Is the Lord among us, or not?
From Exodus, the 17th chapter: “Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” May I speak in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. There’s anxiety in the air. Play, as natural as breathing, is shutting down. In isolation, the mind turns in on itself and it can get ugly in there. Throats are dry. And people are letting God have it. They want to know, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
It’s not pestilence; not coronavirus; it’s three days in the desert without water. The Israelites are about to die of thirst at Rephidim, and they “quarrel with Moses.”
And Moses says, “Why contend [vai·ya·rev] with me? Why do you put the Lord on trial?” His being God’s anointed, that’s what the Israelites are doing: putting God in the dock. They want a trial, they want to charge Moses with a capital offense, which is why Moses says to God, “They’re about to stone me.”
In the Bible, when people are stoned to death it’s a judicial execution, it isn’t a mob action. So the dangerous question raised by this story is, What’s God going to do with Israel when it puts him on trial?
And God answers that question by saying, in effect, You want a trial? I’ll give you a trial. Look at the text.
“And the Lord answered Moses, ‘Walk ahead of the people. Take some of the elders of Israel.’”
Why elders? God’s calling a jury; the elders will assume the role of witnesses at the trial.
“And take in your hand the staff.”
Why a staff? The staff is a kind of gavel. In ancient Israel you could tell who the judge was in a trial by who’s holding the staff. The staff would be used, in some cases, as the implement of smiting, the judge not just hearing the evidence and pronouncing the verdict but also executing the sentence straightaway.
Then God says, “And I will stand before you on the rock at Horeb.” With the one exception of Jesus standing before Pilate, this is the only passage in the Bible where God stands before a human being at a trial; in every other case, people stand before God’s anointed. The daughters of Zelophehad stood before Moses because they had a problem about their inheritance rights [Num 27]. Two prostitutes stood before Solomon debating about whose baby it was. [1 Kings 3].
So who is put on trial at Horeb? God.
Who’s acting out the part of judge? Moses.
Now let’s say you and I are those elders. What would we expect? Here’s God in a theophany possessing the rock. Not a little stone like a Petoskey stone. The Hebrew word [צוּר / tsur] translated ‘rock’ is used to refer to all of Mount Sinai.
So God in the glory cloud ‘stands’ on the rock, possesses it.
There is Moses with the staff.
Israel, represented by her elders, witnesses the case.
As elders, what are we to expect will happen now that we’ve had the temerity, playing the blame game, to put God on trial? We expect that God will say to Moses, “The staff you smote the Nile with and caused it to divide, lift the staff and point it at the elders, and let them have the justice they’re asking for.”
But that’s not what happens. God confides in Moses saying, “Lift the staff. I’ll stand before you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock . . . and water will come out of it so that the people can drink.”
Here is God’s awesome pillar of glory cloud inhabiting the rock. Moses lifts the staff and strikes the rock which bears God’s presence—and God takes the blow! And water flows out of the rock! God takes the blame that the people would receive the blessing. God takes the judgement, and Israel has a drink on the house. (Some of you are thinking you could use a drink on the house.)
There’s anxiety in the air. You’re asking, “Is the Lord among us or not?” Take that question to the One put on trial and struck at Rephidim, take it to the One put on trial and struck on the Cross, take it to the One who gives his life for you so powerfully that you become little Christ’s to one another for the life of the world. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.