The people face two obstacles, water and an enemy army. The first is predictable and not because they
grumble about the situation. Water is an
ever present need for anyone, much less a large group of people and animals in
the wilderness. It is a human need and
no one knows that better than the creator of all. The people come against Moses again when it
seems there is no solution to the problem, accusing him of bad leadership but
the reality is that they need to look to the Lord who has brought them out of
Egypt, not to Moses alone. The Lord
gives Moses an odd solution to take the staff with which he had struck the Nile
in the first plague, and strike a rock at Horeb and water will result. This is the same staff he held over the Red
Sea, but God specifies the one with which he struck the Nile, it is going to be
used for the same purpose this time. Then
they face their first enemy, the Amalekites, the same group Saul will later be
called upon to utterly destroy and he will fail. Moses chooses Joshua to find the people to
fight for the nation and lead them while Moses himself will pray. Did you notice what was to be written after
the battle, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of
Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” Saul failed to do as God had promised and was
rejected.
The disciples are afraid to ask Jesus what He means by
saying they will not see Him and then they will see Him, they don't want to
appear dense. He knows, however, their confusion
even though He has been telling them about His imminent death and resurrection. Sometimes we don't hear when we don’t understand,
we just hear words and let them pass in and out when we don't comprehend. They still don't understand what He means but
suddenly they say, now we get it, no one needs ask anything else, you're
speaking plainly now. Jesus knows they
don't understand at all and they will surely prove it when they abandon Him in
the trial and crucifixion. We have to always
remember that we are often adrift when God speaks like Nicodemus was, not
comprehending spiritual things because we are thinking too much from the flesh.
We, like the people of the Exodus are walking by faith to a
promised land and that requires a certain amount of humility and trust that God
knows what we need and that He is sovereign.
The people had to develop that faith after many years of living as
slaves and as Egyptians. We are called out
of the main run of life as a distinct people and our lives should reveal that
it is indeed a distinction with a difference.
We are to be those who are called to a different way of life and a way
of life that does not take its comforts and securities in this world. We should expect suffering because we are
counter cultural, a people who are a sign to the world that it has lost its
moorings and is in search of something it knows it has lost. We are to be willing to be accounted
different, out of step with the world, just as Jesus was. The world shouldn't completely understand us
and we should never apologize for that.
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