Lent 3
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
-- 1 Corinthians 10:4
Paul's exegesis of scripture is shocking in this passage. He rehearsed the major moments in Israel's escape from Egypt and crossing the wilderness, and proceeded to interpret all of these events from a Christian perspective. He saw being led by God in a cloud and crossing the Red Sea as prefiguring baptism. When God fed them manna and gave them water from a rock in the desert, he spoke of that as an act of Christ. When the people rebelled, he spoke of that as testing Christ. Paul puts what we refer to as the Old and New Testaments together as one seamless garment. Christ is God made visible in the flesh, and this is the same God who was revealed in the early experiences of Israel.
The gospel of John spoke in a similar way when it spoke of Christ as present at creation (John 1:1 ff). What this suggests is that Christ is the experience of God acting in the midst of time. Such an approach to the gospel breaks the bonds of exclusivism. The gospel of John reports in 14:6, "No one comes to the Father except through me." Paul suggested that this way was embedded in Judaism long before Jesus was born. To follow Christ's way did not require naming Jesus but rather being open to Christ's Spirit that can be manifested even in an inanimate object like a rock. Failure to trust God as God has been revealed to them and complaining about the conditions of their lives was putting "Christ to the test."
The real issue of following Christ is trusting in God as one encounters the challenges of life. It is a form of idolatry to allow the conditions of life to overwhelm you. It suggests you think those conditions are more powerful than God who is faithful and will not let you be tested beyond your strength. This was revealed to us specifically in Jesus' life, but Paul saw it as having been manifested long before Jesus was born. It certainly sheds a different light on the contemporary issue of the exclusive way to salvation.
-- 1 Corinthians 10:4
Paul's exegesis of scripture is shocking in this passage. He rehearsed the major moments in Israel's escape from Egypt and crossing the wilderness, and proceeded to interpret all of these events from a Christian perspective. He saw being led by God in a cloud and crossing the Red Sea as prefiguring baptism. When God fed them manna and gave them water from a rock in the desert, he spoke of that as an act of Christ. When the people rebelled, he spoke of that as testing Christ. Paul puts what we refer to as the Old and New Testaments together as one seamless garment. Christ is God made visible in the flesh, and this is the same God who was revealed in the early experiences of Israel.
The gospel of John spoke in a similar way when it spoke of Christ as present at creation (John 1:1 ff). What this suggests is that Christ is the experience of God acting in the midst of time. Such an approach to the gospel breaks the bonds of exclusivism. The gospel of John reports in 14:6, "No one comes to the Father except through me." Paul suggested that this way was embedded in Judaism long before Jesus was born. To follow Christ's way did not require naming Jesus but rather being open to Christ's Spirit that can be manifested even in an inanimate object like a rock. Failure to trust God as God has been revealed to them and complaining about the conditions of their lives was putting "Christ to the test."
The real issue of following Christ is trusting in God as one encounters the challenges of life. It is a form of idolatry to allow the conditions of life to overwhelm you. It suggests you think those conditions are more powerful than God who is faithful and will not let you be tested beyond your strength. This was revealed to us specifically in Jesus' life, but Paul saw it as having been manifested long before Jesus was born. It certainly sheds a different light on the contemporary issue of the exclusive way to salvation.
