Bit warm the last few days, don’t you think. What’s the advice been for keeping cool? Stay indoors. Don’t do too much physical activity. Drink plenty. What’s the average temperature been, about 30 degrees, something like that?
I wonder if you know what the average temperature on the Sinai peninsula is at this time of year? It’s 40 degrees. Even in the winter months the average temperature is is about 22 degrees, with recorded maximums of 28 degrees.
Let’s bear that in mind as we consider the next stage in Moses’ journey, now accompanied by the whole people of Israel. Last week we explored the way in which God had made a way for the people out of slavery and into freedom by parting the Red Sea. Now the people have begun the long journey towards the promised land, across the desert of the Sinai peninsula.
As they had travelled on from there, they had walked for three days before finding water, and when they did it was bitter, undrinkable. Moses had cried out to God, and God had sweetened the water, making it drinkable and then had led them to the oasis at Elim where there was plentiful water.
A little further on in the journey and it wasn’t thirst that was the problem, but hunger. The people looked back with rose tinted glasses to the good old days in Egypt when they had plenty to eat. Again, Moses interceded on their behalf and God sent Manna – bread from heaven each day for them to eat. Each day they were to gather enough for that day, trusting each day that God would provide the next day.
After all this, all these experiences of God’s power and provision, surely their faith should have been sky high, there’s nothing their God cannot do, so why have they started grumbling so quickly? Where has their faith gone?
But they were thirsty – and that is quite an urgent thing. A lot has happened in the last couple of months. You could argue that all the miracles they’ve seen should mean that they have more faith that their needs will be met, but this isn’t always how the human mind works. When you’ve bounced from one adrenaline spiking event to the next, you’re not always thinking totally rationally. So it’s not really a surprise that the people were freaking out a bit.
It was hot. They were in a desert. They had no water.
Moses calls out to God for help, and God tells him to take some of the elders of the people, to take his staff, and to strike the rock at Horeb, and promises that water will come out for the people to drink. Moses did as he was instructed, and the water flowed, as God had promised.
As we read on in the Bible, through the speeches that Moses made at key moments in the life of the people of God, on to the Psalms and the Prophets this event is recalled as both an encouragement and a warning. A reminder of God’s faithfulness goodness and provision, and a warning against grumbling against God and lack of faith. It is one of the core stories of the foundation of the people of God, and so it is no wonder that it comes up in the conversations that Jesus has with people.
The day before the conversation that we heard part of from John’s eye witness account of Jesus’ life and ministry, Jesus had miraculously fed over five thousand people by multiplying five small loaves and two fish, and there were left overs.
Over night he had crossed over lake Galilee and now the crowd are coming to find him.
When they do, they want to know how he got there, but that’s another story, and Jesus is more interested in what’s going on in their hearts. The day before he’d satisfied their bellies, but today is all about their hearts. Are their hearts truly focussed on God and following God’s ways? What are they working for, investing in? He tells them that the food that endures to eternal life, the thing that will really nourish and satisfy them, is to believe in him, to trust Jesus, to follow him and to do as he commands.
This is a big claim, and so the people look back into their history and draw out an example. It’s like they’re saying, “You’re making claims for yourself that seem to be setting yourself up as a new Moses. Can you do the things that Moses did?”
Jesus doubles down. It wasn’t Moses who did that, it was my Father. And I’m not like Moses – I’m like the manna – I am the bread of heaven that feeds you – that satisfies all your hunger and thirst. If you believe in me, if you trust me, if you have faith in me.
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Both of the events that we’re exploring this morning happened at times of great change, of upheaval.
In Moses’ time the people of Israel had just been freed from slavery, they had left the place that they had lived for generations, God had started intervening in their lives in a new way, they were on the move. Things that they had known had gone, old ways of living and being had disappeared. It was a time of great change.
In Jesus’ time an even greater change was happening. Jesus was bringing a new covenant, a new way of people to relate to God. He was bringing new teaching, the Holy Spirit was about to be poured out. Nothing was ever going to be the same. All the old understandings and certainties were being challenged and disrupted. It was a time of great change.
It seems to me that times of change are those in which our trust in God can be most challenged but also in which it can grow and deepen.
Some changes are individual. They can be step changes or gradual ones. Moving house, losing a job, a bereavement, an unexpected diagnosis, changing schools, the birth of a child. These are all step changes in the circumstances of our life. In a very short time many of the things that we thought we knew, patterns of life, ways of being, are gone and we’re having to navigate something new.
Other changes can be gradual. Aging, having children grow up, key relationships changing shape. We’re not quite sure when it happened, but we have a sense that there has been a deep change, and we aren’t sure where we are any more.
There we are, trundling along in life, all our ducks in a row, a healthy pattern of relationships with people around us, in a good place with God. And then something happens to throw it all out. Our ducks are no longer in a row.
They’re squirrels and they’re at a rave. We are in a place we don’t recognise, and we’re thirsty, and it’s urgent. How are we going to apply what we know, how are we going to love and trust, where is God, in this new situation?
We might have some sympathy for the people of Israel in the desert, but there are elements of a cautionary tale there. They grumbled and blamed their leader, they did not trust God. Leader blaming is an age old reaction to unwelcome change. Sometimes it’s warranted, but when we find ourselves tempted in that direction it is worth rereading this story and checking in with God.
And what about trusting God? I feel like I’m treading a fine line this morning. Sometimes I go and visit with people who are going through a hard time and they share that they feel guilty that their faith seems to have gone, and they don’t know where God is in it. I know what that feels like, I’ve been there. The last thing that is needed in that situation is someone piling on the guilt by telling them they should have more faith.
However, I do want to encourage us to reflect on this, to talk to God and each other about it, to deepen our foundations in faith, to build on rock so that when the storms of life do come we have resources to draw on that make it more likely that we will stand.
In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus he talks about the armour of God, and in that armour he encourages us to take up the shield of faith. One of the things about Roman shields is that they were primarily designed to be used together in shield walls. When friends brought a paralysed man to Jesus, and lowered him through the roof of the house so that Jesus could heal him, Mark tells us Jesus said, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralysed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”
Our individual faith and trust in Jesus is important, but it seems clear to me that there is also a community element to it. Sometimes, when our faith seems to have gone we can rest in the faith of those around us, shelter behind their shields for a bit. We can pray with the man who brought his son for healing, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
This is one of the reasons we meet together in congregations, why we offer prayer ministry, why we have small groups and prayer triplets, why friendships with other Christians are so important. They are part of God’s gift to us, God’s provision for us, to help us through the desert, when we are thirsty. At the feeding of the more than five thousand it was God who provided the food, but it was the disciples who gave it out to the people. As a community together of people following Jesus we are called to share the bread with others, and also to be willing to receive it from others.
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