Sermon: A Story About A Stick
Numbers 20: 1-13
A Story about a Stick
I don’t want to preach to you this morning. Everything around you has been preaching to you all week, so I don’t have to. Instead, I want to tell you a story. This is a story about a stick. I want to tell you in the hope that in the hope that it will…well…stick…with you. The stick in our story is Moses’s stick.
You do remember Moses, right? How he was put in a river as a baby and how that river landed him into the heart of wealth, privilege and power in Pharaoh’s household. You might remember how he graduality came to terms with his Jewish roots and how as a teenager the turmoil that went with this struggle made him kill an Egyptian. Moses had to flee. In movies this journey is depicted well. It shows how Moses leaves all dressed up like an Egyptian prince and then how he gradually loses all of his possessions and grand attire as his journey into the dessert progresses. Moses lost a lot. But whenever we lose a lot, we always have something to gain. Ever so slowly Moses gained new things as he lost old things. He dressed differently. He got a new family, a new setting and a new job. In all this Moses got a new identity. He got that because he received a new calling.
Now it is probable and not hard to imagine at all, that in a long list of new things Moses acquired as he shed old things, a walking stick was the very first new thing he acquired. It’s just logical. Somewhere along a long journey walking, one would acquire a walking stick. Walking sticks back then were much more common than they are today but even today they are pretty common. I see Moses struggling into the unknown with his walking stick. I imagine him leaning on it and peering out into the wide desolate unknown. I see him taking a rest and carving patterns into it with his knife. I imagine him entering his new family and this walking stick is one of the few commonalities he shares with his shepherd family. This stick helped Moses walk into his new identity.
The first time we read about his stick is when God mysteriously reveals himself to Moses in a burning bush. Maybe to show his power, God turns the stick into a snake. Then He asks Moses to pick up the snake by its tail as it turns into a stick again. Moses sets out on God’s mission and is specifically instructed to take the stick into his right hand. The stick became an extension of God’s power in Moses’s hand. And we all know the drama that occurred as Moses left Egypt with the Israelites. The scene climaxes at the foot of the Red Sea and Moses stretches out his staff as the sea parts and Israel is delivered from their enemies. Later there is a water shortage incident and the people are thirsty. Moses hits a rock and water flows. Shortly thereafter there is a battle at which Moses raises the staff with the help of others. As long as he does this, the battle is won. Then, lastly, we have the incident we read about this morning…
It is almost the same as the first incident at first glance. They are at the same place but in a different time. The people find themselves on the threshold of entering the long-awaited promised land. They are also dealing with memories of loss and basic their needs are not being met. People are rarely their best in these situations. Israel is no exception. Its like their memory shortens and they forget God’s faithfulness. It’s like their patience dries up with their water resources. It is like their anxiety takes over more and more, shaping their fearful response.
It is hard to imagine that Moses, being human, didn’t feel the same fear and anxiety as the people did. He is after all in the exact same situation than they are, experiencing the same fear and thirst. Moses is a leader. He is no different from the people he leads, just a little bit ahead of them to show them the way.
And so, Moses does what the best leaders should do. He takes with him another leader and seeks God’s council. God tells Moses to do 3 things: He should take his staff (Interesting that God finds it necessary to state the obvious like this), He tells Moses to assemble the people. (Pulling people together that are inclined to all go their own. Moses was often asked to heard cats like this). Unlike the first incident, God tells Moses to command the Rock to spring forth water.
Moses does all of this with one seemingly small mistake. He hits the rock instead of commanding it. Apart from the fact that it makes more sense to hit a rock than to speak to it rationally, Moses hit the same rock previously and there was no problem. Yet Moses is told because he hit the rock, you shall not enter the promised land. Forty years of leadership vision and he don’t get to enter the promised land because he hit the rock, and did not speak to it! What!?
A Stick and A Rock
What was this stick all about? To Moses this stick became a sign. A sign is something that points away from itself to something important. Moses’s stick pointed to God. To His power, His provision and His protection. Moses’s stick helped him to lean backwards and remember God’s great deeds. Moses’s stick helped him to lean forwards, toward the future God wanted his people to walk into. Moses stick was something he could lean against when everything felt to heavy to carry. It was a tangible and comforting and empowering thing to hold on to, something that pointed to something unseen but deeply felt.
But there is not only a stick, there is also a rock. A rock is something that is associated with being unmovable, heavy and strong. It is also associated with barrenness but did you know that it often holds water very well. Visit the Qumran sights in the ancient near east and you will see how many rocks were utilised as cisterns which contain water. Maybe this is why a rock is one of the metaphors God chose to reveal Himself to us. In many songs we sing about Him being the Rock of our salvation. It comes from Exodus and the Psalms where God is also described as or eluded to as a rock.
So, what then was Moses’s big mistake? Moses got confused about what to hold on to and about what his role is and what God’s role is. He decided to smash the stick that God told him to hold onto. He decided to produce water through force rather than through calm reliance in God’s goodness.
Do we do the same?
We find ourselves today a similar place as the people in this passage. We are in a time of need. Basic things we depend on and expect have suddenly become things we can no longer rely on. We are in new territory. Its not like any of us thought that life was easy before Covid 19 but now most of us feel like it is harder than ever before. And what is more, the future seems uncertain.
But we are Christians who follow Jesus, the Rock in whom the full glory of God is revealed. Whatever else it means it also means that we are called to lead. We are people with a calling and a conviction that carries us. And that conviction that God is on a journey with us to a better place, a new creation. So, we do need to see beyond our own discomfort and frustrations. We cannot just view all that is happening as one big calamity. We must also see it as a threshold and an opportunity for the Kingdom to be revealed.
Like Moses, it would be a good idea to seek God’s council with other believers like we do this morning. Unlike Moses, we should resist the temptation to call it quits and to smash our walking stick forcefully against the rock.
What is our walking stick? It is what carried each of us to this point in our shared lives together. Having faith and worshipping God. Sharing life in fellowship with other believers and being open to be taught and surprised by God. It relates closely to the three things Moses was ordered to do. He had to take up his stick that pointed to God for direction and council, He had to gather people so that they could be build up in fellowship and he had to turn to the rock and command it, thereby trusting that Gods often unconventional ways are best.. And in the middle our current situation, our Rock is still Jesus. In him there is still a fountain of life giving water. In Him there is still direction and inspiration to show us the way forward. In Him there is still the promise of His presence with us. Lean on these things as you would on a stick and remember how it got you and your ancestors through tough times. Lean on it and see that God is heading to a beautiful and much better destination with the world as we know it today. We might discover in this time that the things we thought we couldn’t live without are actually less essential than we believed them to be. But we need our stick and we need our Rock and the right connection between the two more than ever.
Close
I want to close and I have decided to keep the best for last. What we shouldn’t miss is the fact that even though Moses smashed his stick against the rock, even though Moses lacked the attitude of heart and trust God wanted, God still let the live giving water flow.
Many years later God’s Son was also struck. He was struck because He was rejected by a unbelieving generation. He was also put on a cross, a stick that became the ultimate symbol of death. But to us it became the ultimate symbol of life. But even though God’s rock, Christ, was struck by that cruel stick, the cross God let living water flow from Jesus. In this the tragedy of the cross becomes the threshold for us towards the ultimate good.
Rock of ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee.
Foul I, to the fountain fly,
Wash me saviour or I die
While I draw this fleeting breath
When my eyes shall close in death
When I rise to worlds unknown
And behold thee on thy throne
Rock of Ages cleft for me
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Amen
Gabriel J Snyman, March 22nd 2020