Scripture: Numbers 20:1-13, John 3:1-8
-World Water Day-
Science teaches us that there are numerous criteria necessary for life to form. Climate, atmosphere, gravity, radiation, etc. But probably more than any of these other things, the things that astronomers say define the “Goldilocks zone” of a planetary system, what you need is water.
Without water, there is no life.
There are no exceptions. From the tiniest microbe to the tallest tree, from the whale to the mouse, the snakes I spoke about last week, and, of course, ourselves, none of us can survive without water. It is a vital component of our physiology. The biological machine that is our bodies will not function without it.
It can take two weeks or more for a human being to starve to death from lack of food. Go without water and you will likely expire in less than 48 hours.
None of this is a mystery to us. We’ve understood this long before we even knew what science was. Instinct taught us these things about ourselves. It is a fundamental truth of the human existence. Water means life. Lack of water means death.
The ancient Israelites in the wilderness were, as I said last week, wandering there to learn what it means to be God’s chosen people. But there were some things they didn’t have to learn because they knew them already. They knew, for instance, that they would not survive in that harsh environment without water. Thus we have the story of our First Lesson today where God provides that vital necessity by commanding Moses to strike the stone and bring forth water from the rock.
Once again, God proves faithful. He shows once again how the people can depend on him for their every need. This story, in many ways, echoes the one we had last week from the book of Numbers where God gave the people relief from the plague of venomous serpents. Once again, God came through for them.
God brought them from death to life. From the venom of serpents to healing. From dying of thirst to water for all. This is what he does. Death to life.
God has many tools at his disposal. Miracles such as these are certainly flashy and provide a nice counter-illustration to the dire circumstances the ancient Israelites so often found themselves in while wandering the Sinai. But that’s far from the only tool God has to see his goal of bringing his people from death to life. He has many others.
Of course, as Christians, we recognize that Jesus is by far the most potent of these tools. God’s only son came into this world to bring us all from death to life. Again this week, we find ourselves, in a sense, listening in on the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus, the conversation John recorded in the third chapter of his Gospel. To this teacher of Israel, Jesus outlines his purpose, his mission. And it should come as no surprise that his purpose is to bring us from death to life and it should also be no surprise that he tries to explain this by an illustration pointing to two requirements for human life: air (wind) and water.
From suffocation to breath. From dying of thirst to water for all. From death to life.
We are disciples of Jesus. We follow in his footsteps and in his teachings. God sent him to bring us, all of us, from the death of sin to life eternal. That was Jesus’ job, his purpose, his goal. But we too have a job, outlined in the words of the covenants both old and new. And that job is this: just as Jesus has taken care of us for the next world, so it falls to us to take care of one another in this one.
You see, you and I, we’re tools in God’s arsenal too. We too can be a part of bringing life out of death for people throughout the world around us. And as time goes on and history plays out in the way that it will, we are going to find that water is going to be a big part of that job.
A few years ago, in one of his adventures, the fictional spy James Bond was in South America, in Bolivia, fighting against the evil Quantum organization. Their nefarious plan was to steal all the water in that country. Not a terribly glamorous dilemma for the super-spy and critics of the movie made sure to point that out. But that somewhat goofy bit of pop culture might prove to be somewhat prophetic. Historians have long argued that human wars of the past generations were over gold, our wars in the current generation are over oil, but the wars of the next generations will be over water.
And why is that? Because we’re running out of it.
Between overconsumption, pollution, and drastic shifts in weather and climate, sources of potable water are becoming more scarce worldwide. And this is no longer just a problem in the wildernesses of Third World with the people that live on the margins. It’s in our backyards. California, part of our own nation, is suffering a drought of Biblical proportions right now. Public officials have announced that they have only a single year of water reserves left. One of the most populous and wealthy states in our union is running out of water.
How many bottles of water do we drink in a week? A frightening number of them are being bottled in California. That industry has not slowed in the slightest in the midst of their historic drought. Is this convenience worth it?
Fracking is considered a godsend for the energy industry. We have a way to finally get to those sources of oil and gas that have so long been unreachable. Well, that’s all well and good until people can set their well water on fire. You can’t drink fracking chemicals. You can’t water crops with them. Are those fossil fuels really worth it?
We are facing some hard questions. As Christians we are called to bring people from death to life as our Savior has. But how many of our habits and behaviors do the opposite and hasten the lives of others and ourselves towards death? We cannot live without water. So what are we going to do about all this? What decisions are we going to make about our lives and lifestyle? The answers to those questions aren’t easy. But we do need to think about it and, for the sake of those we are called to care for, we need to give an answer. Amen.
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