Complaining, grumbling, and doubting are among the human emotions fueling the plot of our Advent Scripture lessons from the Old Testament book of Exodus, the epic story of the Lord God freeing his people from slavery in Egypt. Their journey to freedom through the Red Sea has been grueling, demanding, and exhausting, and folks are understandably cranky, testy, and irritable. And thirsty!
As we rejoin the crowd this morning, the Israelites have gone three days without water, and God’s people are getting desperate. When they finally spy water, you can well imagine a collective sigh of relief rising from dry tongues and parched throats – and a beeline of whiny, road-weary kids running toward the water with whoops of excitement. But a first taste leaves them gagging, sputtering, wiping their tongues on their sleeves. The water is bitter, brackish, diseased!
The people turn to God in fuming protest: “You betrayed us.” They open wide their mouths in complaint, and the boiling acidity of Marah spews out. In Hebrew, the word Marah means both bitter and rebellious. And unchecked “Marah” calcifies the heart and stiffens the neck. But the Lord always wills life for his people and thus shows Moses a tree. Listen to the Word that God has spoken –
[After Moses and Miriam led the people in singing praise to God for delivering them from slavery,] Moses ordered Israel to set out from the Red Sea into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water, because it was bitter. That is why it was called Marah. And the people [again] complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. Moses threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the LORD made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he put them to the test. God said,
“If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
Then they came to Elim, where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees, and they camped there by the water. (Exodus 15:22-27)
As heaven is always want to do, the Lord provides for the Israelites even though they rebel against him. Upon reaching Elim, God’s people discover by experience that, even in the desert wilderness, the Lord indeed will care for them – abundantly!
It surely would have been more efficient had God led the Israelites to bypass the bitterness of Marah and proceed straight to Elim. But remember God’s intent in sending the people out to the desert in the first place. The Lord wants a spouse, a partner who will trust him and love him. But Israel is full of rebel Egypt – still enamored with the idols their ancestors worshiped when they lived on the other side of the Red Sea, in slavery to a sin-sick Pharoah. (Joshua 24:14, Numbers 11:4-5, Exodus 16:3). God’s people need healing of their Egyptian mindset and instinctive distrust.
So this isn’t just a straightforward biblical miracle of water’s provision. It points to a bitter reality beyond itself: Your hearts and minds, souls and spirits, desperately need therapy and treatment, and “I am the Lord who heals you.” God’s chosen instrument of restoration is – of all things – a stick of wood.
The earliest writings of the church fathers unpack the mystery.
They see this “piece of wood” in Israel’s story bearing all the contours of another “piece of wood” in Jesus’s story – outlines of bitterness and sweetness, silhouettes of bane and blessing. They behold the sharp, bloody form of Calvary’s tree, the Cross of Christ – soaked in all the Marah-tasting bitterness of our sin.
The night before, there in Gethsemane’s garden, Jesus is bestowed with a bitter cup reeking of horseradish, a cup foaming with the wrath of God against our rebellious hearts and selfish ways. Again and again, Jesus asks that the cup pass him by. But in the end, Jesus obeys God – choking down the first sip of Gethsemane and draining it to the dregs on the Cross. Jesus becomes dis-eased with all the diseases we deserve for not keeping God’s commandments, and we tasted the sweetness of life that was his.
It is only the Cross, ultimately, that heals both our rebel hearts and bitter experiences. Its grace heals in the here-and-now and in the hereafter. The Lord’s commandments drive us to the Cross – the only true and faithful motive for obedience to God’s Law. Our law is now to find sweet life by taking up our cross daily, as we die to self and rise healed and whole with Christ on Easter morning. The prophet Isaiah “twas foretold it”: “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5 NRS)
As the Holy Spirit again invites us along an Advent journey toward Bethlehem, let us not respond with bitter mouths and sour hearts when Marah waters flood life’s landscape. Rather let us trust in the One who drank undiluted bitterness and took its punishment, so that we would be healed. Then, even at Marah itself, we can still resolve to sing –
This Flow’r, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere.
True man, yet very God, from sin and death he saves us,
And lightens every load.
So also we sing with the saints the mystery of God’s power, without questioning God’s goodness: “The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.”
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on the Fifth Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Lora A. Copley and Chelsey Harmon inform the message.