Lent 5 “Wilderness Walk: Drink”
April 3, 2022 – Isaiah 43:19-21
19Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
20The wild beasts will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise.”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
We are walking together through the texts of Scripture this Lenten season. Our focus is seeing ourselves on a wilderness walk. We put ourselves in the story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years as they were led by God. We understand that. as people of God, we also journey through life together in a wilderness walk. We journey together in this time between God’s graciously rescuing us from sin and death and our final entry into the promised land of heaven.
God is with us all the way.
The past few weeks we have learned about our life right now by looking at God’s Word for the Israelites in the past. We see how God graciously provides us with our daily bread and invites us to remember His goodness by giving the first of what He gives us back to Him. We have learned of our natural human inclination to commit mutiny and turn away from God and His representatives on earth – Governments, Pastors, Parents, etc. We have learned about our inclination to look around and, in arrogance, cut off people who we see as “dead weight” from our travel party instead of in humility cutting off the evil from our own hearts. Yet, in all this, God is condemning our mutiny and arrogance and forgiving us freely for them through Jesus who was the faithful and humble One that we are not. We learned that in this wilderness walk God is constantly running out to us and rescuing us when we walk off from the group and get lost.
Today, our focus turns to another aspect of the wilderness wandering – that is our thirst.
Walking is exhausting. Worst still when it is through rough, hot, and dangerous terrain like a wilderness.
The life we live, the world we live in, is a wilderness. It is full of dangers, temptations, and when travelling through it we get worn down and become in need of a drink. I am explaining a truth about our life using metaphors – the Scriptures often do this. I hope you have ears to hear it this morning!
Think of a time you were thirsty. What it felt like, how you became thirsty, the feeling of your mouth being dry and parched. If you cannot think of a time you were thirsty, perhaps, for the sake of better understanding this message from Scripture, you would let yourself become thirsty to remember and better understand the feeling.
This is a part of what we do for Lent. We put off our satisfaction to better understand what it is to be hungry – to thirst. We experience a lack to better appreciate what it is to be filled.
We recognize the hunger and thirst our sin gives us, in all areas of our life, so we can better understand and appreciate the satisfaction and cool drink that is Jesus’ forgiveness gives us. The cool drink and filling satisfaction He gives in the cleansing Waters and Holy Supper. The way Jesus applies your forgiveness He won for you on the cross directly to your sins in the here and now.
What good is a cup of water when you are thirty if it is not drunk?
The one point I want you to take away this morning is that God provides you drink in the wilderness of this life. Hear the reading from Isaiah 43:19-21
19Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert…
…for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise.”
The spring of water that wells up in your life and gives you eternal life is Jesus (John 4:14). The water that appeared, and still appears as you walk through the wilderness of this life is Jesus Christ (John 7:37-38). The Rock that gushed forth water for all the Israelites in the desert so they could drink and not die, that Rock was Jesus (1 Corinthians 10:4).
In the wilderness, water = life. Jesus is your water. He washes you, He keeps you alive now as you wander, and He gives you drink that wells up inside of you to eternal life.