Third Sunday of Lent, March 23, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Water
In those days, in their thirst for water,
the people grumbled against Moses.
Water. Or should I say the lack thereof? Where do YOU live? How are the water supplies? So far most of us don’t drink less, but the lawns are thirsty in an Austin suburb, and getting thirstier as the rules tighten using water for greening the grass. Brush fires near Austin filled the skies last week with ash from a brush fire 90 miles west. Our car was covered, and the carwash lines were long.
Of course, that’s a first world problem.
Moses had his own troubles with water. But he was, after all, in the desert. God’s solution accounted for that.
Hold the staff with which you struck the river.
I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb.
Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it
for the people to drink.
The story goes on as Moses strikes the rock twice, which displeases God. But the water flowed, a stream in the desert, and the Hebrews slaked their thirst. I’ve been drinking water as I write this, my cardiologist reminded me to drink two liters of water every day. He suggested Saratoga Sparkling water as his favorite untapped variety. I have that on our grocery list, along with frozen fruit bars, which are mostly water.
On Saturdays we watch an episode of The Daytripper. Chet Garner loves the water and finds his way into it every chance he gets. That’s been my life too, although not so much the last year or so. Barton Springs Municipal Pool just south of downtown Austin’s Colorado River beckons to me, 68 degrees all year round, clear spring water deep enough to dive into and long enough to swim laps all day if you want, alongside the Barton Springs salamanders.
But parking is often tough to find. And the Edwards Aquifer is fed by rainfall, which is rare these days. And really, we are enjoying a luxurious amount of water compared to the 40% of earth affected by drought, the 4 billion people who experience severe water scarcity at least one month every year.
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD; let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Jesus walking through the dry ground of Samaria met a woman at the town well, and in a few minutes showed her the difference between the water she carried back home to the living water he offered her.
Jesus said to her,
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Her soul was thirstier than her body. Her parched throat was nothing compared to her dried-out soul. Take and drink, this is my blood. Today at church we will share times of silence, meditation and communion. Living water will flow.
I became a junior life-saver at Lincoln Lakes the summer I was 12, in 1960. Always the water has called me in to get wet. When I take a shower every morning, when I step (carefully these days) into the pool at our apartment complex, and especially when I get the chance to swim in a natural spring-fed lake, my body and soul become one.
The woman said to Jesus,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty any more.”God lives in and all around us. Out of the Rock his water springs.
(Exodus 3, Psalm 103, 1 Corinthians 10, Matthew 4, Luke 13)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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