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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
An email I recently received falsely attributed to Japanese doctors the untrue claim that taking a few sips of water every 15 minutes helps battle the coronavirus that leads to the disease known as COVID-19 (Snopes). Later I heard the same untrue claim on a Shreveport radio station, which I subsequently contacted, and my sister heard the same untrue claim on an Austin T-V station. Although drinking water does not help battle the coronavirus the way that the email claimed, drinking water, nevertheless, is good for us, as water itself is necessary for life. And, today’s Old Testament Reading (Exodus 17:1-7), today’s Psalm (Psalm 95:1-9; antiphon: v.6), and today’s Gospel Reading all, to some extent, center on our “Asking for and receiving water”.
Before the events that the Old Testament Reading narrates, God had delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and taken them through the water of the Red Sea and three days into the wilderness of Shur, but at Marah the thirsty people found no drinkable water and so grumbled against Moses, and yet, both there and at Elim, the Lord provided drinkable water to them, and at Marah He also made a conditional promise about protecting them from disease (Exodus 15:22-27). Next, in the wilderness of Sin, the hungry people grumbled against Moses and Aaron and the Lord, and yet, both there and everywhere that they went for the next forty years or so, the Lord provided food, such as quail and manna (Exodus 16:1-36). Then, as we heard, they moved on to camp at Rephidim, where there again was no water for the people to drink, so they not only grumbled against but also quarreled with Moses.
At what might be considered the structural center of the Old Testament Reading, Moses cried to the Lord asking what to do. In an answer that arguably recalls God’s delivering the people in the Exodus, the Lord once again directed Moses to provide the people with water. Yet, their quarreling and testing the Lord in regards to His presence among them was remembered, by Moses’s naming that place Massah and Meribah, names reflecting, respectively, their testing and quarreling. Perhaps related to a time of national crisis (TSLB, ad loc Psalm 95, p.939), today’s Psalm “drops” those same names in calling for the people who hear the Lord’s voice not to harden their hearts, and other passages similarly recall today’s Psalm, the events at Massah and Meribah, and similar events, including one apparently a generation later and at the same place as the events of today’s Old Testament Reading (Numbers 20:2-13; 21:4-9). Today’s Psalm and those other passages warn even New Testament believers, such as us today, against putting God to the test and grumbling; having an evil, unbelieving heart that might lead to falling away from God; and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Deuteronomy 6:16; 1 Corinthians 10:9-10; Hebrews 3:7-4:12).
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus, wearied from His journey, asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water and tried to get her both to know Who He was and so to ask Him for living water. In the process of dealing gently with her, Jesus arguably called her to repent of all of her sin, especially her sin related to the six “men” that she had had, whether or not they were her “husbands”. God similarly calls us to repent of all of our sin, including our sin like that of the Old Testament people of Israel, who quarreled with and tested the Lord. We might complain about God’s permitting the coronavirus and its related disease COVID-19. Even though we have experienced His provision in the past, we might wonder whether the Lord is still present among us. Claiming a false kind of faith, we might test the Lord by unnecessarily risking exposure to the virus, or, lacking the right kind of faith, we might live in unnecessary fear of infection. God does not want us to have hard hearts and be unbelieving but to have penitent hearts and steadfast faith, as we prayed in the Collect of the Day, and so God wants us to ask for and receive living water, and all that comes with that living water.
We certainly can associate that living water, the water of life, with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The gift of God is His Son, Who did not “phone it in from heaven” but took on human flesh and grew up to be the man Jesus. Jesus both, as man, was weary from His journey, and, as God, knew all about the Samaritan woman. Jesus identified Himself to her as the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Anointed One, and the people of her village came to know that He indeed is the Savior of the world. For, on another day after the sixth hour (John 19:14, 28), Jesus thirsted while hanging on a cross for the sins of the world, including your sins and mine. Jesus died there in our place! There, as today’s Epistle Reading put it, God showed His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:1-8). And, from there, Jesus gave up the Spirit, and from His riven side flowed blood and water (John 19:30, 34; Lutheran Service Book 761:1). If we thirst, we come to Him; if we believe in Him, we drink, for out of His heart flow rivers of living water, including the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39; 1 Corinthians 10:4), Who is given with and works through the Means of Grace in order to call and gather the Church, in which He daily and richly forgives our sins (Small Catechism, II:6).
The coronavirus has raised questions about the need for the Church to gather together. Some think that whatever happens here can be streamed via the internet, but, while the reading and preaching of God’s Word to groups such as this can be so streamed, the administration of the Sacraments to individuals cannot. Those who are baptized and made to drink of one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13) and are absolved by the power of that same Spirit (John 20:22-23) gather here where God is uniquely present, where He promises to be, in the Sacrament of the Altar, with both bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Fears of the coronavirus not withstanding, even from the common cup, the Blood of Christ is a salutary (health-giving) gift that strengthens and preserves us in body and soul unto life everlasting. As we heard in the Gospel Reading, The Father seeks true worshippers to worship Him in both the Holy Spirit and His Son, Who is the Truth (John 14:6; 1:14; confer Beckwith, CLD III:178 n.12). The water of Holy Baptism first puts us into that Triune Name, in which we, who privately confess the sins that trouble us most, also are individually absolved, in order to then come here to this Altar and its Rail, seeking and receiving God’s forgiveness, the highest worship of the Gospel (for example, Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV:310).
As I this past week read a draft of Rev. Wilson’s paper on today’s Old Testament Reading and prepared to preach this morning, I reflected on the thrice‑repeated pattern of the people of Israel’s grumbling, even quarreling, and God’s nevertheless supplying their needs, whether of water or food. Surely God cannot be blamed for reinforcing the people’s bad behavior, but He shows Himself nevertheless to be full of mercy and grace. Instead of grumbling, much less quarreling, we ask appropriately, confidently turning to God in prayer, not testing Him, but expecting that He will give us what we need in the way and at the time that He knows to be best. However He might answer our prayers in regards to the coronavirus and its disease COVID-19, we can rejoice in our sufferings, because, as today’s Epistle Reading reminded us, suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, 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. Led by the Spirit, our properly-formed consciences lead us, and we do not judge one another. If we temporarily absent ourselves from the Divine Service, not because we despise God’s gifts but because we either are at a greater risk from infection or think we are infected (and God certainly knows what our true motives are), then we seek and receive Christ’s Body and Blood at home. We also love our neighbors according to our vocations, which, under different circumstances may mean staying away from our neighbors or going to them, even at the risk of our own health. In the end, our words and deeds, like the Samaritan woman’s, may lead people to come to Christ, but, if they believe, it is because of His Word.
Today we have considered “Asking for and receiving water”. In one way or another, the people of Israel asked for water and received it. Jesus asked the Samaritan woman for water, but we are not told whether or not know He ever got it. The Samaritan woman never really asked Jesus for His living water, but she certainly seems to have gotten it. We ask for and receive that same living water. To paraphrase our Entrance Hymn (LSB 699:1, 2), we come to Jesus as we are—weary, worn, and sad—and we drink of His life-giving stream; our thirst is quenched, our souls revived, and now we live in Him.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +