Welcome to the Lightly Salted Podcast.
These are the readings and sermons of St. John's Lutheran Church of Park Rapids, Minnesota.
They are offered so that the Word of God would shape and strengthen you to be what He calls you to be, salt and light.
You can find us at stjohnspr.org.
Now, on to the Word.
The Old Testament reading is from the 17th chapter of Exodus, the first seven verses.
All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of sin by stages,
according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Refidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.
Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said,
Give us water to drink.
And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me?
Why do you test the Lord?
But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said,
Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?
So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people?
They are almost ready to stone me.
And the Lord said to Moses, Pass on before the people,
Taking with you some of the elders of Israel,
And take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horab,
And you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.
And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
And he called the name of the place Masah and Maraba
because of the quarreling of the people of Israel,
and because they tested the Lord by saying, Is the Lord among us or not?
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
The epistle is from the fifth chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Romans, beginning with verse 1.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand,
And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings.
Knowing that suffering produces endurance,
And endurance produces character,
And character produces hope,
And hope does not put us to shame,
Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person,
Though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.
But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
We stand in respect of Christ, of whom the Holy Gospel is read.
The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the fourth chapter.
Glory to you, O Lord.
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,
Near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob's well was there.
So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.
It was about the sixth hour.
There came a woman of Samaria to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
Give me a drink,
For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
How is it that you, a Jew,
Ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?
For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
Jesus answered her,
If you knew the gift of God,
And who it is that is saying to you,
Give me a drink,
You would have asked him,
And he would have given you living water.
The woman said to him,
Sir, you have nothing to draw water with,
And the well is deep.
Where do you get that living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob?
He gave us the well and drank from it himself,
As did his sons and his livestock.
Jesus said to her,
Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him
Will never be thirsty forever.
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water,
Welling up to eternal life.
The woman said to him,
Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty,
Or have to come here to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
Go, call your husband and come here.
The woman answered him,
I have no husband.
Jesus said to her,
You are right in saying I have no husband,
For you have had five husbands,
And the one you now have is not your husband.
What you have said is true.
The woman said to him,
Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped on this mountain,
But you say that in Jerusalem
Is the place where people ought to worship.
Jesus said to her,
Woman, believe me,
The hour is coming when either on this mountain
Or in Jerusalem will you worship the Father?
You worship what you do not know.
We worship what we know,
For salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming and is now here.
True worshipers will worship the Father
In spirit and truth,
For the Father is seeking such people
To worship Him.
God is spirit,
And those who worship Him must worship
In spirit and truth.
The woman said to him,
I know that Messiah is coming,
He who is called Christ.
When He comes, He will tell us all things.
Jesus said to her,
I who speak to you, am He.
This is the gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
Grace to you in peace from God our Father
And from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Please be seated.
I had mentioned a number of weeks ago
The show 1883.
And we talked about it in Bible class that day,
And I thought I had it out of my system.
But I don't quite have it out of my system.
One of the things that I really appreciated in the show
Was they did voiceovers.
And as you listen to the voiceovers,
You come to understand that they are foreshadowing
What's coming up in the story.
My favorite voiceover was this one.
I think cities have weakened us as a species.
Mistakes have no consequences there.
Step into the road without looking
And the carriage merely stops or swerves.
The only consequence, an angry driver.
But here, the vast wilderness.
But here there can be no mistakes.
Because here doesn't care.
The river doesn't care if you can swim.
The snake doesn't care how much you love your children.
And the wolf has no interest in your dreams.
If you fail to beat the current, you will drown.
If you get too close, you will be bitten.
If you are too weak, you will be eaten.
Now if that were true in 1883.
If it's true even in 1883 that indeed the cities have weakened our species.
Imagine just how much worse it is in 2023.
Case in point, a couple of weekends ago the internet went out on us.
And this was not a simple unplug, replug, reboot.
Oh no.
It was obvious that our internet was going to be out at least for the weekend.
And it was a holiday weekend.
Oh you could hear the moaning starting.
Oh Lord, how long oh Lord.
That was just me.
Wilderness is a brutal place.
Nature is not on your side.
In fact, it just doesn't care about your well-being.
And that's what the children of Israel learned in the wilderness as well.
After 430 years of slavery in Egypt, God gloriously delivered His people from their bondage and their tyranny to Pharaoh.
On the dramatic Passover night, they ate the lamb whose blood was on their doorposts.
The people of death passed over those homes.
However, he convinced Pharaoh to let them go.
And then in another dramatic act of salvation, God led his Israelites through the waters of the Red Sea,
drowning Pharaoh's army with all his glorious chariots and horses.
The Israelites joyfully sang, I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously.
And the horse and his rider, he has thrown into the sea.
It was a wonderful time for Israel.
They were God's people redeemed, saved from their enemy, and they were on their way to the Promised Land.
And what came next for the Israelites?
Well, their new life got off to a really pretty good start.
After the Exodus, the Lord led his people to a place called Elam.
There were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees.
It was if the Israelites had already reached the Promised Land, as if they were tasting paradise.
Not one, but 12 springs of water, one for each of the 12 tribes of Israel.
Not a few, but 70 palm trees into varied shade and food.
The numbers themselves pointed toward the paradise of heaven.
The scene points forward to the city of heaven through whom the river of life, through which the river of life runs.
It points to the tree of life that grows on either side of the river with its 12 kinds of fruits yielding their fruit in each month.
Yes, Elam was a foretaste of the feast to come, a bit of paradise.
But just as it goes in our lives, good times are followed by bad and happy times are followed by hardship.
The Israelites were to move on from there.
After all, they were first going to be stopping at the mountain of God where Moses had worshiped and encountered God.
The first crisis was in the form of hunger.
After Elam, as they headed out into the wilderness, after a month or so things that turned sour, they had no food and they were hungry, really hungry.
Now, for a lot of us, hunger isn't much of a problem.
In fact, many of us could use more exercise and less food, but the Israelites were hungry.
Hungry enough that they were longing for the food of Egypt.
They were longing for the food of the land of slavery.
God was with them.
God delivered them.
He began to give to them a daily bread that would be with them throughout their time in the wilderness and even into the promised land until the first round of crops were harvested.
He gave them manna each and every day.
And now, still in the desert, we come to crisis number two.
Moving along through the desert, according to the command of God, they set up camp at a place called Refideum.
The problem was, there was no water.
Now, that is a big problem.
In fact, that's a bigger problem than no food.
That's why some warn us that we should always keep bottled water handy, just in case of emergency.
Because you can go far less time without water than you can without food.
And if ever you have been thirsty, really thirsty, you know how bad it can be.
Your mouth dries out, your energy wanes, and eventually there's nothing else you can think about besides quenching your thirst.
And then think there at Refideum, where God tells them to set up camp where there is no water.
Think about all the mothers worried for their children.
This was a big deal.
This was a life-threatening deal.
Sometimes we think about Israelites as grumblers, as ungrateful ones, and maybe that's true.
But there at Refideum, facing no water, they probably had a good reason to wonder what is God up to.
Why would He deliver us out of Egypt if only we're going to die either from hunger or from thirst?
Why has He led us out of the land of death only to let us die in the wilderness?
And indeed, that feeling is not uncommon, not even for us as Christians.
If my Lord has done so much to deliver me from sin, from death, from the power of the devil, why has He let me down?
Why has He let me suffer so?
Why is the Lord of bounty not providing?
Why if He is the source of goodness, does He not let more of that goodness come my way?
And then there are plenty of folks, such as Joel Olstein, who just absolutely promise a better life.
Saying that Christ wants your life to be full and abundant with earthly blessings.
That doesn't always seem to be the way God deals with His people, with His children.
Now it's interesting to see what happens next.
The people, they're thirsty with the kind of thirst that most of us will never know.
They go to Moses.
Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?
And Moses cried out, what shall I do with this people?
They are almost ready to stone me.
They were upset about the food.
They complained about the food.
But when they come to Moses about the water, they are threatening to kill him.
Then the Lord told Moses to take some of the elders with him, march before the people.
And the Lord added, behold, I will stand before you there at the rock at Horab,
and you will strike the rock and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.
And sure enough, in the sight of the elders, Moses struck the rock and water came out of the rock,
and the people drank.
They had wondered, is the Lord among us or not?
And the water flowing from the rock is the answer, yes.
Yes, the Lord is indeed with His people.
The wilderness may not have cared a hoot about them.
But their God, who had redeemed them, certainly did.
What can we learn from all of this?
Should we be hard on the Israelites for their complaining?
I suppose we could.
But that really isn't the point, is it?
Because the fact of the matter is, we wouldn't be any different.
I mean, come on, hiccups in the supply chain threw people into a tizzy,
let alone facing death itself without water?
Is grumbling always bad?
Well, I suppose that we could say we're called to fear, love, and trust God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
Therefore, it seems like grumbling shouldn't be part of the picture.
But you know, it is interesting that trust can't be commanded,
and it doesn't develop overnight.
I've read about couples who adopt children,
specifically children who have been abused or neglected.
And the story is the same again and again.
These parents, they want to wrap these children in a full embrace of love,
but the children themselves, well, they only come about in stages.
They have to learn to trust, and it doesn't come quickly, it doesn't come easily,
it often comes very little by very little and with lots of fighting in between.
It's a little remarkable when you look at the story from Exodus
that God actually doesn't chastise His people.
In the Exodus, they knew His redemptive and saving power.
At the paradise of the springs and palm trees at Elam,
they learned about what the Lord wanted,
what it was ultimately bringing His people to a paradise far greater than Elam.
But in the meantime, there is the wilderness.
There are times of hungering and thirsting that are real and are deep.
And for that hunger and that thirst, the Lord would rain down manna from heaven
and bring forth water from a rock.
Our Lord would provide for His people so that they could learn that they can trust the Lord.
In the desert, God was building a relationship with His people,
and He was patient. The psalmist says,
slow to anger but abounding instead fast love.
So what about for us?
We would actually do well to expect hardships and to not be surprised when things go badly.
So often, it's in the difficulties, it's in the tough times,
that that is when we remember our Lord.
And those are the times when we learn to rely on Him all the more.
In the good times, we so easily become fat and happy that we lose sight of God as the giver of all good things.
No food fills our stomach unless it's been given by the hand of God.
No water quenches our thirst unless it comes from the good and gracious hand of the Lord.
But there is even more.
These stories do point us to a greater hunger and a greater thirst that only God can satisfy.
Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
For bread and water? No.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
One of the lessons of the man and the wilderness?
One of the lessons was, man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Apart from Christ, we're empty.
We have a hole not in our stomach but in our heart.
We can fill that hole with all sorts of things but we can only be truly satisfied with Christ, our righteousness.
With Christ, who says that He is the bread of life.
Who says that He is actually the manna that God rained down from heaven for us.
And so it is every time we come to communion.
We eat the good and true manna from heaven. We taste the bread of life.
The truth is life in the desert is often dreary.
Sickness, death and decay are all around us.
But our Lord provides us with a heavenly bread, His very flesh, given for the life of the world.
Given so that we might not hunger again.
Given so that we might be full and satisfied even in the harshness of the wilderness.
Given so that even though we will die, we will live.
And so also He provides the living water.
The same water He provided to the Samaritan woman, the woman who had been so often divorced.
There is a woman who was thirsty for something that the world couldn't provide.
And she tried to fill it in this case with men, hoping against hope that the next one would make her happy.
But it didn't work. It couldn't work.
Because ultimately our longing is for the man Christ Himself.
Paul would write about the rock and the water in the wilderness.
And he gave us this beautiful insight from the Holy Spirit that that rock was Christ Himself.
He is the source of our living water.
He is the Lamb who was slain but now lives forever and ever.
The one from whom the river of life flows.
He is the well from which our deepest desires are fulfilled.
Like the Israelites, we are in the wilderness still.
The promised land is yet to come.
Our freedom has been won for us by Christ.
And God is in the process of building us into the people He wants us to be.
He is in the process of building us and conforming us to the likeness of His Son.
We shouldn't be surprised when we have hot days or hungry days or thirsty days or super snowy days.
Maybe along the way we'll grumble first.
Let's always bring our grumbling, our complaints to the Lord.
Knowing that He hears your pleas and He answers your prayers.
Maybe not in the way you would like and certainly not as quickly as we'd want.
Like the Israelites, we may very well ask that question, is the Lord among us or not?
But be assured of this.
In Christ Jesus, the answer is absolutely yes.
With the promise that He will never leave us and never forsake us.
And with that, we can be satisfied.
Amen.
May the peace of God established in Jesus' death and resurrection be a peace that fills your hearts and your minds,
satisfying your hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Amen.
Thanks for listening to Lightly Salted. We'd love to hear from you.
You can contact us at StJohn's PR.org or look for us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Our thanks to Eric Mediash at soundimage.org for morning dew.
God's blessings.