March 12, Lent 3 

Welcome and Announcements 

Called to Worship: 

 We gather as pilgrims on a journey of faith
We come seeking the awareness of God’s presence as we travel on,
We come seeking light for our darkness, strength in our weakness
Shine in our hearts, O God, with the light of your love.  Make your presence known through the gifts of your grace.
 

Hymn: 313 O Worship the King

  

 

Prayer of Adoration 

Most Holy God, we come to you with awe and wonder, aware of the mystery of life, reverent before your holy love and power.  Your loving care is always with us.  As we worship you this day, keep us aware of your sacred presence in our lives.  Startle us with the joy of discipleship, and strengthen us to accept the cost of following Jesus Christ.  Hear us now as we join our voices in confession, that we may know you more fully…. 

 

Unison Prayer of Confession:
Wise and powerful God, you have given us your light and truth to guide us through confusion, yet we have relied instead on our human wisdom and have lost our way.  You offer to share our burdens and give us your strength, yet we trust in our own efforts and find ourselves exhausted.  Bring us back into your presence, O God: overcome our separation from one another and from you.  By your Word and Spirit, fill us with the gifts that equip us to meet life’s demands, that we may be your people in the world and live in the confidence and joy of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.  Amen 

Assurance of Pardon 

Our hope and assurance rest in God’s unfailing love and forgiveness.
Open your hearts and minds and souls that the healing waters of God’s never-ending love and forgiveness may flow into and over you.
Know that in this love and forgiveness you have encountered the living God. 

The Peace
Passing the Peace 

 

Hymn:  677 My faith looks up to thee 

Scripture Lessons:

 

Exodus 17: 1-7
Psalm 95 

Sermon:  The staff of God 

In the 23rd Psalm we read:    

Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.  NIV 

The staff of God is an important image for those of us who journey in faith.   A simple staff, the tool that a shepherd uses to guide the sheep, but also to rescue the sheep when they are in danger is a powerful symbol of the care of God. 

Today we see the staff of God being used by a shepherd as he guides the people of Israel through the desert on the way to the Promised land. 

We don’t often think of Moses as a shepherd, do we?  And yet that is the work he was doing after he left Egypt.  There in the land of Midian, Moses tended the sheep of his father-in-law Jethro. 

It was there, late at night when a bush burst into flame and God announced himself to Moses and called him into the ministry of being a shepherd to the people of Israel.   

When Moses spoke of his doubts, God showed him how the staff he used was filled with the miraculous power of God.   

That staff proved that God’s power was very much present with the leaders, both Moses and Aaron.  In encounter after encounter the staff was employed to bring the plagues.  The people witnessed all that God would do to make Pharoah change his mind and heart and allow them to gain their freedom. 

Moses used his staff to bring the first plague, striking the Nile to change it to blood.  But it was Aaron’s staff that brought the blood to the ponds and lakes. 

Aaron also continued to show that God’s power flowed through him, as he used the staff to bring frogs and gnats. 

Moses also showed God’s power using the staff to bring hail and locusts and 3 days of darkness.  Then, in the desert he used the staff to strike the Red Sea and part the waters when the Egyptian army threatened them. 

So, with these signs and wonders, striking awe in the hearts of the people they entered into the relative safety of the desert.  To show that he accompanied them on the journey God’s presence was made known in a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night. 

Despite the continual reminders of God’s presence and power, the people continued to air their grievances before Moses.  There is no food.  So God gave Manna. 

All there is to eat is manna; day after day there is only Manna.  So, God brought quail. 

Now we see them in the desert complaining that there is no water. 

We can so easily judge them for having a lack of faith.  Surely with all the miracles that God had provided it should have been easy to trust God.  Through all the ways that God proved that he works through the leadership of Moses and Aaron, that it would be easier to trust that God would again work through them. 

Yes, there are lessons the people need to learn along the way.  They need to learn that where God leads, he will provide.  They need to learn that God will continue to provide, again and again and in every circumstance. 

We could judge them, but we know that we also have faltered and wondered if God has really been with us in our journeys.  WE have known desert times and wilderness times. 

We recognize that the people of Israel are on a journey through the wilderness.   There is danger at every turn of the trail.  This current danger was a real threat to the people.  Dying of thirst was a reality that was with them every day.   

Yet that dangerous reality was a spiritual reality as well.  The people here are on a journey to freedom, but more importantly, they are on a journey of the soul.  Through the trials and difficulties, they are being transformed from enslaved people to an independent nation.  Through trials and difficulties they are learning that God also provides solace and comfort for their souls and they are being transformed into a holy nation. 

As we know from our own journeys through difficult times this is painful work that requires great patience—from the people and from God.   

In all that God asks from us, it seems that the most difficult task, is giving God our complete trust.  These wilderness stories show just how difficult it is for people to be transformed into the trusting people of God.   

The latest struggle to trust comes from a lack of water.  It is hot.  It is dry.  The people are thirsty.  There is no water in sight. 

So, they bring their concern before God.  The complaining is a part of the process through which the people learn they can ask and God will provide.  Even the how of asking is a part of the journey.  From complaining, to demanding, to asking with gratitude is a journey we all follow.  

Once again Moses employs the staff of God.  A shepherd in the desert using the staff of comfort to protect and rescue the people in his flock.  The commentator Chan suggests that the staff is and has been employed as a “sacrament” that enabled the people to see with their own eyes the actions of God.  This sacramental moment inspired confidence in God.  The people are reminded that their freedom and their safety are an act of the marvelous generosity that God has extended to them.   

From these narratives we all gain insight into the character of God.  We may not be wandering in the wilderness, but we do know about experiencing disruption, transition and adversity.  Chan writes:  “these texts have the profound capacity to mirror back our own community dynamics, showing also how we struggle to believe that where God calls, God provides.” 

In a year when we acknowledge that we have limited resources we are reminded that the people in the desert also had limited resources.  Their response was not only a lack of trust, but they were in real danger of hardening their hearts against God.  Today we read Psalm 95 which speaks of the hardness of people’s hearts, and are reminded how much God hates when we harden our hearts against him. 

When we do that we remove ourselves from the very acts of grace and mercy he desires to shower upon us.   

We, like the people of Israel, need to learn to trust God in all circumstances.  WE need to learn to look for God’s provision in unexpected ways.   

How unexpected?   God provides water.  Not from a spring.  Not from a pond.  Not from a river.  Yet God provides water.   

If God is not going to provide water from the usual sources, where will it come from? 

As much as the use of the staff is significant, so is the rock.   

God could so easily have brought the people to an oasis where they would have had plenty of water.  But he did not.  He could have instructed Moses to have the people dig a well.  But he did not. 

Instead, he instructed Moses to bring the elders and strike a rock with the staff.  When Moses did so, water poured forth from the Rock.  Enough water to give to all the people and all the animals that were with them.   

The message is clear.  This was a people who had come up the hard way.  They were slaves in Egypt, and their whole lives had been marked with uncertainty, hard unrelenting work, hardship, persecution and abuse.  It is no wonder they didn’t know how to trust.  Through a series of events God proved again and again that he was trustworthy and that he would provide. 

This time God again proved that he had shared his power with his leaders.  The symbol of their leadership, the simple shepherd’s staff, brought water out of a rock.  Through that same leadership, through the same staff of safety and comfort, God would bring a people who were slaves and make them into an independent nation.    

These people who had learned through painful living to have aching hearts hardened to the point they could not trust, would learn to trust God and put their whole hearted faith in the good he would provide.  They became a people who were the apple of his eye, and a holy nation. 

We too have known hardship, unemployment, illness, betrayal and turned to God with questioning and hard hearts.  We can see in the unfolding of God’s nature in Scripture, and the unfolding of his grace in our own lives that even our deep uncertainty can change and we can be transformed into people who are faithful, trusting, servants in his holy nation. 

And if the staff and the rock are important, we who look at Scriptures through eyes opened by Christ, also know that the shepherd is important.  To the people of Israel God provided a shepherd who would lead them to safety.  To the whole world God provided a shepherd who would die for our sins and ensure our eternal safety. 

God always makes a way in the desert.   

Today we have been reminded that the power and presence of God in our midst is a tremendous source of grace, and confidence and strength.  We have been reminded that God is always with us…. And that God will always bring us through the trials of life.   

He will lead us into a purpose and a mission and he WILL PROVIDE.  Amen. 

 

Tenebrae Liturgy  see insert 

Hymn:  198 I hunger and I thirst

Offering
Doxology

Offertory Prayer 

Life-giving God, we offer you ourselves and our resources.
Use us and our gifts, that we may be water bearers to a world thirsty for love, for meaning, for justice, and for hope.
May all your people encounter fullness of life through the love of Christ, which lives within us. Amen. 

Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer 

God, You are a God of compassion and love. 

Time after time we have experienced your care and provision. 

Time after time You’ve answered our prayers and met our needs— 

often in ways we could never have dreamed possible. 

We praise You for Your faithful love toward us.   

Because of that love, we continue to bring our prayers to You in faith, because we know that nothing is impossible for You.  You are the God who rained down bread from heaven, and made water flow from a rock in the desert; the God who resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead, and who brings new life and hope to all who believe. 

Joys: 

Concerns: 

prayers for the world that You love. 

The people grieving after the attack on the Jehova Hall in Germany 

Syria and Turkey 

The Ukraine 

Lord of living water, pour your mercy on us. Help us move to the channels of hope and peace. Enable us to place our whole trust in your love. Remind us again that you also hold us dearly and offer to us your healing grace. Keep us strong and give us courage to serve you in all that we do 

We pray in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be they name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, forever Amen.   

 

Hymn:  330 O God our help in ages past

Charge …Unison 

Go out into the world in faith, trusting God to lead you. 
Go into the world with hope, trusting God’s presence to go before you and carry you. 
Go into the  world with love. 
Serve those in whom Christ lives, and labour for those for whom Jesus died.  

Benediction 

May grace, peace and mercy from God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be with us every day, now and forever.   

 

Sung Blessing
209 Verse 1  

O Love that wilt not let me go