When I was a kid, my mom would drag me into an activity from time to time that I just hated. Garage sales. We were out and about for hours. Get out of the car, get back in the car, get out of the car, get back in the car. It felt like an eternity. The days were always warm. Doing all that running around as a child I would get… thirsty. And then I would complain about being thirsty. And how I was dying of thirst. We heard from the Old Testament reading, that God’s people (whom He just saved from Egypt) found no water. It actually was serious.

God’s people suffer thirst. The Israelites traveled through the desert according to the commandment of the Lord, “but there was no water for the people to drink.” They realized they were having a problem when they found no water to drink. At this time in their history, they were a small nation—numbering a few million people. They slowly walked through mountainous, wilderness, desert terrain. Even for springtime, the weather would have been very warm. They walked and climbed through rocky soil in warm weather without water. It was a real situation of physical thirst they faced. The sensation of thirst was their bodies telling them they needed water. They suffered.

Similarly, you face thirst. Physical thirst could be a possibility, but your thirst is more likely to be metaphorical and spiritual. We all face times of suffering like the Israelites experienced. A serious, life-threatening diagnosis causes the thirst of trying to fight off disease. Job loss causes the thirst of trying to pay the bills. The death of a loved one causes the thirst of loneliness and grief. These are sufferings fairly common to humankind. We all know people (perhaps even ourselves) affected by these things (and more kinds of sufferings). So, on top of the fact that we do physically suffer without water, we also suffer disease, injury, economic problem, divisions, disputes, and disagreements—all of which impact our bodies, minds, and spirits.

The question then becomes: how do we handle it? Does faith have the final say or does sin? When I was a child led on a quest for garage sales, I regularly complained about how bad I had it because of my thirst. So did the Israelites traveling in the wilderness desert.

Complaining, in and of itself, isn’t sin. Annoying perhaps, but complaining doesn’t automatically equal sin. In the Bible, many people complain—including the Lord! When we complain we are being honest about our thoughts and feelings regarding some suffering. Even prayer requests can be understood as complaints. Many psalms are complaints.

God and His people are in a relationship that is compared to the relationship to a husband and wife. That means there’s a special bond. My wife gets to speak to me in ways that others don’t get to. I don’t mean she has a free pass to speak sinfully, but I take her words into a different consideration than I take other peoples’ words. What she says has a different weight. It’s the same between God and His people. We can make our complaint to the Lord. He can make His complaint to us. We hear of this all throughout Scripture. Complaining can show faith.

When complaining becomes grumbling, that’s when sin comes into play. Blame and accusations start to get made as the complaint changes from being about a situation to grumbling about the other person. The Lord is fine with us being open and honest in making our complaint to Him, but that can push too far into grumbling against Him.

The Israelites blame God for their thirst and grumble against His motives. “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” The situation turns from understandable complaint concerning no water into sinful grumbling and accusation that God intends to kill them in the desert.

How did they handle their situation? They don’t complain, trusting the Lord to supply their needs. They sinfully grumble in unbelief. Faith may make complaint, but grumbling is always the response of unbelief. The peoples’ action reveals the unbelief of their hearts. They turn against God, falsely accusing Him of turning on them.

We can react to suffering the same way. We may grumble, blame, and accuse God of not having our best interests at heart. Sometimes we may ask God for help or relief during a time of “thirst”, but when our prayer isn’t answered in the way we want it to be answered, (in a bout of unbelief) we just might grumble against the Lord. Lord, have mercy!

This was the Lord who delivered Israel from Egypt, who made bitter water sweet, who provided manna and quail from heaven. One would think that the Israelites (who experienced all of those blessings) would in this moment say, “This really bites. I don’t like being thirsty, but I’m going to trust the Lord to care for us.” They don’t, because that’s not what sinful hearts do. Sinful hearts grumble, accuse, and disbelieve. The Israelites grumbled against God throughout their journey to the Promised Land. We grumble against God throughout our lives.

We often fail to see God’s care for us, so we grumble against Him. We may grumble because the car broke down, forgetting God provides our daily bread. We may complain about an illness, forgetting that God provides doctors, nurses, and treatments. We may grumble about life in general, forgetting the promised inheritance Jesus is readying for us. We face “thirsts” in which we can respond in faith or unbelief.

When we grumble, we don’t deserve anything good from the Lord’s hand. Why should God give anything good to those who question His motives or grumble because He hasn’t done the thing that we want?

DESPITE OUR FAITHLESS GRUMBLINGS, GOD ALWAYS ALLEVIATES OUR THIRST

God satisfies the thirst of His people through Christ. At first, this reading seems to have little to do with Jesus, but it really is all about Jesus. God tells Moses: “I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” Moses does as the Lord directed him, and water came gushing out of the rock. Through the miraculous sign of water from a rock, God delivered His faithless people from their thirst. Through the miraculous sign of water from a rock, He gave their faithless hearts something to believe. The apostle Paul declares that the Rock that provided for their needs all throughout their wilderness travels was Christ Himself. He satisfied their physical and spiritual needs. He satisfies our physical and spiritual needs.

The Lord cares for all our physical needs. He knows what we need (not what we want but what we need) better than we do. Martin Luther wrote in his explanation of the first article of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe that God has made me and all creatures, that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses and still takes care of them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land animals and all I have. He richly and daily supplies me with all I need to support this body and life; He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.” God cares for us with His good gifts throughout our lives. They are gifts flowing from the perfect gift of salvation through Jesus’ suffering and death.

As God took care of the Israelites’ physical thirst, He satisfied their spiritual thirst in Christ. Today’s Gospel reading reveals Jesus’ care for peoples’ spiritual well-being. Speaking of Jacob’s well, Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.” He offers spiritual drink that nourishes the soul into eternity.

In great love for the world, Christ satisfies our thirst—providing all our needs through His saving work. He suffered and died so that we may have life in His name in His kingdom for eternity. What else is there? And yet, He supplies our needs in this life as well. Everything good we have in this world is a gift of Christ’s grace, love, and mercy.  

The Lord has won forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation through His precious blood on Calvary. This blessed gift sustains you from day to day come what may. The Lord satisfies us in Christ, so that we may make our complaint in faith, trusting the grace and mercy of the Lord to see us through times of suffering and into eternal glory. Amen.