Loving and Hearing the Text

When I was an undergraduate at Yale University, students flocked to Professor Alvin Kernan's lecture courses on Shakespeare. Kernan's work predated the academy's current infatuation with ideological criticism. Even though it was the late 1960s and we were all living in an atmosphere charged with political suspicion and protest, none of this overtly impinged on Kernan's lectures. Kernan was not a flashy lecturer. What, then, was the draw?

He loved the texts. His teaching method - as I remember it - was simply to engage in reflective close readings of the Shakespeare tragedies and comedies, delineating their rich texture of image and metaphor and opening up their complex central themes - moral, philosophical, and religious. Often, Kernan would devote a significant part of his lecture time to reading the text aloud, not in any highly dramatic manner, but with sensitivity to the text's rhythms and semantic nuances. I would often sit in class thinking, "Oh! ... I hadn't heard that in the text before." And I would leave the class pondering the problems Shakespeare addressed: love, betrayal, fidelity, sacrifice, death, and hope.

Richard B. Hays - The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel's Scriptures; Eerdmans 2005; p.200

Loving the text so that others truly hear the text. That's a good aim for 2007.

Two thoughts

from John 19:

i) The correlation in v.7 & v.12 of the terms 'Son of God' and 'King' suggests that the Jewish leaders were not accusing Jesus of claiming divinity but of claiming to be the Messiah;

ii) The irony of the Jewish leaders' assertion, "We have no king but Caesar" being followed in the text by Pilate finally handing Jesus over to be crucified: the irony lies in the fact that to say they have no king but Caesar is the final capitulation.

voluntary gifts (Volf)

Since God gives freely, we should too. That's how the apostle Paul thought of gift giving; it should be voluntary. He praised believers from Macedonia for giving "voluntarily" to the poor of Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8:3). Similarly, he urged that the Corinthians' gift be ready when he came to collect it "as a voluntary gift and not as an extortion" (2 Corinthians 9:5).

Why is freedom in giving so important? Because the gift consists more in the freely undertaken choice to give than in the things given. In this regard, the Apostle might well have agreed with Seneca, the great stoic writer on gift giving, who said: "For, since in the case of a benefit the chief pleasure of it comes from the intention of the bestower, he who by his very hesitation has shown that he made his bestowal unwillingly has not `given', but has failed to withstand the effort to extract it."' As for Seneca, for the Apostle the "eagerness" of the giver matters more than the magnitude of the gift. God loves "a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 8:12 and 9:7).

And yet we noted earlier that we are obliged to give. God's gifts themselves oblige us, and God's commands reinforce that obligation. Now we see that we are obliged to give freely - and there's the rub. How can we give freely if we are obliged to give? Inversely, how can we be obliged to give if we give freely? Is it possible to be obliged to give freely?

The apostle Paul thought so. True, he never commanded the Corinthians to give, and he underscored this for them (2 Corinthians 8:8). But he exerted enormous pressure on them using some potent rhetorical weapons. He played with their sense of shame: they would humiliate themselves if they didn't give (2 Corinthians 9:4). He had them compete with other donors: the Macedonians gave, so the Corinthians should stick to their promise and give (which is also what he said to the Macedonians in 2 Corinthians 9:2). He appealed to their debt to him: he would be humiliated if they didn't give (2 Corinthians 9:4). And he did all this in order to nudge them to give, as he put it, "not reluctantly or under compulsion", but voluntarily (2 Corinthians 9:7)!

Was the Apostle twisting their arm to be free? Some strange freedom this must be! But maybe our sense that to be free is to act under no constraint whatsoever is mistaken. We tend to think that we must be autonomous and spontaneous to act freely. Behind this identification of freedom with autonomous spontaneity lies the notion of a self-defined and free-floating person. Strip down all the influences of time and place, abstract from culture and nurture, and then you'll come to your authentic core. This core is who you truly are, the thinking goes - unique, unshaped, unconstrained.

But that's more like a caricature of a divine self than an accurate description of a human self. Using the image of the beast, Luther argued that human beings are always ridden by someone, either by God or by the Devil. That's a crude way of putting it, but it's basically right. The point is not that either God or the Devil compels us. In that case, our will would turn into, as Luther put it, "unwill". It's rather that, unlike God, we always exercise our will as beings constantly shaped by many factors - by language, parental rearing, culture, media, advertising, and peer pressure, and through all these, we are shaped either by God or by God's adversary. Often we don't perceive ourselves as shaped at all. If we are not visibly and palpably coerced, we think that we act autonomously, spontaneously, and authentically. Yet we are wrong.

Take our preferences for one soft drink over another. I am thirsty, walk into a store, reach for a Pepsi, and walk away, never doubting that I acted autonomously and spontaneously. But why did I choose Pepsi over Coke or just plain water? I may like its taste better. But most likely it's because Pepsi's ads got to me the way Coke's didn't. I don't autonomously and spontaneously choose to be a Pepsi drinker; I'm made into a Pepsi drinker. Yet I freely chose that Pepsi can that is in my hand.

Recall what I said about the old and the new selves. Our old self died, and our new self was raised. It's a self in whom Christ dwells and through whom Christ acts, a self that has put on Christ and "learned" Christ. We are these new selves, and that's why we give (though non-Christians can give for many other reasons). We don't give mainly because God or God's messengers command us to. If we did, we would be giving under compulsion, and therefore, reluctantly. Instead, we give because we are givers, because Christ living in us is a giver. Informing every seemingly small act of Christian giving is a change in our very being, a transformation of a person from being one who either illicitly takes or merely legitimately acquires, into being one who beneficently gives. As I will explain in chapter 3, even as such transformed people, we still need to grow into the joy of giving. But the command to give is not compelling us to act against ourselves, even if it often feels like this.

That feeling that the command is against us, a sense of reluctance in giving, is not unfounded. When we have failed to put away our "former way of life", the new self becomes an obligation that butts against the ingrained habits of the old self. Yet as uncomfortable as it may feel, the pressure is not to our detriment, but in our favor. It pushes us to act true to who we most properly are. That's why we can be obliged to give freely: the obligation nudges us to do what the new self would do if the old one didn't stand in the way.

Imagine your life as a piece of music, a Bach cello suite. You've heard it played by a virtuoso. You love it and would like to play it well. But try as you might, you fail - not so much because you've had a bad teacher or haven't practiced enough, but because your left hand has a defect. You make music, but it's nothing like it's supposed to sound. Then you have surgery performed by a magician with a scalpel. Your hand heals. You return to your lessons with new vigor. And then one day, you play the piece nearly perfectly. Full of joy, you exclaim, "Yes! I love it! This is the way the music of my life should sound!" Constrained by the score because you have to follow its notation? Well, yes. But loving every moment of that constraint - and not feeling it as constraint at all - because the very constraint is what makes for the beauty and delight.

Something like this is what it means to be a free giver. God obliges us to give. But it is precisely when we act in accordance with the obligation that we have a sense of unspoiled authenticity and freedom. So in our best moments, we forget the command and just give the way we are supposed to give. We are like a motor-powered sailboat when it's "running", as sailors say: With the wind at the back of a powered boat, all resistance is gone; the boat is always where the wind would push it to be. The same is true of us when we give freely. Living out of our new selves, we are always already where the command would want us to be.

(Miroslav Volf, Free Of Charge, pp.64-67)

the psalms & us

The attempt to recover and renew psalmody in our time must not be undertaken merely as an embellishment of liturgical practice. Crucial possibilities for the theological, liturgical, and pastoral life of the church are involved. The liveliness and actuality of the language of the reign of God supply an organizing milieu for all the principal topics of the Christian faith. It constitutes the basis and medium of the three primary functions of our religion - praise, prayer, and the practice of piety. It provides a way of thinking and understanding that holds the individual and corporate relation to God together. Said and sung as Christian liturgy, the language of the psalms discloses the unity of the canon of scripture. It articulates a polemic against the polytheism and paganism that go unnoticed in our culture. It establishes a critical resistance to the domination of any human politics and the apotheosizing of any ideology, including democracy. The language of the psalms puts all who use them in the role of servants to the LORD God, and so lays a basis for an ethic of trust and obedience. It opens up a realm for existence in which the dying may take hope, the afflicted find strength, and the faithful encouragement.

Mere recitation of the psalms will lay hold on none of these possibilities. If, however, in the use of psalms as our praise and prayer and scripture we are led to feel and think and decide as those who live in the kingdom of God in hope of the kingdom of God, then we might begin to grasp some of them. We might be better able to trust ourselves to the One who comes saying, "The kingdom of God is at hand." That would be the right reason for the renewal of psalmody today.

James L. Mays, The LORD Reigns - A Theological Handbook to the Psalms, p.11

augustine & the psalms

In his Confessions, Augustine tells how he used the psalms in a period of retreat between his conversion and baptism. "What utterances sent I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs and sounds of devotion.... What utterances I used to send up unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I inflamed toward Thee by them" (IX, 4).

For Augustine it was a time of preparation for a different life, of initiation into a new existence, a period in which habits of thought, customs of practice, and feelings about self and others and the world had to be reconstituted. As part of the transformation, he was learning a new language.

He spoke the psalms to and before the Christian God, who was now source and subject of his faith and life. He took their vocabulary and sentences as his own. He identified himself with the speaker of the psalms. He said the psalms as his words, let his feelings be evoked and led by their language, spoke the words that resonated in his own consciousness in concord with those of the psalms. He was acquiring a language world that went with his new identity as a Christian. It was the vocabulary of prayer and praise, the "first order" language that expressed the sense of self and world that comes with faith in the God to whom, of whom, and for whom the psalms speak.

James L. Mays, The LORD Reigns - A Theological Handbook to the Psalms, p.3

In a different light

It has always struck me as a great (and regrettable irony): Festus and Agrippa agree that Paul could have been set free (Acts 26:32) but because Paul has appealed to Caesar (Acts 25:11 ), to Caesar he must go. If only he'd held on a little while longer before making that last-ditch appeal, it could all have been so much simpler; still, I'm sure the Lord is able to use it for Paul's and the gospel's good. He is sovereign, after all.

But no; it's much more definite than that, in every sense. Paul has already been told that the Lord is taking him to Rome (Acts 23:11) - the only thing not specified was the how and why of the way in which that journey would come about. The purpose for going was as clear as day:

As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome (Acts 23:11)

So Paul's appeal to Caesar is neither impetuous nor desperate; it arises in the context of the Lord's clear direction and decision to send his apostle to the heart of the empire. And the forcing of Festus' hand is not a matter for regret; it is simply the Lord's time and place for enacting his plan to send Paul to Rome.

I'd never seen it that way before. I do now.

doctrine & competence

Doctrines, then, are profitable for celebrating, communicating, criticizing - and coping - provided they are used competently. The present work sets forth an account of theological competence, which involves more than academic expertise. Theological competence is ultimately a matter of being able to make judgements that display the mind of Christ. Individual Christians, and the church as a whole, have no more crucial task than achieving such theological competence. One of the chief means of doing so is by attending to doctrine - to its derivation from Scripture and its development in the believing community."

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, in the introduction to The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Liguistic Approach to Christian Theology, p. 2

final blessing

God bless you, Dad;
God bless you, Dad.

You've been
a wonderful father,
a good husband
and
a lovely grandad.

You've loved us all so much;
we all love you so much.

God bless you, Dad;
God bless you, Dad.

(the final words spoken to George Myerscough, early morning 30/11/05)

Closure

A year ago
I closed your eyes
after that last, long
gasp of life.
It was the hardest thing I've ever done.

You were there
when my eyes opened in life
and I was there to close yours in death;
your eyes brimmed with joy at the sight,
mine with savage pain.
The colour remained
but not the life.

A year ago
I closed your eyes;
the bruise remains.

resemblance

Some people say
I have my father's
eyes

but I've always known
I had his
heart.

the longest time

For the longest time
your voice has been
silent;
that voice which could boom
out, calling for tea,
while preserving
from sight
a thousand realities.

I've waited to see you
and to hear you
once more
but even the fullest dreams
are empty;

void.

I saw you last
in that morning light;

still and gone.

How John Mark Became Helpful

He was a deserter; a failure. And the cause of a sharp disagreement between two Christian ministers, one of them his uncle. So sharp in fact that they no longer worked together.

Later on, the one who had objected to John Mark's continued presence on the team speaks of him in very warm terms; he has proved himself to be a valuable colleague in gospel work.

So how did the change come about? How was this fallible young man recovered? Who mentored him into being a faithful gospel servant?

Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus. (Acts 15:39)

The one who didn't give up on him, presumably.

Strengthen your brothers

Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. (Luke 22:31,32 TNIV)

Satan wants to sift the disciples like wheat - he wants to put them to the test, chew them up and spit them out. Jesus tells Simon about this. They are all in Satan's sights. But Jesus has prayed for...Peter, that his faith would not fail him. And those prayers are answered: in the event of Peter's testing, his faith doesn't fail him; in faith, he repents of his sin when Jesus looks at him.

But what about the others? Did they not need Jesus' prayers too? Why tell Simon that they were all vulnerable but that he had prayed only for Simon? The pronouns are deliberate and deliberately disclose that distinction.

The answer is in the commission Jesus gives the soon-to-fall and soon-to-be-restored Peter: when he has turned, he is to strengthen his brothers. Jesus will help them in their vulnerability through Peter, their fallen and restored brother.

We need the community of such brothers and sisters. They are part of the Lord's means of strengthening us in the face of our vulnerability.

Exodus 17:8-16

1. Fightings Without
Israel has been delivered from the terrors of Egypt and has begun to self-destruct in the wilderness. It is often the case that when the heat is off in one direction, trouble looms in another. But they really have no time for grumbling and accusing Moses and testing the Lord - other battles await them and, in this scene, assault them. The Amalekties take the place of Pharaoh and come out to attack Israel at Rephidim.

Although it is early days for Israel, a pattern is being set here. The problem is not just Egypt; it is that "the whole world is under the control of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). The battles that Israel face are spiritual in nature; they arise from Satan's opposition to the Lord and his plans to reconcile all things to himself and to heal his fractured creation.

Here is the Christian's life and the life of the church - a life of battle; serious, costly and intense. Israel needs to awake to that reality; they are to engage in a true holy war, a war that will ultimately not be fought with worldly weapons but with the weapons of righteousness and prayer and the word of God.

We must be alert to the reality of our own situation - every day is another day of battle, of warfare. We must do all that we can to avoid internal divisions that inflict wounds within the body and take our place on the true field of battle.

2. Deliverance through human effort and God's help
When Israel was rescued from Egypt and brought through the Red Sea, they stood still and saw the salvation of the LORD. Now, they need to put to use the armour and weapons they left Egypt with. They need to join the Lord in fighting the battles of faith, the battle for the salvation of the cosmos.

And so Moses tells Joshua to take men and to fight the Amalekites on the plain; for his part, he will go and stand on the hill with "the staff of God" raised.

That action on Moses' part has been the subject of quite a lot of debate over the years. Is it a symbol of prayer? Or is Moses symbolising the Lord as he stands over the battle? Certainly, raised arms are often used in the OT as a posture that signifies prayer. And there can be little doubt but that the whole battle is bathed in prayer and is fought in dependence upon the Lord.

But the clearest aspect of this scene is the sheer effort expended by Moses in keeping his arms aloft and the connection between his raised arms and the progress of the battle. The Lord chooses to involve his people in his battles and that involvement takes courage and effort.

If it is right to see Moses' raised arms as signifying prayer, our own experience would no doubt bear out how tough that can be. How demanding it can be to wrestle in prayer! But this is our calling; we are enlisted as the Lord's servants and must engage in the battle with all our heart, with all our energies, for his glory.

3. Supporting leadership
But however we understand the raising of Moses' arms and the holding aloft of the staff, it is clear that he needs help to do so and Aaron and Hur step forward to give that help. In a sense, this is almost a preview of what transpires in the next chapter where Moses takes Jethro's advice and delegates some of the work to others.

I want to say two things in the light of what we see here.

i) Seeing Moses as a type of Christ - The NT is not shy to make connections between Jesus and Moses, seeing Moses as a shadow and Jesus as the reality. Moses here is seen to be a man of flesh, one who needs the support of others if Israel is to win the day.

In some ways, that picture is replicated in the life of Jesus - he grew tired and needed to sleep; he was hungry and thirsty; and, in the garden of Gethsemane, he asked 3 of his disciples to stay with him in his hour of need and he benefited from the ministry of angels at that time too. Jesus was a real man in all those ways and we should not be afraid to say so.

But, having said that, the NT emphasis is that Jesus won the battle alone; he is the great leader and champion of his people. He is all we need to know victory over sin and death. Moses was faithful as a servant in God's household; Jesus was faithful as a son set over that household (Heb. 3:5,6). Whilst we remember the lives of men like Moses and learn from them, it is Jesus we honour, it is Jesus we worship, it is Jesus we lean all our hopes on. And he will not fail us.

ii) Moses as a leader in need of support - The second thing I want to say about Moses and the help of Aaron and Hur is that it demonstrates to us the very real need of leaders in the church to be supported. All leaders are weak and fragile; however blessed a man's ministry might be, he remains fallen and fragile. Ben is a man called and equipped by God; that is clear and that is crucial. But he will need your support. How can you best give that to him?

• pray for him, but also pray with him - make the prayer meeting a time when he knows that the church is at one in the great gospel battle.
• support by showing that you are seriously engaging with the word he ministers week by week. Talk to him about it; ask him to help you to apply it. Tell him how God's Word has helped you, how it has been relevant in your daily walk. He won't be looking for compliments at the door; it's real engagement with God's Word that truly encourages those whose responsibility is to minister that word.
• encourage him by bearing with one another in love;
• encourage him by being active witnesses to the grace of God in whatever way the Lord opens for you.

In all those ways and so many more you can show your support for Ben - and in showing that support, you demonstrate that your heart is for God and his glory.

4. The LORD is our banner
So the battle is fought and arms are raised to the Lord and the battle is won - the Lord delivers his people. And, just as much as a time of failure such as occurred at Massah and Meribah, a victory of this nature demands to be memorialised. Notice two things:

i) The Lord tells Moses to record this event on a scroll and to make sure that Joshua hears it "because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven" (v.14). That isn't a vindictive gesture but rather the Lord's determination to rid this world of all that oppose his plans to rescue and to restore.

ii) An altar is constructed by Moses and called "The LORD is my Banner". The people of Israel are under his banner and therefore under his care.

The church belongs to the Lord and is his responsibility. He will give the victory and has done so in Jesus. That is to be the source of all our confidence and hope as we do battle in his name. We go out into the daily battles with the Lord as our banner – the God who enlists us into his army to do battle for righteousness, to hold out the word of life, the demonstrate the value and the power of redeeming love.

God grant us grace ever to do so. Amen.

Yahweh's mercy

let me fall into the hands of Yahweh,
for his mercy is very great;
and let me not fall into the hands of men
(1 Chron. 21:13)

David was offered 3 choices as punishment for numbering Israel: three years of famine; three months of war or three days of the Angel of Yahweh bringing death on the people. Three years seems a long time but they might just be able to eke things out; three months against military enemies for a seasoned warrior might not seem too long; but who knows how much damage the omnipotent God could do in just three days?

David opts for the three days, yet only on this basis: Yahweh's mercy is very great. Unlike fallen humanity, in wrath he remembers mercy. And his mercy is very great. It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God but faced with the choice between Yahweh's merciful judgement and human cruelty, David chose the former.

Because Yahweh's mercy is very great.

The Holy Scriptures

1.
Oh Book! infinite sweetnesse! let my heart
Suck ev’ry letter, and a hony gain,
Precious for any grief in any part ;
To cleare the breast, to mollifie all pain.

Thou art all health, health thriving, till it make
A full eternitie: thou art a masse
Of strange delights, where we may wish and take.
Ladies, look here; this is the thankfull glasse,

That mends the lookers eyes: this is the well
That washes what it shows. Who can indeare
Thy praise too much? thou art heav’ns Lidger here,
Working against the states of death and hell.

Thou art joyes handsell: heav’n lies flat in thee,
Subject to ev’ry mounters bended knee.


2.
Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,
And the configurations of their glorie!
Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,
But all the constellations of the storie.

This verse marks that, and both do make a motion
Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:
Then as dispersed herbs do watch a potion,
These three make up some Christians destinie.

Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,
And comments on thee: for in ev’ry thing
Thy words do finde me out, and parallels bring,
And in another make me understood.

Starres are poore books, and oftentimes do misse
This book of starres lights to eternall blisse.

(George Herbert)

Professional Daydreamer (Over The Rhine)

Part of me
You are a part of me
I never want to lose
Hard for me
This is too hard
Maybe I can't get through
What will I miss the most
Pray that I'm haunted by your ghost

Listening
You're always listening
I don't know what to say
Why don't you turn and run at break-neck speed
Just to get away
And when you catch your breath
Pray I said every word I meant

Alright it's alright now
Alright it's alright

Broken down
We're all so broken down
Bandages on our wings
I know I don't have to tell you
Only broken hearts can sing
I'm hoping for a sign
Pray that I'm anything but fine

Some things are never gonna change
You ought to know by now

*******

words: Bergquist/Detweiler
music: Bergquist

Exodus 17:1-7

Israel are well and truly in the wilderness and have been for some time now. The problem for them is that the wilderness “is no longer simply a place but a state of mind” (Fretheim). They are caught in- between promise and fulfilment and that poses significant challenges to their faith.

We, too, are like Israel, in the in-between – having been saved and yet being saved; called out from the world into the Lord’s kingdom but not yet in the fullness of all that will mean. And when you’re in the wilderness, it is often difficult to sort out what is perception and what is reality. In this passage, we see Israel still struggling with that.

1. Being Led
Israel, for all their faults, do at least display here some semblance of obedience, in that they respond to the Lord’s leading – they set out “as the LORD commanded”. The road of discipleship is a case of ‘one step after another’ and the hymn-writer was right that ‘each victory will help you some other to win’.

But you’ve got to keep putting one foot in front of the other, which is what Israel fails to do here. They are led to Rephidim but there is water there and, instead of seeking God in faith, they once more complain. But this is even worse than before; the term used here is very strong – they quarrel with Moses and again accuse him of having led them out simply for them to die in the desert.

The mistake Israel makes here is to assume that being led by the Lord means a life without difficulty; as one writer has helpfully said, “God’s leading does not always move directly toward oases” (Fretheim). To encounter difficulty and hardship is not proof that we have been mistaken is terms of the Lord’s leading – we must not think that we have taken a wrong turn if we encounter challenging situations.

In fact, it is part of God’s purposes to lead his people into this difficult situation, just as we see the Spirit leading Jesus after his baptism into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. That may have seemed a strange choice on the Lord’s part but he knows what he’s doing.

The end in view in all the leading of God is fullness of life and joy in his presence but there are many turns to be taken along the path that leads there and some of those turns will be into darker times in which the Lord’s purpose is to cause his light to be seen more brightly, for his grace to be seen as all-sufficient, for us to be built-up in our most holy faith.

But Israel has yet to see that. They test the Lord in their unbelief, making their continued belief in him to rest upon a demonstration of his power and provision. What they’re doing is trying to turn faith into sight – and, sadly, we can find ourselves unwittingly doing the same.

The Lord leads; it may even be into times of difficulty but his purpose is not to crush but to conform us; he wants us to know the riches of his love in the wastelands of this world, the delights of his grace in the darkness of a world in sin. We can trust him; he’s proved that he’s worthy of that trust in the cross of Calvary.

2. Being Gracious
When the people quarrel with him, Moses asks why they’re testing the Lord and then goes in person to the Lord for help, asking what he should do with the people. Whether we’re in leadership in some capacity or whether we’re not, Moses’ example is a good one to learn from – take it to the Lord in prayer.

The Lord doesn’t directly answer that question but instead tells Moses to take his staff and to take the elders with him and to go to the rock at Horeb where the Lord will stand before him. And at Horeb, with the elders as witnesses and with the Lord before him, Moses is to strike the rock and water will flow from it. The same staff that struck the Nile and brought about judgement is to strike the rock and bring relief and blessing.

So that is what Moses does and that is what we see – the Lord acting in mercy and grace, bringing the blessings of creation into the wilderness. Here is a beautiful demonstration again of why he has brought Israel out of Egypt – his plans are to heal creation and make fruitful that which is barren.

In the light of the fact that the people are now quarrelling with Moses (and hence the Lord), it’s all the more remarkable to see God’s patience with them here. This is the third time they have reacted badly and once more the Lord bears with his people and meets their need.

And he does so in person – Moses may strike the rock but the Lord is right there before him. When Paul reflects on this incident in the NT he tells us that the rock was Christ, the Messiah – the people are given physical drink but, more than that, they are drinking from the spiritual rock that is Christ (1 Cor. 10:1ff).

Just as the manna points forward to Jesus, so this water also reflects that perspective. Yet it is more than that; the people drink of Christ himself – God is present with them and feeds them with himself and satisfies their thirst in ways that are deeper than the physical.

That is the measure of the grace and the provision of God for his people. He gives not just gifts but himself – that is at the heart of his mission. That is to be our goal and aim too – to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings.

3. Being named
The Lord is gracious to his people but that doesn’t mean he is indifferent to their sin in quarrelling with him and testing him in their unbelief. And so this place is memorialised as Massah and Meribah, ‘testing and quarreling’.

In time, this incident came to stand as one of the chief evidences of the hardness of the people’s hearts – they had been recipients of great mercies, blessed so signally by the Lord and yet they failed him so badly. And so the failure was marked down and used as an object lesson for generations to come, just as we have seen Paul using it in 1 Cor. 10:1-4.

Maybe there are places in our histories that also deserve just such a name – times and places where we have quarrelled, where we have made our hearts hard and distrusted the Lord. If we know that there are such places in our own history, does that mean we can no longer walk with the Lord?

Such places are named not in order to shame but to teach, to humble and to encourage fresh faith and obedience. Israel would always remember Massah and Meribah and would be exhorted to listen and to learn from this incident.

As we look at our own stuttering discipleship in the light of Israel’s failure, we need to take to heart their example and humble our hearts. We also need to do what they singularly failed to do: look to the Rock in faith and trust.

The message they heard and that they witnessed in the great exodus events was not combined with faith; if we’re Christians this morning, we have come to faith in Jesus and we share in the true exodus in him, but we must make sure that our faith is an ongoing reality, that our trust is living and real.

And take heart from Paul’s words in 1 Cor 10:13 – “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to us all. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

May God work in us what is pleasing in his sight. Amen.

Election and Covenant

"The Sinai event is a kind of axle for holding together two basic realities: one, everything God does involves me (election); and two, everything I do is therefore significant (covenant). Because I am chosen, I have consequence. Election creates a unique identity; covenant describes a responsible relationship. Election is the declaration that God has designs upon me; covenant is the description of how the things I do fit into those designs."

Eugene H. Peterson
Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

Ruth

"is the inconsequential outsider whose life is essential for telling the complete story of salvation."

"is the instance of a person uprooted, obscure, alienated who learned to understand her story as a modest but nevertheless essential part of the vast epic whose plot is designed by God's salvation."

Eugene H. Peterson
Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work