3 March 2013 - rocks and goals

3 March 2013 - rocks and goals

In those days, in their thirst for water,
the people grumbled against Moses,
saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?
Was it just to have us die here of thirst 
with our children and our livestock?”

Basically, we're all too ready to cling to the brokenness to which we're accustomed rather than venturing to the healing that is unknown.  The one seems comfortable and the other dangerous.  That's because while we're moving out of Egypt we still don't fully comprehend the promise toward which we journey.  

“If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘
you would have asked him 
and he would have given you living water.”

God promises living water, but we can't get past the well we known.  Sometimes for us the well was in an Egypt of sin and idolatry.  Other times it was given by good through Jacob, but still partial and incomplete.  It doesn't matter how much trouble that well is or how thirsty we end up, at least it isn't change.

Once we realize the qualitative difference between the water God gives and the waters we find elsewhere we begin to experience conversion.

“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty 
or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Now we can see that the water of life which Jesus gives is different than the water we've been getting from our well for years.  He satisfies in ways the nothing else can.

The way to that water necessarily involves leaving Egypt.  It necessarily involves leaving a lifestyle of licentiousness like that of the woman in the gospel.  Fortunately, even in the midst of that journey, surrounded by the rockiness of the world, Jesus sustains us.

Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it 
for the people to drink.”

He draws our attention to the hear and now where he walks with us and leads us through the desert.   The wells we used in the past are no longer sufficient because we're moving to something more.

But the hour is coming, and is now here, 
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; 
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.

The water of life sustains us in the desert.  It is our connection even here to the eternal.

And hope does not disappoint, 
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts 
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The future is an illusion except insofar as we're united to it through God.  So when he speaks to us, let us not harden are hearts and retreat into memories of a past in which we have to admit that we were always thirsty and never satisfied.  If our hearts are hardened into rocks, we can still plead for mercy.  He can even draw water from hearts such as ours.

For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.