide with the reality of our immediate thirst.

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In our text for today, the Israelites were not lost, they had been following the cloud and the fire, so they were exactly where God told them to be, yet there was no water.  Can you relate? Rephidim literally means “a place of rest”.  How many of us have followed God to a place we thought would be a “place of rest”, only to find it is a “place of lack”?  We did the “right thing”: we took the job; we entered the relationship; we moved to the new city, but the “water” was not there, at least, not initially.  Our text for today, out of the New King James Version, says that says the people “. . . contended with Moses . . .” [Exodus 17:2]  Other translations use the word “quarreled” [i.e., AMP, ESV, NCV, and NIV] instead of “contended”.  In Hebrew, the word is rib, which is a legal term.  The people were not just complaining or griping, they were putting God on trial by demanding that God give them water to drink!  The people did not just ask Moses for water, they expected a quid pro quo relationship with God: “If we follow, You must provide.”  Their physical thirst had produced “spiritual amnesia”; they had forgotten the Red Sea, the manna, and the pillars of cloud and fire that guided them.

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Intense thirst or need has a way of distorting our memory, as well.  The Israelites said to Moses, “. . . ‘Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?’” [Exodus 17:3, NKJV]  “Spiritual amnesia” had caused them to forget the whips of the Egyptian taskmasters and the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea.  We sometimes do the same, do we not?  When a crisis hits, we look back at our “Egypt” and falsely remember it as a place of security.  From time to time, we are willing to trade the promise of the future for the perceived, but false, safety of the past.  Grumbling over our current circumstance is our way of trying to force God to “pass our test” of immediate satisfaction.

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In response to the people’s whining and complaining, Moses asked, “. . . ‘Why do you tempt the Lord?’” [Exodus 17:2, NKJV]  How do we tempt or test God today?  Perhaps by deciding that if our health fails, or our bank account dries up, or our family relationships struggle, God must have abandoned us.  “. . . ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” [Exodus 17:7, NKJV]  Every time we allow our current crisis to overwrite God’s past faithfulness, we respond with complaining, but grumbling about our life is the sound of a heart that believes God has forgotten our address.  Are you quarreling with your circumstances today, or are you bringing your thirst to the Provider?

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All the complaining pushed Moses to his breaking point, causing him to cry out to God in frustration, “. . . ‘What shall I do with this people?  They are almost ready to stone me!’” [Exodus 17:4, NKJV]  Without a doubt, God called Moses to be the leader of the Hebrew people, but in our text for today, it is clear that he was “middle management”, caught between an angry people and a seemingly silent God.  Moses was the lightning rod for the people’s frustration.  This serves as a reminder to pastors, and elders alike, that spiritual leadership is not about having all the answers or all the resources; it is about being the one who knows where to turn when the resources run dry.  Though agitated, Moses did not get into a heated debate with the people; instead, he retreated to the Presence of God.

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After Moses expressed his exasperation to the Lord, God did not tell Moses that he had every right to feel that way, after all, the people were criticizing him to the point of eliciting fear for his life.  Neither did God tell Moses not to worry about it because He will punish the people for their rebellion.  Instead, God told Moses to take his staff, the same staff he had struck the waters of the Nile River with turning it into blood, and strike a certain rock in the desert with it, so that potable water would gush out of the rock quenching the people’s thirst.  Under God’s instruction, Moses’ staff was a symbol of judgment against Egypt, but in our text for today, God transformed that same staff into an instrument of mercy for Israel.

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God said to Moses, “‘. . . I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.’” [Exodus 17:6, NKJV]  This verse contains a shocking detail that the casual reader of Scripture often misses: God placed Himself on the rock to receive the blow from the staff of judgment so that His people might live.  Did the people see God standing on the Rock?  No, but even if the people did not fully understand everything that was going on, when Moses struck the rock, he was symbolically striking the place where God’s presence rested.  In the New Testament, referring to this event, the Apostle Paul tells us that “. . . Rock was Christ.” [First Corinthians 10:4, NKJV]  This is the Gospel in the desert.  God did not strike the grumbling people; instead, He allowed the “judgment staff” to strike the Rock in the people’s place.  When Moses struck the rock, an abundance of water flowed onto the dry and barren land.   Just as God used the water from the struck stone to save the dying Israelites, we find salvation through the “living water” that flowed from the side of the Savior who was stricken for our transgressions.​

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God quenches our “thirst”, not through our perfect behavior, but by Christ’s perfect sacrifice.  Grace is not a substance like water; instead, grace is God’s attitude toward sinners.  This means that God provides for an ungrateful people before they ever get their hearts right, or as the Apostle Paul put it, in Romans 5:8: “. . . God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [NKJV]  I really like how The Message renders this verse about our redemption: “Christ arrives right on time to make this happen.  He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready.  He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.  And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway.” [Romans 5:8, MSG]

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After God caused the water to gush from the rock, Moses did not give the place a “happy” name, like Abundant Fountain; instead, he chose two contentious names: Massah, which means, “testing” and Meribah, which means, “quarreling”.  He named the place after the people’s struggle: “. . . ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” [Exodus 17:7, NKJV]  Whether we are in a season of abundance or a season of drought, we find the answer to the question, “. . . ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” [Exodus 17:7, NKJV] in the water and blood that flowed from the side of the struck Rock at Calvary.  If you are thirsty today—thirsty for hope; thirsty for peace; thirsty for provision; thirsty for salvation—come to the Rock who provides, in abundance, the “living water”.​

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I have told this story before, nonetheless, it is appropriate for today.  A traveler in the Sahara Desert found an abandoned well.  He pumped and pumped the lever, but only dust came out.  Then he saw a note that read: “There is a jar of water buried under the sand to prime the pump.  Use it, but don’t drink it.  Pour it in and you’ll get all the water you need for your journey.  Just remember to refill the jar for the next person.”  It would take a lot of faith to pour that water into the pump to prime it, would it not?  Faith is “priming the pump” with the memory of God’s past faithfulness.  I encourage you to stop asking, “. . . ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” [Exodus 17:7, NKJV] and start looking at the Rock; He is not only among us, He was struck for us.​