Exodus 17:1-7
Nicolas Poussin: Moses Striking the Rock (1649)
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Is the LORD Among Us or Not?
Is the LORD among us or not?
Is a question everyone's asked,
In the face of suffering and pain,
When by loss and grief you're harassed.
When life sucks, and death hits your gut,
It's so clear that God is no more;
Just mentioning God seems absurd -
Until there's a knock at the door.
There, a neighbor friend has come by,
And with kindness touches your heart,
Uninvited, out of the blue,
You taste what this Moses imparts.
And you've found you won't die of thirst,
And for now, you really believe,
For the best of love is the kind
That by grace you've simply received.
Scott L. Barton
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the
Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim,
but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses,
and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel
with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water;
and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of
Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried
out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to
stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of
the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you
struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock
at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people
may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the
place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord,
saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
+ + +
Matthew 21:23-32
A portrayal of John's baptism by He Qi, currently of
Minnesota, who was the first among Mainland Chinese to earn a Ph.D. in
religious art after the cultural revolution.
Brand New: Not Just a Slogan Anymore
Since, if anyone is in Christ,
There's a new creation -
Since the past is finished and gone,
And everything's brand new -
There's no need not to change your mind!
Old convictions don't count,
Don't worry about precedents,
Don't worry you'll look weak,
Who you are today is what counts;
Maybe you were dead wrong,
Or maybe even partly right,
But that was then, before;
And God is not above getting
Down on hands and knees to
Bring the least of us around to
The here and now of love.
Scott L. Barton
When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders
of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are
you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them,
“I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also
tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from
heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we
say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But
if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John
as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them,
“Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first
and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’;
but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said
the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did
the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I
tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of
God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did
not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and
even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
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