The LORD our God is among us. - Exodus 17:1-7
Before we get into our lesson from Exodus, I am going to ask you to do something that might be a bit painful, but in the end will serve a purpose. Try to think of a time in your life when you were at your lowest, your absolute rock bottom. Maybe it was when, as a child, you had a front row seat to abuse or neglect. Maybe it was later in life when you faced betrayal or abandonment. Maybe it was still later in life when disease or death visited your home. I want you to think of a time when you could feel despair pressing down on you; crushing you; suffocating you. I want you to think of that time when you were tempted to cry out, ‘Why God!”, “Where are you God!” “Don’t you see that I am suffering!” “Don’t you care?!” … I want you to keep that moment in mind as I tell you about the children of Israel.
The children of Israel, in Exodus 17, have recently exited Egypt. By my estimation they have been traveling through the wilderness for 4 or 5 weeks. During that time the children of Isreal behave as poorly as you might imagine. They remind me of a bunch of kids in the backseat of a minivan on the way to grandma’s house. Do you remember those days? I do. Michelle and I would load the boys into the back seat and drive 18 hours from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes. We wouldn’t make it to the highway before one of the boys started asking ‘how much farther?’. I used to answer them truthfully and honestly, but it didn’t take long for me to realize 1 – they didn’t have any real sense of time and 2 – they were just asking the question because they were bored and I suspect 3 – they were asking the question because they knew it irritated me. So eventually I just started telling them, “45 minutes”. Didn’t matter if there was 17 hours or 17 minutes remaining in the trip every time they asked, ‘how much farther’ I would tell them with all the sincerity I could muster, ‘about 45 minutes.’ Eventually they gave up and stopped asking irritating questions. Instead, they focused their energy on the back of my seat, the kicking of the back of my seat. I tried to pretend I had one of those fancy cars that comes with seat massagers and did my best not to think of the dirty footprints that were ruining my upholstery. Knowing that they fed off my frustration I did my best to ignore the kicking, But I was never able to ignore the whining, it grated on me like nails on a chalkboard. “Stop touching me”, one brother would whine to the other. “Stay on your side”, the other brother would whine back. “Mooooom, he took my blanket”. When the whining got to where I couldn’t take it any longer, I would do what every parent threatens to do, I would threaten either to pull over to the side of the road and paint their back porch red or turn the car around and go back home. Which worked for a while. Eventually, as they got older, they realized I was bluffing, and that is when we bought a 7-seater suburban with a built in T.V.
As a father who has taken my fair share of road trips with a back seat full of irritating, frustrating, and whining children, I can’t help but feel sorry for Moses. At least my children were children. They don’t act that way anymore. They are grown men. The irritating, frustrating, and whining children Moses traveled with were grown adults, though you would not know it from the way the behaved. The trip starts out with Miriam and the girls singing dancing and playing tambourines. But tree days into their road trip the whining started. “I’m hot.” “I’m tired.” “I’m thirsty.” I’m hungry.” I don’t know how you pull a caravan of over a million people over to the side of the road, but I imagine the thought went through Moses’ mind. But even if he tried, the children of Israel would have called his bluff. They wanted Moses to turn the car around. “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt!”[1], They whined.
4 or 5 weeks into the road trip and everyone is on edge. The children of Israel are on the brink of mutiny, “2… Give us water to drink.”, they demand. Worse, they start making rather serious allegations against Moses. “3… Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” Effectively accusing Moses of plotting mass genocide. You get a sense of Moses’ frustration. “2… Why do you quarrel with me?”, he defensively asks the Israelites. “4… What am I to do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”, he desperately cries out to the LORD. “this people”. That is how I talk about the pile of Good Will garbage my wife periodically piles up. “What do you want me to do with this stuff?”
The children of Israel were behaving as poorly as you might imagine. But worse than their grumbling and complaining to Moses was what all their grumbling and complaining was insinuating about the LORD their God. In verse 7 we read, “they tested the LORD saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” The insinuation is clear. The LORD their God had abandoned them Either because He had forgotten them or didn’t care about them. What makes their insinuation, so insulting is not long ago; about 4 or 5 weeks ago, the LORD their God had, with a series of 10 plagues, set the children of Israel free from slavery in Egypt and with the miraculous parting of the Red Sea the LORD their God had delivered them from an enemy who pursued them with murderous intent. The LORD their God had made it abundantly clear that He was among them. Yet when they were at their lowest; when they had hit rock bottom and despair was pushing down on them, crushing them, suffocating them, they cried out, ‘Why God!”, “Where are you God!” “Don’t you see that we are suffering!” “Don’t you care?!”
A few minutes ago, I asked you to think about a time in your life when you were at your lowest your absolute rock bottom. I hope in that moment you didn’t test the LORD your God. I hope you never wavered in your trust that in all things, including the things that cause despair to press down on you; crush you; suffocate you, even in those things I hope you trusted God was working good for you. I hope you never insinuated that the LORD your God had abandoned you either because He had forgotten about you or didn’t care about you. Especially after all the LORD your God has done to make it abundantly clear that He is among us.
With a definitive declaration “It is finished![2]” the Lord your God set you free from your slavery to sin. With His miraculous resurrection from the dead the LORD your God delivered you from an enemy who pursued you with murderous intent. The LORD your God has made it abundantly clear that He is among us. So, I hope when you were at your lowest, when you hit rock bottom, you didn’t put the LORD your God to the test…. but for those of us who did, for those of us do, and for those of us who someday sadly will, the way the LORD your God responds to the insulting insinuations made against Him is comforting.
If you were the LORD God, how would you respond to a bunch of grumbling complaining children who were making insulting insinuations against you? Abandon them in the desert? Send an army to re-enslave them? Open the ground beneath their feet or rain down fire and brimstone on their heads? I think that is what I might do. Which is reason 1, 974 why it is a good thing I’m not the LORD your God. What the LORD your God actually did is recorded in verses 5-6. “5 The LORD answered Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.” The LORD God stands before Moses and the elders and causes water to come out of a rock; the LORD God makes His presence among His people known and the LORD God pours out blessings upon them.
The way the LORD God responds to the children of Israel tells you something about the LORD your God. The LORD your God is mercifully longsuffering and graciously patient. The LORD God was mercifully longsuffering and graciously patient with the children of Israel. And The LORD your God is mercifully longsuffering and graciously patient with you. In the good times and in the not so good times, the LORD your God makes His presence known among you and the LORD your God pours out His blessing upon you. Very often He starts here at the baptismal font. The LORD your God was present and poured out His blessings upon you when through water and the Word He claimed you to be His own dear child. Then over the years the LORD your God has repeatedly made His presence known and blessed you as His law and gospel are preached from a pulpit. And as an extra special measure of assurance that the Lord your God is with you and is blessing you, He invites you to come forward to receive His body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. Despite all our grumbling, complaining, and insulting insinuations, The mercifully longsuffering and graciously patient LORD your God is with you and is blessings you.
I am sorry If my asking you to think of a time when you were at your lowest; your absolute rock bottom caused you pain. But I hope you see now that the pain had a purpose. When despair was pushing down on you; crushing you, suffocating you, the LORD your God was with you. Even if for a time it didn’t feel like He was. The LORD your God was with you in the promises of baptism, the proclamation of His Word, and the forgiveness of the Supper. The LORD your God was with you and He was blessing you. And should any of us ever again find ourselves in another low, another rock bottom, I hope and I pray we remember this story about the grumbling and complaining children of Israel and the mercifully longsuffering and graciously patient LORD God. And I hope and I pray that we are all re-assured that even in our lowest low and our rockiest bottom, the LORD our God is among us. Amen
[1] Exodus 16:3
[2] John 19:30