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17 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 for 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?” 8 Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. 9 Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some men for us and go out; fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” 10 So Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses’s hands grew heavy, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on either side, so his hands were steady until the sun set. 13 And Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the sword. 14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a remembrance in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” 15 And Moses built an altar and called it, The Lord is my banner. 16 He said, “A hand upon the banner of the Lord! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17:1-17 NRSV)
Who holds your arms up when you're praying and growing weak and weary? Be like Moses and find your own Aaron and Hur!
Welcome to ConCafe for Wednesday, 23rd of September. If you're reading this early enough, why not drive over to See You at the Pole at your nearest school? This is a global event asking God for global blessings and changes! Also, great news! All of ConCafe materials are on our new website, concafe.tv. So, if you're referring someone to our ministry use that as the place to go. If you miss a day and think you can't find it ever again, no such luck! You'll find it here! My thanks to Mr. Douglas Copeland for his help in getting this set up for us! Let's win the world for Jesus by our prayers and our love! Update on Mr. Gerald Gabbart; he's on hospice care now and Lord only knows how long it will take, but doctors are sure it can't be too long. May we pray for God's will to be done and that the family receive their strength from the Lord!
There is something almost comforting about the fact that the Israelites are complaining again. Not because complaining is admirable — it isn't, and the text doesn't treat it as such — but because the consistency of it tells us something true about human nature that we might as well acknowledge right up front. These are the people who watched the ten plagues, walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, saw Pharaoh's army swallowed by the water behind them, ate manna from heaven, and watched God guide them with a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. The evidence of God's faithfulness is, at this point, genuinely extraordinary. And they are thirsty, and so they quarrel with Moses and say, in essence, did you bring us out here to die?
We should be careful about feeling too superior to them. Most of us have a similar track record. We can look back at the places where God came through — the provision that arrived at the last possible moment, the relationship that was healed when we'd given up on it, the situation that turned around in ways we still can't fully explain — and then three days later, when the new problem arrives and the water runs out, we quarrel with whoever is nearest and wonder if God has lost interest in us. The Israelites are not a cautionary tale from a primitive era. They are a mirror.
Moses, to his credit, does not take this personally — or rather, he does take it personally for about thirty seconds and then takes it to God. "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." Which is, honestly, a very pastoral prayer. It's not a theological reflection or a carefully composed petition. It's a man at the end of his rope telling God exactly where he is. And God, who is never surprised by where His people are, responds immediately — not with a rebuke of Moses for the inelegance of the prayer, not with a lecture about the Israelites' ingratitude, but with a practical, specific, do-this-and-it-will-work answer. Take the staff. Take some elders. Go to the rock at Horeb. Strike it. Water will come out.
The rock. This detail is so ordinary that we might walk right past it, which would be a significant mistake. There is a rock, and inside the rock there is water, and the water has been there all along, waiting for Moses to strike it. God didn't create the water in the moment of the crisis. He positioned it before the crisis arrived, in a rock that looked like nothing, in a desert place that offered no visible promise of relief. The provision was already there. What was needed was not a miracle from nothing but the obedience to strike the rock that God was pointing at.
Paul, writing to the Corinthians centuries later, identifies the rock explicitly — the rock was Christ. The provision that sustained Israel in the wilderness, the water that came from the struck rock, is a picture of the one who would be struck on the cross so that living water could flow from His side to a thirsty world. Jesus Himself tells the woman at the well that whoever drinks the water He gives will never be thirsty again — that the water He gives will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The rock in the wilderness is the earliest chapter of a story that runs all the way through the Gospels and erupts in the wind and fire of Pentecost, when the Spirit — described by Jesus as rivers of living water flowing from within — is poured out on all flesh. The thirsty people of Israel got water from a rock. We get the Spirit from the Risen Christ, and the Spirit is the water that does not run dry.
There's a name Moses gives to the place that is worth sitting with: Massah and Meribah, which mean testing and quarreling. The place is named not for the miracle but for the question the Israelites asked in the middle of it: "Is the Lord among us or not?" It's a haunting question, and a deeply honest one. In the middle of the thirst, in the middle of the waiting, in the middle of the wilderness between the last miracle and the next one — is the Lord among us or not? Moses strikes the rock. Water pours out. And the answer to the question is written in the desert sand: He was here the whole time.
He is here the whole time. The rock was already positioned. The water was already inside it. The staff was already in Moses's hand. The elders were already there to witness it. And the Lord was standing on the rock before Moses ever arrived — which is the most important detail of all. He goes ahead. He positions the provision before the crisis arrives. He stands at the place of the need before we know there is a need. And when we finally get there, thirsty and quarreling and wondering if He's even paying attention, the water comes out and we realize He has been here all along.
Is the Lord among us or not? Strike the rock. Find out.
PRAYER: Lord, when we quarrel in our thirst and forget Your track record, remind us that You have already gone ahead to the rock and the water is already waiting for us. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Name the specific thirst you're carrying today — the need that's making you quarrel or doubt — and strike the rock by bringing it to God in honest, direct, Moses-style prayer right now.
I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me! Show love to all people today in ways that show Jesus in you!
Blessings,
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
