THE LORD IS AMONG US
Exodus 17:5-7 the Lord
The Lord said to Moses, “Walk on before the people, and take the elders of Israel with you, and take the rod in your hand with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 He called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because the children of Israel quarreled, and because they tested Yahweh, saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”
It is a science evidence that water is essential for human life on Earth and probably for many more life forms in the galaxy. In general and in average in the human body the proportion of the water is around 60%. It is a lot but in some organs like the brain and the heart and the muscles and the kidneys and the liver it's around 80%. We have to upkeep our hydration balance in order to live.
However, about water it is not only the nutrition value what makes it an extraordinary component and asset in the human body, but it is like a factotum agent and a universal and indispensable solvent for our biochemical soups. Water in us also does regulate our body temperature, it lubricates our joints, our eyes, our mouth, our nose. It also helps detoxicate our kidneys and our liver by flushing out the waste products. It is also the main transportation artery with the blood flow to deliver nutrients and oxygen to our cells, meanwhile it protects the organs and the tissues.
It is without question, that we have to maintain our hydration level, which is a never ending task, almost as essential as breathing, especially because daily we keep loosing body liquids by the amount of 2 or even 3 liter. That is the amount we have to resupply and drink everyday.
For almost weeks we can manage with significantly less water, but we cannot go completely without water for more than two days without serious health consequences. Losing hydration is faster, when the weather is hot in the desert, thus we can understand, that in the desert the mood of the crowd could easily fall into desperation, if there is no water to drink, especially for woman and children.
Exactly that happened in the wilderness during the Exodus, when the Israelites bitterly complained to Moses, as it is written: " All the congregation of the children of Israel traveled from the wilderness of Sin, starting according to the Lord’s commandment, and encamped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ (...) The people were thirsty for water there; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, 'Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?' "
In modern times deserts still exist, but hardly anybody knows that the wonders of wonders have been happening in recent years and right know in Saudi Arabia, where close to half of the drinking water come from desalination of sea water, and they are systematically using underground water to nurture agriculture and industrial level animal husbandry. By irrigation they turned the desert into a green farmland, gradually of course, but it is happening. Saudi Arabia became an exporter of fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat products, instead of importing everything they need, in exchange for oil dollars.
However, desalination and modern wonders of the agriculture based on technological advancement, like in Israel today, were not known to be available in the era of the Exodus, Moses needed an immediate solution, probably a miraculous one, to save the people in the desert around the northern boundaries of the ancient Arabia. Thus, Moses, when in need, turned to the Lord. But also he had to scorn the people, that why do you quarrel with me, and why do you test the Lord, by saying that "Is the Lord among us or not?"
It meant that it is a blasphemy level lack of faith to think that God will not provide when there explicit need emerges. We also know it from the New Testament that testing the Lord is profoundly wrong, because when Jesus was in the desert and in a vision the devil set him on the pinnacle of the temple, Jesus declared that " 'Again, it is written, 'You shall not test the Lord, your God.' "
Jesus did not allow himself to turn the stones into bread in the desert, when he was alone. But when he had to face 4000 hungry people, he speedily multiplied the bread. Similarly, when Moses climbed the mountain, he did not eat and drink for forty days and forty nights. But, when the nation cried for water, he turned to God for water.
We take water as granted, but when we stumble upon a stone on the surfece of the Moon or the Mars, or we are in the Arabian desert or in the Sahara, or in the Takla Makan desert, we immediately realize how precious water is, and how generous our God is, when God provides rain and dew, snow and gletchers, rivers and lakes, seas and oceans. For this reason alone we should be ever grateful to God that God is visibly among us as the provider of all things, visible and invisible.
However, God is also the one who regularly does the miracle level wonders, but we hardly realize that no man but God is the only one who really performs all but all the miracles. It is written, that the Lord said to Moses, "Walk on before the people, and take the elders of Israel with you, and take the rod in your hand with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink."
If God would not have stood there with Moses, Moses would not have been able to split the rock for water. Same happened with the dividing the sea, when Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
The Book of Exodus is explicitly clear that not Moses, but God was the savior of the people, as it is written, that “that day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians. ” (...) And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”
For God is the almighty and eternal King, and Moses was just a mortal servant of the King.
However, this issue is similar to Jesus on Earth, of whose full humanity is often forgotten.
In the Gospel of John, when Jesus resurrected Lazarus from the dead, he prayed as it is written, that “ ‘ Father, I thank you that you listened to me. I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude standing around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.’ (...) And Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ He who was dead came out.”
It is evident that God always listened to the Son, but in his human incarnation, even the Son had to pray to God to show the presence to the people and the power of God over death. In the Son’s presence, God’s presence is tangible. May we put our whole trust in the always present (omnipresent) God, and in Jesus, God’s Son, by the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
