Have you ever gone very long without water?  Worked outside on a hot day? Ever been really, really thirsty?  Maybe even thought you would just die of thirst?  Dying from thirst doesn’t happen very often in our society today. 

Not only do we not have to worry about dying from thirst, in our affluent culture, we can often afford to pay a premium price not for just drinkable water, but for specially bottled water.

One cynic writes, “Ever wonder about those people who spend two dollars for a little bottle of Evian water? Just spell Evian backwards.” For those who have difficulty doing that in your mind, Evian spelled backward is “naive.”

The Israelites in our text for this morning didn’t have that luxury. As a matter of fact, they were very thirsty and most likely very afraid. And so once again we find them murmuring against Moses … okay, they probably were doing just a bit more than murmuring, questioning Moses: “Did you bring us out of Egypt just to let us and our families and our animals die of thirst?”

It must be a terrible feeling to worry about dying from thirst. It is a reminder to us how vital water is in our lives. We’re told that the body needs about 3 quarts of water a day to operate efficiently.

We will die much more quickly from thirst than from hunger.

Water is a precious commodity and apparently it was in short supply for the Israelites of our text.  They’d been wondering around in the wilderness for who knows how long and it was hot and it was dry and there was no water.

 No wonder the people were dissatisfied with Moses’ leadership. They were weary. They were thirsty. And, no doubt, they were afraid. The situation got so serious that Moses went to God, and maybe a little afraid himself, asked: “What shall I do with this people? They’re about to stone me to death.”

And we can understand. The people felt forsaken in the wilderness. You and I have been there, haven’t we? We may not know what it is to wander in a physical desert, but we all have passed through spiritual wastelands. We have all experienced dark shadows passing over our souls.

I remember when my former wife, Mary, was pregnant with our first child and we were visiting my brother and his wife over Christmas.  Our first night there, Mary was restless, more uncomfortable than usual for being seven months pregnant, and experienced what we thought were flu-like symptoms. 

The next morning we took her to the doctor’s office to be examined … they assured us it was nothing more than the flu and sent us home with only a precursory checkup. 

Later that afternoon, when the pain got worse, we returned only to find out that the doctor couldn’t detect a heartbeat.  I remember hearing the news and sobbing uncontrollably. 

I prayed and prayed and prayed.  But a few hours later, my child was stillborn.  How could God let this happen to our child?  Why didn’t God answer my prayers?

This world is filled with perils. Anybody who believes that faith protects us from such perils is going to be in for a painful surprise.

And these so-called “perils” can run the gambit. Some our faith shattering, some faith shaking, and some merely faith wiggling.

While sports fishing off Melbourne Beach, a tourist capsized his boat. He could swim, but his fear of alligators kept him clinging to the overturned craft. Spotting an old beachcomber standing on the shore, the tourist shouted, “Are there any gators around here?!”

“Naw,” the man hollered back, “they ain’t been around for years!”

Feeling safe, the tourist started swimming leisurely toward the shore. About halfway there he asked the guy, “How’d you get rid of the gators?”

“We didn’t do nothin’,” the beach bum said. “The sharks got ‘em.”

Yes, our world is filled with perils. If it’s not gators, its sharks. If it is not sickness, it’s failure. If it’s not failure, it’s aging. If it’s not aging, it’s death. There is nowhere we can run--nowhere we can hide.

All of us will have our wilderness experience. All of us will spend some time in the dark shadows. But there is hope.

Moses went to the Lord with the children of Israel’s complaints. And the Lord told Moses to go to a rock in Horeb and to strike the rock with his rod “and water will pour out for the people to drink.”

The children of Israel asked God for water and God gave them water. Here is what we need to see: God would have given them water anyway. God hadn’t brought them out of Egypt to let them die in the desert. God would always provide for their needs.

What they needed at that moment was not so much water as reassurance. So God told Moses to strike the rock, and that is what Moses did. And water poured forth from the rock.

But the children of Israel were on a journey. Soon they would need to leave that rock behind. What about the next time they grew thirsty, and the next? What would they do for water then? Well, Moses still had his rod. Moses’ rod was a symbol of the power and presence of God.

More than water, the children of Israel needed to know they were not alone--that God was with them and therefore nothing would defeat them. For Christians, the cross serves the same function as Moses’ rod.

The cross is our symbol: that when we are in the wilderness--when the dark shadows close in upon us--God is with us.

God has given us this symbol of God’s love for us and God’s sustaining power. There is nothing magical about the cross. It won’t keep away vampires.

But when the shadows of death and darkness gather around you, you can look at that cross and know that nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God.

Of course, Christ added even richer symbolism to this ancient story. Not only does the cross function as Moses’ rod, Christ himself is the water that flows from the rock. He is the living water who alone quenches the thirsting of our souls.

Stephen Brown in his book, When Being Good Isn’t Good Enough, tells a delightful story about when he was a junior high school student. They had a principal whom all the students feared named Mr. Hunt.

The teachers used Mr. Hunt as a threat: “If you aren’t quiet, I will have to call Mr. Hunt,” they would say. Young Brown was sure that the worst thing that could happen to him was to have to face the wrath of Mr. Hunt.

But then one day the inevitable happened, and he was sent to Mr. Hunt’s office. He almost fainted as he walked down the hall and knocked very softly on the principal’s office door.

“Come in,” Mr. Hunt shouted. Young Brown opened the door but remained in the doorway, fidgeting. “Shut the door and come in, son,” Mr. Hunt said. “I won’t bite you.”

Well, that wasn’t what Brown had heard. In fact, he was wondering who would notify his mother of his death.

“Sit down and tell me what you want,” Mr. Hunt said.

Brown sat and stuttered something about talking too much in class and Mrs. Smith’s sending him for correction. Mr. Hunt frowned. To Brown’s amazement, Mr. Hunt told him he probably wasn’t as bad as his teacher thought but that he, as principal, did have a reputation to maintain in the school.

“If I let you off without any kind of punishment,” he said, “then everyone will think I’ve gone soft. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.”

“Here it comes,” Brown thought. “He’s going to call the police and they are going to lock me up in a juvenile home for bad boys, and they are going to throw away the key.”

Brown was so engrossed in his fearful thoughts that he heard only the last part of what Mr. Hunt was saying.

“. . . . and we’ll become friends,” said Mr. Hunt.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Brown said, “I didn’t hear all you said.”

“I said,” Mr. Hunt laughed, “that you should tell Mrs. Smith that I was so angry I wanted you to come to my office every afternoon after school. We’ll sit around and talk and become friends. I’ll make sure our chats don’t go so long that you miss the bus.”

They did, Brown reports, become friends. He never told Mrs. Smith what Mr. Hunt had said, and he made a point of looking very sad when he left his office every afternoon--especially when Mrs. Smith was around.

He wouldn’t talk about what happened with his friends and they just figured that it was too horrible for words.

The best part of his day, he says, became the time he spent with Mr. Hunt, and he still looks back on those times with delight.

To a generation that still kept God at a distance--who were more apt to fear God than to love God--Jesus showed us that God was the best Friend we could have. We don’t ever need to fear that God will forget us or forsake us.

We will never die of spiritual thirst if we look to the cross-- that symbol of God’s presence and God’s power. If we look to Christ who is the living water, who satisfies our thirsty souls.  If we realize that we sit in a wonderful lagoon of living water that will never run dry.

And when we do, we will be filled.  Know this: God will walk with us in the dark night of our souls.  For me in when I lost my daughter and I thought I was abandoned, God was still there, loving me, comforting me, sustaining me … I just had to let go of my anger, my fear and my doubt … and trust.  

And when I did, I felt God more fully than ever before.

I still struggle with my faith sometimes. I still doubt on occasion and I still get mad at God once and a while.  

But God understands and is patient with me, as he is with each of you.  

And when I take a deep breath, and refocus on Jesus … my thirst is quenched and I know I am not alone.