Getting Water from Rocks

Back in November I wrote come comments reflecting on the Exodus story -

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, in Exodus 17, 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.

Baptism and New Life

In the New Testament - 1 Corinthians 10:1 – St. Paul imagines Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea as a baptism. The imagery is obvious – water, death resurrection, new life - a defining event that birthed Israel’s national life as God’s people.

Today in churches, friends will often burst into applause when a friend is baptized, so it’s no surprise that Israel erupted in spontaneous worship and celebration on the far side of the water. Miriam led the women in song and dancing to celebrate their new life, their freedom.

Surprise Pathway

'History repeats itself', they say; 'what goes around, comes around.'  But Isaiah says 'don’t limit your imagination to what has happened before. Keep looking ahead because God is as much a God of tomorrow as a God of yesterday. While God is consistent and faithful, God is not predictable. Yahweh is full of surprises!'

This is what the LORD says—

he who made a way through the sea,

a path through the mighty waters,

Forget the former things. See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:16, 19

Unseen Footprints

In the exodus, God’s path led through the sea, not around it or over it, but through it. I prefer to avoid obstacles; but apparently God does not. In Psalm 77 we read -

Your path led through the sea,

your way through the mighty waters,

though your footprints were not seen.

Psalm 77:19

Yahweh does not normally lead his people away from difficulties, but through them. And that is reinforced by the next line, ‘your path led through … the mighty waters’.

The painting on the left was made by a 13-year old Haitian child. Haitians understand the concept of going 'through'. There is nothing trivial about the ordeals God requires of his people, but the gigantic fact is that God remains present with us no matter how overwhelming they may seem to us.

Writhing Waters

Israel’s miraculous liberation in the Exodus was seared into their national consciousness. God intervened and they escaped into freedom through the Red Sea – and that deliverance defined Israel as a free people. In later years whenever they faced crisis, they went back to their founding story to get their bearings.

Psalm 77 is one of those times. Life in the real world seems to bring one crisis after another. Friends turn hostile, disease threatens, money runs out and debts pile up, plans go south and family peace disintegrates over-night. Life can get really scary sometimes – and faith doesn’t insulate anyone from distress.

Signature Written in Water

John Hancock, was the first of the American patriots in 1776 to sign the Declaration of Independence. today he is best remembered for his flamboyant and stylish signature, which, according to legend, he proudly wrote large and clearly enough that King George would be able to read it without his spectacles.

God, too, wrote his signature large and clear across the tyranny of Egypt. In a world of power politics, God wrote his signature firmly with water. Psalm 114 says,

Flood Season

This week-end's news told of swollen rivers over-flowing their banks in the Assinoboine and Mississippi flood-plains and disastrous floods in Colombia. Today's post focuses on the challenge of a river in flood-stage.

In the spring of the year, the Jordan River runs at its highest level, swollen by melting snow and late winter rains. This was the season when God chose to lead Israel into the Promised Land, perhaps for two reasons. Pragmatically, it brought Israel into their new homeland in time for the abundance of the spring barley and wheat harvest. But more significantly, it provided a dramatic sign of God’s amazing power for both Israel and the nations.

Unruly Child

Imagine a womb large enough to hold the oceans of the world until it was time for them 'to burst forth from the womb'!  That is the bizarre but graphic image God uses in The Book of Job in speaking of the birth of creation.

Then, expanding on the birth metaphor, God describes wrapping the new-born Sea-child as a mother swaddles an infant: 'I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness.' 

Imagine thick ocean fog - Who can see through it? Who can see beyond the horizon or penetrate the silence of all that lies in the deep darkness of the sea? What a rich metaphor for the mystery of the oceans, their vast distances, beyond our sight and knowledge!

Birthing the Sea

In February 2009, 48 high school and university students aboard the 57 foot Nova Scotia ship the SV Concordia, were sailing in rough seas 500 kms off the coast of Brazil when a bizarre wind – a microburst - suddenly capsized their boat. Within 20 minutes it sank.

The students and 16 staff members all escaped safely to life-boats and were rescued the next day by commercial ships, but they will never forget the unpredictable, untamable power of the sea.

If You Had Only One Wish . . .

Kaitlin Boyda really knew how to live.  Here is an inspiring story from Compassion Canada

Kaitlin Boyda, who lived with a faith and compassion that inspired hundreds of people to give to water projects through Compassion Canada, passed away on Thursday last week, May 5, 2011 at the age of 17.

Kaitlin, from Lethbridge, Alberta, was diagnosed in the summer of 2009 with a cancerous brain tumour at age 16 and has spent the last year and a half battling its affects. When she was approached by the Children’s Wish Foundation in December 2010, she decided not to choose a wish to benefit herself, but to donate the wish to build a well for children in need in Uganda.

Terra Firma

The famous Tower of Pisa began sinking by the time the second floor was being built. The cause – a weak foundation and unstable subsoil.

By contrast, the Golden Gate Bridge withstands enormous tides and currents and survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake unscathed in part because it sits on solid foundations, at one end on a bedrock ledge and at the other on a massive pier the size of a football field.

Thundering Hallelujahs

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

Three times in the closing book of the Bible, we hear the cascading roar of rushing water.

The first ‘waterfall’ in the opening scene was the powerful voice of the Living Christ, giving the story-teller John a message of comfort and hope to his suffering church on earth.

The sound and sight of water cascading down rocks or thundering over the lip of a precipice does something to you. It soothes and energizes you at the same time. The water seems almost alive as it rushes forward and down – always down – almost like it was on a mission. Jesus, of course is the ultimate waterfall, plunging headlong into the mission of salvation for the whole of God’s creation.

The Roar of a Waterfall

There’s a distinct sound reverberating across Canada today. It's Election Day.

After weeks of political speeches, debates, promises and threats, millions of voters are going to get the last word. It’s called democracy – a flawed system to be sure, but better than most other ways of governing in our world.

In the days of imperial Rome, John, the last-surviving disciple of Jesus, was a political prisoner. The emperor and his regime feared the truth about Jesus and tried to silence John’s witness by exiling him to their version of Alcatraz or Robben Island, the Aegean island prison of Patmos.

A voice like a trumpet shattered John’s solitary reverie one day. Whirling around to see who was speaking, John was stunned speechless by a vision of Christ and by the sound of his voice – which thundered like ocean waves or the roar of a cataract.