As a grade-school kid, I was fascinated by stories of the Gobi Desert, a huge expanse of wilderness which (they claim) has a great untapped reservoir of water beneath it! With a capitalist gleam in my eye, I asked why this water couldn’t be tapped and used to develop the Gobi into Las Vegas East, or some profit-making enterprise. If I couldn’t buy a swamp in Florida, maybe I could buy a desert in Mongolia! Later I learned about California’s Imperial Valley, about irrigation–and about draining the Colorado River dry to corner the market on celery. Water is Gold. This weekend, our Scriptural lessons reinforce this.
Some folks are just never happy. Having escaped slavery in Egypt, having eluded the Army of the Nile, now the Hebrews wanted WATER. “…the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”” (Exodus 17:3) So Yahweh told Moses where to strike the rock, and a spring gushed forth: living water, and in never-ending supply. Sometimes you’ve gotta go to the wilderness to be refreshed. You’ve gotta go to the Holy Place to drink deep. The analogy says that Grace is pure and ever-abundant — and it’s right at your feet…..
St. Paul continues to tell the Romans, “Therefore, since we are justified [made right] by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” (5:1,2) Does this have anything to do with Water? I think it does in the phrase “obtained access to this grace”. Just as Moses the Lawgiver became a conduit of God’s Presence to a pilgrim people, so does Jesus the Redeemer. Our Becoming Right [justification] is because our ancestors followed Moses, and because we ourselves are following Jesus. We have believed that they will lead us to God.
The Gospel story is familiar: Jesus & Co.are traveling through Samaria (!) and they stop for lunch at Jacob’s Well–hearing any connections, yet? A woman, whose reputation is so slutty that she has to avoid other women by getting her water at midday, is engaged in conversation by Jesus, who asks her to get him a drink. (John 4:5-42) Jesus tells her that he has Living Water, but she doesn’t get it: “You have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that Living Water?” The Lord responded, “…those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Our Holy Writings begin with a story about land arising from the waters, and they close with the scene of a garden made alive by the river of the water of life. Land-locked habiru (desert wanderers) were a bit scared of the ocean which they believed surrounded them; yet they reverently came before the Holy One who provided the Water of Life for them. Rivers were important to Jacob and Naaman, to Joshua and the Babylonian Exiles. Lent is usually a season of dryness of the soul. Come see that God has arranged to bring renewing water close to where you live….!
God Bless Us, Every One! Horace Brown King
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