The waters of the Red Sea have barely even crashed back together. The victory song has barely even faded off Miriam’s lips. The Israelites have barely even finished filling their canteens at an oasis with twelve springs and 70 palm branches. But out in that desert, the people of God melt into a collective toddler…
This text is about grumbling and grace. To preach it powerfully, we need to hold those two opposites in dynamic tension. On the one hand, it is easy to be so tough on Israel’s ungrateful grumbling that we miss how completely human their complaints were. If we do that, we won’t see ourselves in them. …
Human memory can be remarkably pliable. It isn’t just illness or advancing age that can bend and twist it. Trauma too can do remarkable things to memory. Exodus 15 describes how God responds to God’s Israelite children’s grumbling about their lack of something to drink. At Marah and Elim God gives them refreshing water to…
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