Let us pray! Heavenly Father, when You told Moses to lead
Your people out of Egypt, they couldn’t prepare for the trip. You took them into the Wilderness and they
complained that they were thirsty.
Today, we to long for Your guidance in our plans for Emmanuel. We yearn for Your divine presence to quench
our thirst and enlighten us and enable us to fulfill Your plan here among all
of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel.
AMEN.
This morning we begin a short 3 part series
entitled, “What is God’s Plan here at Emmanuel?” Please understand my reason for embarking on
this series is not to preach on, what ‘I think’ we should do. My intention is for us to collectively ask
God to guide us through His Word, the scriptures and to enlighten each of us as
we begin to prepare for our 90th year celebration in December and
look back how God has blessed Emmanuel.
It is also my prayer that the scriptures will help us dialogue and lay
claim to God’s plan today and enable us to discern the future as a congregation
in association with the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ.
In our text this morning we heard about
the “congregation
of the sons of Israel” who had “journeyed by stages from the wilderness of
Sin, according to the command of the Lord”. These people God had sent Moses to lead out
of Egypt and be freed from the bondage of Pharaoh. They are the same ones that God had allowed
to cross the Red Sea on dry land and then ‘swallowed up’ Pharaoh’s army that
was in their pursuit. But now, these
same people God had delivered from the hand and bondage of Pharaoh “quarreled
with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.””
The Israelite nation was thirsty, they
had been marching for days and were extremely thirsty. Just like here in Goodland, where water is a
precious commodity, the people God had just freed were thirsty and needed water
and Moses, their leader was the person they were ready to quarrel with. But Moses says, your beef isn’t with me, its
with God, but “why do you tempt the Lord”?
The God who delivered you from the hands of Pharaoh, defeated the army
that came to take you back to slavery, why would He allow you to go
thirsty? Would God not provide for
them? What was the root of the problem,
was it ‘lack of water’ or was it ‘doubt in the merciful presence of God’?
So what does Moses do, but go to God and
say, “What shall I do to this people?
A little more and they will stone me.” Moses feared for his life and is asking God for
deliverance. Is it a fear for his own
safety? Probably it is. But it also is a form of faith by Moses in
God that He would provide. What the
answer would be, Moses didn’t know, but he had faith that God would provide.
The providence of God is revealed when “the
Lord said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the
elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the
Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand
before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water
will come out of it, that the people may drink.”” In this passage God affirms the miracle He
will perform through Moses of striking the rock for the people of Israel. The people would be the witness to the miracle
God would provide in the water for them to drink. But fulfilling their thirst is only one part,
Moses to remind the people names the place as a reminder of the people’s doubt. The names given indicate what the people had
done, for Massah means temptation and Meribah is strife, so the miracle that
Moses performed would forever be linked and be an example of warning during
both the Old Testament and New Testament times of the people’s doubt of God’s
presence and providing for the Israelite people.
Easily and sincerely we here at Emmanuel
could say we have not been freed from bondage from a tyrannical national leader,
nor have we travelled into the wilderness only to be thirsty. Yet, it could be said this story may be a
metaphor for Emmanuel! The situation is
not identical, but our doubt during the last few years of the direction of
Emmanuel and wondering if God really is present, active and working in, with
and through us. For we have thirsted for
God to ‘perform a miracle’ and ‘give us a drink’. For Emmanuel the story of the people of
Israel can inspire us to ask the question, “What is God’s Plan for
Emmanuel?” As I said earlier, I am not
going to give my opinion, but I will provide some insight from this story.
God tells this story to highlight for us
today our similar state of wondering about His presence with us here in
Goodland, KS. Though we are fallen
creatures, just as the Israelite people were, the opportunity is for us to in
faith seek God, not to stone the leader like Moses or the Pastor, but to
discern the direction God is leading us.
Yes we have been thirsty, but throughout the ministry of Emmanuel, God
provided the Word and Sacrament for us to be fed by. God provided for us His only Son and our
Savior, Jesus Christ. As we heard the
Word of God and ate His Body and drank His Blood as we do this morning, God
proves His presence by providing for our physical and spiritual needs. God in and through His Word and this Meal
which is a foretaste of the Feast to come feeds us and works the greatest
miracle of His presence in, with and under this Bread and Wine that now is His
precious Body and Blood. We have
partaken of this meal to feed and nourish us and as Jesus Himself said to the
woman at the well, to be the gift of Eternal life, the Well Spring that will
never go dry. Thus, as we are fed the promise of Word and Sacrament God is
present with us and in us and transforms us on a daily basis. May God’s precious gift of His Body and Blood
nourish and feed us just as the water did for the Israelite nation as we
discern where and what God wants us saints at Emmanuel to do to fulfill His
Plan for all of Emmanuel. AMEN.
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