A Drop in the Bucket

Where does the phrase “a drop in the bucket” originate?

Last Sunday was the first of Advent, the start of the Christmas season. In keeping with her Swedish tradition, my wife Tiffany lit the first of four candles that mark the weeks leading to Jul - Christmas Eve. The first candle speaks of Hope - and the ancient promise of a Saviour – who would answer the hopes and fears of all the years.


On Friday we attended a concert that included among other pieces, the selection from Handel’s Messiah “He Shall Feed his Flock" about God shepherding his people –

He tends his flock like a shepherd:

He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart;

he gently leads those that have young.

Today I located those words in Isaiah - Chapter 40 and was struck by the water imagery that immediately follows the Shepherd text.
We shouldn’t be surprised. Shepherds have to think constantly about water for their flock - water, grass and safety are the big three needs of sheep.

A Fruitful Vine Climbing over a Wall

The dying old man whispered his words blessing upon each of his sons. At last he came to Joseph – the one who had made the whole family proud.

Joseph will be a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall.”
See Genesis 49:22-26 for the full text of this blessing

Joseph’s great mission in life had been the preserving of life, but it had not been an easy mission. God had preserved him from a dry cistern in the desert, from the schemes of treacherous brothers and slave-traders, from dark forgotten dungeons of Egypt. Joseph came into fame, fortune and economic power, but used these not for private advantage, but to be the saviour of his generation.

The Wild Kisses of a Lion

In the last chapter of The Silver Chair. . . .

Jill and Eustace stood beside a beautiful fresh-flowing stream in bright sunshine. The only sound was heart-breaking funeral music from a faraway world. Aslan and the two children looked into the water.

"There on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay the king, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water-weed. And all three stood and wept."  Like Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, "even Aslan wept - great Lion-tears."

If you’ve ever lost a loved one, you know the sadness that is deeper than words. The river of death is the inevitable end of every person’s life, but Lewis shows us that Death does not have the last word.

Aslan told Eustace to bring a rapier-sharp thorn and pierce his lion’s paw. A great drop of blood, “redder than all redness you have ever seen” splashed into the stream over the dead body of the king. And a transformation began.

The funeral music stopped. The king’s white beard turned fresh and then vanished. His sunken cheeks became round and red. His wrinkled face brightened - until the king leapt out of the water with boyish laughter and flung his arms around the Lion. “He gave Aslan the strong kisses of a King, and Aslan gave him the wild kisses of a Lion.”

In Honor of C.S. Lewis . . .

. . . who died on this date, 47 years ago, November 22, 1963, a week before his 65th birthday.

"Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake.

Love. Think. Speak.

Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.”

The Magician’s Nephew, p. 108

There are lots of wonderful water scenes in the Narnia Chronicles, but one of my favorites is the story of Jill in The Silver Chair.  Jill is desperately thirsty and hears running water nearby. She ventures into a forest in search of the stream and when she sees it, she is afraid to approach the stream because a huge lion is sitting between her and the stream.

'Are you not thirsty?’ asked the Lion.
‘I’m dying of thirst,’ said Jill.
‘Then drink,’ said the Lion.

Testing and Resting

Deserts are relentless – and humans are not well-adapted to desert demands.

As the Israeli tribes travelled deeper into the wilderness of Sinai toward their promised home, their principal need was water. Once, when the need was especially acute, God told Moses to smack a nearby rock. To everyone’s astonishment, water gushed out. God knows the map-line of every underground

aquifer and how to provide for his people. That happened more than once as God proved his faithfulness to his people.  Israel immortalized God's power in poetry and song:

He split the rocks in the desert and gave them water as abundant as the seas;
He brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers.
Psalm 78:15-16

But song alone can’t change character and Israel never seemed to pass the trust-test, complaining constantly, testing God’s patience, quarreling with God. Moses even named a couple of memorable landmarks Massah (i.e. Testing) and Meribah (i.e. Quarreling) to mark these low-points in their spiritual odyssey.

Bitter Waters Become Sweet

Three days searching the parched desert for water – and then suddenly – the glint of a spring-fed pool! It was no mirage. Cheers of excitement filled the air.

But when the Exodus refugees finally reached the water, it was undrinkable, brackish with mineral salts, bitter and foul to the taste. Marah - bitter waters! Frustration and disappointment over-flowed in a torrent of anger and despair and the cruel sense of being betrayed by God.

As leader, Moses cried out to God and God showed him how to remediate the water so they could drink it. From aching thirst, … to soaring hopes, … crashing disappointment and finally… refreshment!

That’s the surface story. But there’s always an under-current of wonder flowing through these water stories.

Desert Training

The Book of  Exodus tells an epic story – the transforma-tion of refugees from mud-pit slaves to chosen people of God – but it’s a roller-coaster odyssey, and they were slow learners!

After an astonishing deliverance at the Red Sea, these refugees trekked three days into the desert of Sinai without finding water. What a difference three days can make.

Yahweh had promised to adopt them as family, to be their God and bring them to a land of safe haven. Now the parched desert seemed to mock the promises of the invisible God.

But there’s more to the desert than meets the eye – and they were not to be the last refugees in history to be ravaged by thirst.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

It’s a story for anyone who has ever been caught between danger and disaster, between a rock and a hard place. It's the ancient story of Exodus.

Beyond their wildest dreams a tribe of slaves found themselves free at last, heading east on the Desert Road towards their long-promised home.

Two days later, camped by Yam Suph, the Sea of Reeds, they saw the dust of Pharaoh’s army with 600 chariots bearing down on them. Yam Suph posed a formidable barrier - too wide to circumvent and too deep to cross; it blocked their only path of escape. If they were chosen people, they appeared chosen to die.

What Really Made the Nile Turn Red?

It was the first of the Ten Plagues – and it wasn’t pretty. The great River was bleeding and undrinkable. In a land with no rain, people were desperate. It was an ecological disaster – and it became even worse.

Hungary's Red Sludge
Photo Credit: Newscom

There were no industries to blame – no BP Oil Spill, no Hungarian Alumina tailings leak. This was a natural disaster with serious religious undertones.

Scientifically, there are various perfectly natural explanations. The Nile normally floods every year in late summer. If the annual flood were excessively high, it may have brought microorganisms such as Pfiesteria piscicida which could redden and poison the river and cause conditions that would kill the fish. Epidemiological theories and counter-theories abound.

Through Water to New Life

An un-named infant floats precariously in a papyrus basket among the reeds along the Nile, condemned by imperial edict, guilty of being a 3-month-old Hebrew man-child. Miraculously, he’s rescued by an Egyptian princess who names him Moses meaning ‘water-son’ or ‘drawn out of water’.

The Finding of Moses,  Edwin Long, 1886

He will grow up to become liberator of the Hebrew slaves, but first he has to undergo his own rescue, his own exodus, experiencing on a personal scale the rescue-through-water* which God would later accomplish through him for the whole nation at the Red Sea.

Many commentators note the courageous women who are heroines of this story: the Egyptian midwives who defy the Pharaoh’s edict, the mother and sister of Moses who risk their lives to protect him, the daughter of Pharaoh who finances his day-care and gives him his name. They lived in a patriarchal world, but it's impossible to ignore the vital role these women played.

Genocide and Hope

During a horrific 100 days in the Spring of 1994, almost a million Tutsi and Hutu men, women and children were slaughtered and crudely dumped in Rwanda’s Kagera River. The current carried their bodies - shot, hacked, clubbed or burned - over the waterfall down towards the quiet waters of Lake Victoria.

The history of genocide has deep roots in the rivers of Africa.  The first chapter of The Book of Exodus tells how a cultured Pharaoh in the 18th or 19th dynasty, tried to obliterate the surging numbers of Hebrew people living in his land.

Let Justice Flow Like Rivers

 Where the river flows, life abounds. Ezekiel 47:9  The Message

Satellite images illustrate the vital importance of water in the Egyptian desert. From ancient times the civilizations of Egypt have depended on the Nile River for its agriculture and commerce.

So vital was the water that ancient Egyptians deified the river. They called the Nile-god 'Hapi'. Every year in late summer, Hapi’s breasts over-flowed with the surplus of the rains in the highlands to south. Hapi made Egypt wealthy and the affluent enjoyed security and sophistication. The gods seemed to smile on Egypt.

Israel saw the world differently.

Nile Nightmare

The nightmare jolted him awake. Pharaoh stood beside his beloved Nile as seven fat cows climbed out of the river and begin grazing along the bank. All was well until, ominously, seven scrawny cows came out of the same river, stalked the healthy cows and devoured them.

Cannibal cows! – a bad portent – something nasty was afoot on the banks of the sacred Nile.  Pharaoh woke with a start.