Reflection by Jeff Koch
Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-2, 5-8; John 4:5-42
My eyes are always on the Lord, for he rescues my feet from the snare, Turn to me and have mercy on me, for I am alone and poor. (Psalm 25:15-16)
“Sure he will; said he would!” This was a statement that my dad always used when helping us to understand that God had promised and he would take care of us and provide for us as we walking in faith with him. Yet we all still struggle to look through the situations and issues we face each day to trust in God’s word and work. This was seen in God’s people as he delivered them from bondage in Egypt. Looking at our reading in Exodus, in context, in chapter 15, soon after they had crossed the Red Sea, God told them, “If you listen closely to the voice of the LORD, your God, and do what is right in his eyes: if you heed his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not afflict you with any of the diseases with which I afflicted the Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer. Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water. (Exodus 15:26-27) Sounds like a pretty good start and promise for the journey ahead. But soon after, they come to a place where there was no water and challenged Moses and questioned God, even accusing him of not being with them, “Is God even among us.” God was trying to get Egypt out of them so they would trust Him. They figured this life of trust would be difficult and so often said, just take us back to Egypt. The psalmist said this was a hardening of the heart and admonished us that if we hear his voice today don’t harden our hearts and they did.
Trust is somedays difficult, sometimes hard. But we must return to two things, what has God promised, and always remember he is with us. Sometimes we need to have our own Jacob’s well moment. The Samaritan woman came to the well and Jesus meet her, though she didn’t realize who he was. Jesus asks her for a drink then makes a profound statement, “. . . if you knew the gift of God and who is saying, give me a drink, you would have asked him for living water.” She desires this living water but is not sure what he is talking about. So, Jesus begins to walk her through some questions and ways of thinking to help her. He begins by asking her a question that reveals she has been, “looking for love in all the wrong places.” Or at least she was not finding fulfillment in her life. So, after trying to switch the subject with some discussion about worship, she makes the statement that when Messiah, the Christ comes, he will tell them all things. Jesus says, “I am he, the one speaking with you.” As disciples come, she goes and invites the whole town to come to see Jesus, and they acknowledge he is the Savior of the world. He then stayed and taught them for two days. Wonder what he taught? Maybe John picked up on something.
In John’s gospel he tells us, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’” He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive.” (John 7:37-39) This living water, given by the Spirit within us, would not only quench our thirst but would be a spring of living water flowing up from within us. As a believer, walking through the wilderness of this world, that spring gives us life. The Exodus journeyers did not understand that rock that Moses struck was Christ! You see Paul tells us, “. . . all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was the Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:1-4) In same way, the woman at the well didn’t realize that this Jewish man standing in front of her, talking with her, was the Messiah, the Christ, the rock of salvation; we must ask ourselves, do we sometimes miss the reality of what God has done? So many things he has promised us, so many great things he has done for us, and He is standing right there in the midst with us?
Paul in Romans says, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God . . . because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5) This Spirit that has been given us is the same Spirit that Jesus was talking about as the spring of the life of God in us.
We can make it through our wildernesses because God has promised, and he is standing with us! And swells within us! So, I can say with my Dad, “Sure he will; said he would!”
O God, author of every mercy and of all goodness, who in fasting, prayer and almsgiving have shown us a remedy for sin, look graciously on this confusion of our lowliness, that we, who are bowed down by our conscience, may always be lifted up by your mercy. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.