Saturday, July 8th 2006
Read: Exodus 17
Why do you think Yahweh pulled the cloud over to a stop at dry old Rephidim? He had a teaching moment, but what was he teaching?
The key thing to remember is that the wilderness, the desert place, is the place of formation. Yahweh was taking a nation of slaves and making them into revolutionaries. Israel was chosen out of all nations to be a light, showing the way to relationship with Yahweh (see Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 14:2, Isaiah 49:6). Their Revolutionary lifestyle, as outlined in the covenant, was designed to turn the world upside down; having a day of rest, looking after widows, orphans, the poor, and strangers, the year of Jubilee (they never got to this one), let alone the awesome privilege of worshipping Yahweh.
But Yahweh had to teach them to embrace this Revolutionary lifestyle, by slowly challenging generations of slave mentality, removing it from the collective memory, and replacing it with a deep trust in His promises. So this lesson in Israel’s education is less about thirst and more about whether they really understood God and trusted Him to take care of them.
Yahweh was directing them through the wilderness with the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. It was supernatural version of Map Quest (read Exodus 13:21-22). He stopped them at Rephidim so they started setting up their tents and unrolling their sleeping bags. They soon got very angry with their accommodations and got in Moses’ face about it! “Give us water to drink.” This is where it gets ugly. Moses reminds them of Map Quest. “For one, why are you complaining to me? I didn’t tell the cloud to stop in no-watersville. Two, why are you whining at God? Didn’t you see what happened to those Egyptians at the Red Sea?”
They continued in verse 3, “Why did you take us from Egypt and drag us out here to die of thirst?” Why blame Moses! Yahweh brought them out; Moses was just the man on the ground. Second, from the question, you’d think they actually liked Egypt. Hello, they were slaves, breaking their backs making bricks with no straw! Israel was far from being the Revolutionary nation Yahweh envisioned; instead they were a bunch of whiners. Moses named the site Massah, the place of testing, and Meribah, the place of complaining.
We’re on the same journey – from slaves to revolutionaries. Do we continually look back and yearn for the comfort found in the familiarity of slavery, (slavery to materialism, lust, comfort, security, self satisfaction) no matter how damaging and soul destroying it was? Or will we step out in faith and trust Yahweh?
Q: Can you relate with any of this?
How will you correct instances when you’ve forgotten where you came from?
Youth Department