Miriam dies
and now there is a problem of water again.
The people assemble against those whom God has chosen as their leaders
and grumble once more. Why do they not
simply come and ask Moses to speak to the Lord about this matter? Why do they always blame Moses rather than
themselves? Surely they could have some
humility and take some responsibility for being in the wilderness this
time. It was their sin of unbelief, not
Moses’ that had put them back in this place.
Now, however, Moses is told to speak to the rock and tell it to bring
forth water and instead he says something like, here’s another sign for you,
“we” will bring forth water from the rock and then strikes the rock twice. He takes credit and then does magic that
makes it appear that he has done this work, failing to mention the Lord. His disobedience and presumption costs him
the opportunity to lead the people into the promised Land. His vaunted humility failed this time.
Even as He
goes up to Jerusalem to what He knows will be His suffering and death, Jesus is
available to those who seek Him. These
two blind men recognize Him as “Lord” and “Son of David.” Both these titles are Messianic. They have given Him high praise and yet they
are told to shut up by the crowd, just as the Pharisees will encourage Jesus to
tell the crowds to be silent on Palm Sunday.
Instead, Jesus hears their pleas and asks what they want Him to do for
them. It seems an obvious thing, to heal
their blindness, but they could also have been begging for money. It is important that they make their request
known specifically to Him. The mercy
they seek is the mercy they receive. The
crowd has ever more reason to acclaim Him and to believe they are on the cusp
of something important as they accompany Him to Jerusalem for Passover. You can bet the word of this spread ahead of
His entry into the city.
Often people
believe it horribly unfair of the Lord to forbid Moses to lead the people into
the land because of what he did at Meribah but the truth is that sin is
sin. Sin has consequences and we forfeit
something when we sin. Moses lost his
ability to be God’s leader when he failed to lead as God told him to lead. Jesus persevered in obedience to the end and
so never sinned, He alone then is uniquely qualified to lead us into the true
Promised Land. The consequences of sin
are no longer eternal, they are only temporal.
Adam’s sin brought death to the world
but only in the sense that it was now in our DNA, we are guilty of our
own sin. Jesus’ righteousness is imputed
to us who have no righteousness. He has
indeed had mercy on us as He did the blind men, even though we would never have
been presumptuous enough to ask for such a gift.
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