Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1-7
March 8, 2026 (repreached)
Lost and alone, he continued to wander the seemingly endless forest. He thought to himself, “What I wouldn’t do for a distant light shining from a house, an old dirt path or road leading out, signs of life, and oh what I wouldn’t do for just a drop of water.” He hadn’t had a thing to drink in hours.
This wasn’t the first time he had trekked into an unknown wilderness in search of adventure, the next big rock to climb, an old cave to spelunk, and trails to hike. But it was that one wrong turn five, maybe six hours ago, leaving the winding trail with signposts and boot marks from hikers gone by, that turned Randall’s adventure into a nightmare.
He didn’t plan on hiking all night; he planned on a one-day hike from the trailhead to the end where he’d meet his friends and they’d head out to the local tavern for a couple of beers, some stories and some laughs. Were his friends still waiting? Were they concerned? Maybe they called the local police who are out scouring the forest. Oh, he hopes not; that would be embarrassing and his friends would never let that one go.
The night was dark – too dark. Creatures were dancing around him like devils gearing up to pounce and take his soul. Was that a wolf? There’s no way to know. And the horrid stories of copperheads slithering around and looking for the legs of unsuspecting travelers brought him no comfort.
Out of fear and exhaustion and a thirst like he’s never felt before, he leans against an old tree and slides to the ground.
He searches his pack for something to drink, to eat, maybe something to take his mind off his situation. His fiancée packed him some home-made chocolate chip cookies which gives him some comfort and kept his stomach from growling too much.
He hits his head lightly against the tree and says under his breath, “Why did I leave the trail?”
He listens intently, hoping to hear the distant sound of moving water, but all he can hear are the chirps of crickets and the unnerving rustling of weeds and brush distantly away.
For the next several hours he fades in and out of consciousness, waking up to eerie sounds, and dozing off again, trying to get a few hours of comfort from sleep.
He opens his eyes again, his tongue dry, his lips split. The sun is just peaking up over the tree-skewed horizon. Knowing that he was walking east and that the trailhead is west, he thinks to head west, hoping, praying that the road is nearby and his car is closer still. There’s plenty of water in the trunk, his cellphone is locked in the glove compartment; he can call his friends, tell them he’s alright, call his fiancée to tell her that he loves her, and then drive home, back to the comfort of his bed.
He gets up, his body weak from lack of drink, but he thinks he’s got enough energy to walk a couple miles. He heads west. He walks for, what seems years, but really only 30 minutes, and about ¼ of a mile in front of him he sees something shining in the woods. Is it a sign, a building…is it a car? He walks a little faster. He falls down hard and cuts his hand on a lingering branch, but that shiny glimmer of hope now only minutes away keeps him going.
What seemed like a night from hell has turned into a new day, an epiphany, for there on the other side of the old wooden fence, he sees his car, and a few other cars, the familiar site of the little wooden shanty where the park rangers keep their brochures, maps, and safety information with instructions on what to do if you get lost. In big, red, bold letters it says: “DRINK LOTS OF WATER”. What little they know; what little he listened to.
With what little energy he has left, he drops his hiking pack and fiddles inside looking for his keys. It’d be an ironic twist of fate if, somewhere between his stupid decision to leave the trail the day before and his finally rediscovering civilization that his keys fell out in the middle of the woods, but no, he finds his keys, and opening the trunk, he guzzles down two bottles of water, as if it’s the first time he’s ever drank in his life.
The whole world seems about 1000 degrees clearer. The haze that has been overshadowing him since he got lost is gone, and he’s finally able to think and reason things out with clarity. He looks around and realizes that he wasn’t all that lost; he was only a few minutes from the trail at any time. But it was so dark, and he was so thirsty that reality seemed to get snuffed out by need, and reason lost in the murkiness of fear.
Sitting in his car, he calls his fiancée and lets her know that he’s alright. Of course, being the tough guy he is, he doesn’t tell her he was lost but says that he decided to make a night of it in the forest, to commune with nature. He calls his friends and tells them that he’ll be at the hotel in a couple of hours and that they can go out and have that drink later.
The last thing he does before venturing off, back into the much larger, much more treacherous forest called everyday life, is take a long and well-deserved sigh of relief. He starts his car, and heads down the windy road.
As Christians sometimes we feel lost and alone, as if God has abandoned us in the thick of the wilderness with no hope or promise. Sometimes we think that our decisions – those choices which leave us lost and off the beaten path of God’s Word also means that God is as far from us as east is from west. That life and the heaviness of day to day is a sign, an omen telling us that we’ve upset God, angered Him in some way, and that he’s left us alone for other, more righteous endeavors.
We look around our wilderness walk and think “we were so much better off before we got on this church train, so much better off when we were living for ourselves. At least we had everything we wanted.” Like the Israelites we look back to before God’s deliverance, or we look out at the rest of the world and become jealous for their success, their wealth, their popularity, and sometimes we make silly, thoughtless, faithless decisions so that we can have just a piece of what seems so fulfilling.
Look, the Christian life is not always full of trouble-free, worry-free, abundant living. It’s just not. Sorry, but the prosperity gospel preachers are just wrong. People love being told that it is, but history says otherwise. Consider St. Paul, he was tortured, beaten, left for dead on more than one occasion, and yet he could still confidently write “We rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God,” and “we rejoice in our sufferings.”
No, the Christian life is more like a journey, a walk through a wilderness, a trek through a desert. And never mind what you see on TV; never mind what you hear on the radio; never mind what the pop-culture Christian televangelists tell you, the Christian life is about faith, and even in the murkiest, darkest of days, God says He’s there.
The Israelites saw God, well forms of God anyway. He led them by cloud and fire, He parted seas, He provided water from rocks and food from heaven. And yet even they struggled, and many turned away. For many of those ancient people, it wasn’t so much about the destination, but about the uncomfortable, sometimes painful walk getting there. And they would use their discomfort, their pain, their struggle to grumble against the Lord, to say unkind, untrue things about Moses.
But let’s be honest. What we see is today, now, here. We know our situation right now at this moment. Maybe it’s cancer, maybe its marital struggles, struggles with the kids, with addiction. Maybe as a church it’s unclarity, lack of direction, unsure of where we’ll be tomorrow, lack of leadership, lack of volunteers.
But is our walk any different than the Israelites’, than St. Paul’s, than Jesus’ own walk? No. We can relate to all of this; we can relate to the lost hiker, because we, like all of them, are so tempted to grumble and complain to the Lord when He doesn’t provide water when we want it, food when our stomachs growl, or when this journey gets so hard, so seemingly profitless.
We can quickly find ourselves doubting God’s love, God’s concern for us, or find ourselves taking the wrong path. It’s easy to do. I mean, let’s face it: God has saved us, forgiven us of our sins, promised us eternal life…why doesn’t He take care of us now, give us what will make us happy now, take the problems away now, make this journey easy and trouble-free?
Oh I wish He would. I wish my car loan was completely paid off. I wish I could afford my dream car a 1967 Cherry Red mustang with a 302 V8. I wish I could buy a 3 story house full of smart tech and a workshop full of tools. I wish we had a church that was as big as 3 city blocks and we had 1500 people filling the pews, with kids running all over the place, a Christian school, and a worship service that’s so divine and so reverent with beautiful Lutheran hymns and a big pipe organ, with a hand bell choir. And oh how easy it would be for me to blame God or blame others because I don’t have everything the way I want. How easy it would be… and oh how often we do it.
And we each have our reasons to grumble and question God’s care for us. And even though God seemed so distant when the Israelites began to complain, so much that even Moses complained to God that he was stuck ministering to those squabblers, those complainers, God outshined their complaints all the more by doing exactly what He promised. The people were thirsty, and He Himself stood upon the rock and provided in abundance the life-giving water they so desperately sought.
Like the hiker who needed just a little rest and the warmth of the sun to guide him, the Israelites received from the Lord everything they needed for both body and soul. God also provided manna and quail. He made sure that their clothing and sandals never wore out. He gave the Israelites a name, purpose, and He gave them a place of worship where they would come together as His holy people to receive His forgiveness and salvation.
The Lord provides for us more than we could ever possibly imagine. We struggle in this life, certainly. But those sufferings, those struggles create endurance in us, giving us character as the Lord chisels away at our old sinful nature and forms us into His obedient children, full of hope and joy, not in what we have here today, but in what is to come.
The Lord provided for us the ultimate gift of His only Son. Without Him and His death on the cross, we would be eternally lost in this dark wilderness, destitute, alone, with no guide and no hope. There would be no light to guide us home, no promise of safety and comfort, nothing.
But God is a God who keeps His promises to us, even when we wander off, even when we grumble and complain, even when we think God is so distant, God comes ever nearer to us. He promises us forgiveness of sins and life and strength through the eating and drinking of His body and blood in the bread and wine served from this altar. And it’s not just some big general promise, such as a president might make saying he’s going to cut taxes or make everyone happy, no. He promises it to each and every one of you, assuring you that He is here with you. And thanks be to God that He’s not just here in some super-spiritual, “I feel his presence” way, but He’s tangible, touchable; His living water sooths our dry tongues; his life-giving body and blood fill us with everything we need to keep moving, and His very voice, His own words of life speak to us the comforting and encouraging words of salvation.
This is the peace that we have with God; the promise that He will provide for us what we need, and the assurance that when this long journey is done, we will find our eternal rest in heaven, in paradise, the promised land, where there will be no more tears, no more pain, and the long struggle, the journey, will be over. Amen.
