Refreshment Rocks

Water from the rock! A life-saving intervention by God in history, or a sign that there can be miraculous refreshment even in the driest stretches of life's journey? It could be both of course, but the point is that we can be sceptical about miracles in ancient history without losing the meaning of the story.

 

What does need to be credible, though, is the hope that God will indeed provide refreshment. Perhaps even more important is the need to go beyond scripture and assert that God was not merely interested in giving life-saving refreshment to those people at that time, but to all who cry out in need.

 

I nearly wrote 'cry out to him', but held back for two reasons. The first was that I baulked at gender-specific pronouns, and will try all sorts of grammatical tricks to avoid them. The second was that so much desperate need is felt by people who have no real idea that there is a God to call on.

 

In 1st Corinthians 10, St. Paul writes that the rock was Christ. The nomads in the desert had no idea of that, of course, which means that large numbers of people in today's world really do have something in common with them. Throughout history, perhaps even within the Church, Christ has often been present as or in the unrecognised stranger.

 

Unrecognised partly because he empties himself of his glory in order to serve us. Within the church, we are used to the thought that his life is poured into bread and wine for us. Elsewhere, he is recognisable in his works.