Low on Supplies
Text: Numbers 21:4-9
Title: Low on Supplies
Thesis: The Hebrew people are at a low in their journey from slavery towards the Promised Land. Hungry and thirsty they blame God and Moses for their plight. However, they are reminded of God’s continued presence and power.
Time: 4 Sun, Lent, B
Spring is now here. It’s about this time of year every year that we start making our summer family vacation plans. Spring is a reminder that summer vacation weather will soon be here –as the leaves sprout on the trees and the sun begins shining a little longer each day. Another reason we plan our summer vacation this time of year is because enough time has passed by since our last summer family vacation to forget certain things. We forget things like the cost of vacation –it usually ends up costing about twice what we had budgeted. We also forget about how the kids grew restless in the back seats of the minivan –and our responses as parents from the front seats, “If you kids don’t settle down we’re going to turn this minivan around and go back home,” or “Just keep it up and this will be the last vacation you’ll ever go on.” Yes, the winter was dark and long, long enough to forget certain things about our last summer. And spring is now here with the promise that this summer family vacation will be full of warm, sunny days.
The Hebrew people would call their journey across the desert anything but an enjoyable, sun-filled vacation. Reading about their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land provides good instruction for those who go the way that they did, along the spiritual journey. Numbers chapter 21 reads like the middle of a summer vacation –when the car is close to running out of gas, the budgeted money starts running low, and everyone is complaining that its taking way too long to get where we going. It’s not just those in the back seat, but everyone is complaining, “Are we almost there yet?”
We are told in Numbers 21 that the Hebrews had to make an unexpected detour in their journey. The Edomites would not let them cross their land, so the Hebrews had to head back out into the hot, barren desert on their way to the Promised Land.
Listen to their complaints, their way of saying “are we almost there yet?” They are nowhere yet close to the Promised Land and it says this in Numbers 21:4-5: “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea,b to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5 The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”[1]
The Promised Land journey turns out to be hard and discouraging. The resources are running out, unexpected detours have to be made. Morale is running low. And sadly the Hebrews respond in this way: blaming not only their leader Moses, but also their God who led them out of Egypt into the desert.
Like the Hebrews, there are also times along our spiritual journey’s that we become as it says in Numbers 21:4 “impatient” –sometimes life is hard and discouraging. Our morale can be low. And if we are not careful our response can be to blame God, rather than to depend upon God to lead us. We can become “impatient.” “Impatient,” it’s an interesting word that is used to describe the Hebrews response. It’s an agricultural word that usually means, “to harvest, or to bring in a full crop.” But one derivative of the word, the one used here In verse 4, means, “to be cut short, to bring in an pitiful harvest,” or as translated here, “to be impatient.” Several chapters above in Numbers 11:23 the same derivative is used in referring to God’s power. It says, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Is the Lord’s power limited?” Now you will see if my word will come true for you or not.” Is the Lord’s power limited, not full, not complete, but is it only able to bring about a small or insignificant amount of good?
That’s what this is all about, in Numbers 21, along the spiritual journey, there are times we will become discouraged, we will feel like things have played themselves out in our lives so that there is little to harvest, few results to show. God’s promised blessings, like the Hebrew’s Promised Land, can seem so far away. And what is crucial is that our response, our faith not be to believe that God can only act in an insignificant, limited way. But, rather, to believe that God’s that God’s word will come true for us.
Numbers 21 is a good instruction manual for those of us walking along the spiritual journey because the Hebrews then do something positive when they become impatient. Here’s what they do in Numbers 21:7, “The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people.” The people ask for forgiveness, the people pray to God. Prayer is believing that God’s hand is not short, prayer is trusting that God’s hand can be extended, that God’s hand can provide food and water, God’s hand can provide whatever necessities we need as we continue along the spiritual journey. Prayer is saying to God, “God I believe your power is not limited, and I trust that the blessings promised to me in your Word will come true.”
One thing I’m learning every year on these family vacations is what I need to pack in the minivan for the next vacation. After getting lost enough times, I’ve learned it’s good to have a good highway map. After stopping at enough convenience stores, I’ve learned it’s to pack bottled water and snacks. I’ve found it handy to have a movie for the dvd player or cd for the kids to listen to when they get restless. Every time I go on vacation I make a mental note of what would be good to bring along for the next year.
Today, in Jackson’s baptism, we are reminded of one thing that God has provided for us up front as we make the lifetime spiritual journey. God provides us with the indwelling of his Holy Spirit. In coming to the waters of baptism, we have the faith that God’s power is not limited, but will provide for us whatever grace is needed to us along the spiritual journey.
Making our travel plans this year, I recalled a story about a travel destination I haven’t yet visited, but plan to visit some day. Here’s how it’s told by Richard Norton, “Driving on U.S. I-90 West across South Dakota is rather uneventful until one encounters the desolate beauty of the Black Hills and the Badlands. Even reading billboards becomes rote after a while . . . until you see those ever-present signs for Wall Drug (“just 250 miles ahead”). There are so many of them along the highway, you begin to wonder if Wall Drug actually exists. Finally, you pull into the little town of Wall, population 800, the home indeed of Wall Drug: a unique place with store after store of tourists items, everything from moccasins to rattlesnake eggs, and a café that seats 520. Thousands of tourists make their way there annually, almost as if on a pilgrimage . . . in 1931, Ted and Dorothy Hustead moved from Nebraska to Wall (who population was then 326) to open a drug store. Wall Drug started small, and for the first five years it remained small –too small from the Husteads. They wrestled with the problem of attracting people to their place of business; without steady customers, they’d always be a small store in a small town. Then, during the summer of 1936, Dorothy came up with a brilliant idea. A scorching heat wave was sweeping across the Badlands, and everyone was hot and tired (these were the days before air conditioning). Dorothy reasoned that travelers driving through the area would be pretty uncomfortable, so she convinced Ted to post signs along the highway advertising “free ice water ahead.” This act of hospitality, of welcoming the stranger, drew people to Wall Drug. More than sixty years later, they are still coming in the thousands for the free ice water ahead.”
God freely gives us the gifts of His Holy Spirit. In the waters of baptism, we are given God’s promise that He will provide whatever we need along the spiritual journey. God’s desire for us is that our lives are not just the experience of a barren wasteland, rather God’s desire is that we have an abundant life, full of his rich blessings.
During this 40 day season of Lent, may it be a time for us to reflect about our faith in God. And in those places and ways in our lives that we come up short, may we not blame others or even God for our shortcomings. But rather, may we have faith that God’s hand can be extended, giving us His needed grace. And just as Jesus emerged from the waters of his baptism to head out into the desert for 40 days to be tempted by Satan, may we also rely upon God’s Holy Spirit to see us through those days along the journey that are hard and discouraging.
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b Or Sea of Reeds
[1]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version, Nu 21:4. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996, c1989.