This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday and Sunday, March 6–7, 2010, for the Third Sunday in Lent.

+ + +

Readings

Isaiah 55:1–9
Psalm 63:1–8
1 Corinthians 10:1–13
Luke 13:1–9

+ + +

Prayer

You call us to return to you, Lord God, and to leave behind all things that keep us from giving ourselves fully to serve you. Speak to us through your Word, so that we may turn to face you and to give you glory; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

+ + +

Message

Every now and then,
I’ll grab the remote and browse through the TV channels,
just looking for a show that catches my eye
and holds out the promise of being
at least a little more interesting than just watching the shows flash by.

Sometimes I’ll land on BBC America for a moment
and catch a few scenes of a comedy like Fawlty Towers.
British comedies, it seems, are something of an acquired taste.
The characters speak English, the situations appear funny,
but the best lines are lost on these American ears.
I’m just not familiar with the subtle cultural references
that make British humor,
especially from more than thirty years ago,
come fully to life.

When I was reading the texts for this Sunday,
I had the same kind of experience.
Not that I felt I was missing a joke,
but that I had a gap in my knowledge
of one of those subtle, oblique references
that help to make the text of Scripture come alive
and speak its Word of power
across the millennia into these modern ears.

In his letter to the Church at Corinth,
St. Paul reminds his readers
about the great events of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt:

“I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,
that our ancestors were all under the cloud,
and all passed through the sea,
and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
and all ate the same spiritual food,
and all drank the same spiritual drink.” (1 Corinthians 10:1–4a, NRSV)

The Exodus, next to the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
is the most familiar, powerful, and life-changing event
in the history of God’s people.
Even non-Christians know about Moses,
either from Disney’s The Prince of Egypt
or from Charlton Heston’s epic portrayal of Moses
in The Ten Commandments.

We all know about the plagues of locusts and frogs
and lesions and water turning blood.
We’ve heard about the angel passing over the homes of the Israelites
and the slaughter of the firstborn of Egypt.

We can picture Pharaoh finally giving in to Moses’ request
to let the people of Israel go into the wilderness to worship God.
We can envision the people’s escape
through the parted waters of the Red Sea
and God’s destruction of the Egyptian army.

We know about Yahweh, the God of Israel,
leading that nomadic multitude
by “a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.” (LBW, “Evening Prayer,” p. 144)
We’re familiar with the people’s grumbling and wanting food to eat,
and then receiving manna from heaven as God’s gift.

So much of the quick overview St. Paul provides in this passage
resonates with our memories.
But he doesn’t just give us the straight story.
He turns it a little bit, shapes it, molds it.

And so it’s a little surprising when he hear
that the ancestors were “baptized into Moses”
and that they ate “spiritual food”
and drank “spiritual drink.”

We can’t hear words like baptism and spiritual food and drink
without thinking of our lives together as Christians in worship.
Somehow, Paul is pulling together
the whole history of salvation
from Israel’s deliverance from bondage to slavery
under the leadership of Moses
to humanity’s deliverance from its bondage to sin
through the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ
and finally to our celebration of that victory in worship
through Baptism and the Word and Communion.

There’s a technical term that helps us to understand
what Paul is doing with God’s history.
It’s called typology,
and it means that one connects two figures—people or items or events—
by saying that one is the type of the other,
that the earlier figure provides a glimpse or a preview of the latter figure.

The earlier figure finds its fulfillment in the latter figure,
while the latter finds its roots in the earlier figure.

In this passage, St. Paul pictures the Exodus
as the type of the Cross and Resurrection,
because the salvation of Israel pre-figures,
or hints at, the salvation of humanity.
Moses is the type of Jesus Christ,
because he leads the people to freedom from their bondage in slavery
just as Christ frees all people from their bondage to sin.

When Israel eats the manna
and drinks the water in the wilderness,
finding sustenance for the journey,
their eating and drinking
becomes the type of the Church’s Communion.
The manna from heaven is the type of the Eucharistic bread from heaven,
and the water flowing from the rock
is the type of the blessed wine poured from the cup of salvation.

But Paul invites us to enter even more deeply
into the ties that bind the Exodus and the Cross.
He writes in verse 4,

“…and all drank the same spiritual drink.
For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them,
and the rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:4, NRSV)

God had told Moses to answer the people’s cry for water
by striking a rock with his staff,
the same one that had turned into a serpent before Pharaoh
and the one that Moses had used to part the waters of the Red Sea.

So with his staff Moses struck the rock.
Water came out of it,
and the people stopped their complaining and drank.

Long before St. Paul’s day,
a legend grew among the rabbis of Israel,
that this spring of water
traveled with Israel throughout the forty-year sojourn in the wilderness.

Paul builds upon his rabbinic knowledge of this legend—
he elaborates upon it—
and says that it wasn’t only the spring that followed Israel,
it was the rock itself from which the waters flowed
that followed Israel on its journey.

And then, Paul jumps again,
and makes the rock a type, but more than a type.
He says, “…and the rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:4b, NRSV)

He doesn’t say,
“This rock reminds us of Christ,”
or, “This rock reflects the qualities of Christ,”
or even “This rock pre-figures or previews or provides a glimpse of Christ.”

What he does say
is that the rock is Jesus Christ Himself.
This means that our Lord
lived among and offered His gracious gifts
to the people of Israel
even before He was born of Mary and the Spirit.

That’s a powerful insight
that helps us to appreciate the depth
of what we confess in the Creed when we say,
“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ…
eternally begotten of the Father.”
But then we realize we’re still so far removed
from the Corinth of Paul’s letter
and the Nicaea of the Creed,
separated by cultures and millennia.
And so we ask, “What does it mean for us,
that ‘…the rock was Christ’?”

Almost immediately, Paul tells us,
“Now these things occurred as examples for us,
so that we might not desire evil as they did.” (1 Corinthians 10:6, NRSV)
God worked His grace and law in the life of Israel,
not only to make them into His People,
but also to proclaim and prefigure His work among us.

Israel was baptized into Moses,
just as we are baptized into Christ.
Israel ate the spiritual food of manna,
while we eat the body of our Lord, the bread of heaven.
Israel drank the spiritual drink of the water,
even as we drink the blood of Jesus Christ from the cup of salvation.

This is the grace of God at work in the lives of all of His people,
both Israel and the Church.

And then Paul tells us how we ought to live:

• “Do not become idolaters…,” worshiping other gods.
• “We must not indulge in sexual immorality…,” breaking the sixth commandment against adultery.
• “We must not put Christ to the test…,” making Him perform by our rules.
• “Do not complain…,” grumbling about the path upon which God leads us.

This is more than guidance,
much more than simple tips for how to live.
These are the commands of God for us,
His will for how we ought to be His people.
Paul instructs us about how we ought to live,
since God has given us His grace.

These admonitions from St. Paul make that vital move from grace to action,
just the way the commandments themselves begin with grace—

“I am the LORD your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery….”—
and then move to action—
“…you shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2–3, NRSV).

With this gift of grace, we have received all that we need to obey God.
And so, we can find comfort in Paul’s encouragement:

“No testing has overtaken you
that is not common to everyone.
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,
but with the testing he will also provide
the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NRSV)

Israel did not escape from the wilderness
until the forty years had passed.
Our Lord did not defeat death without dying Himself.
then he promised us release from our bondage.
And we have no escape from our wilderness,
no release from bondage that does not entail dying daily to sin.
But even so, God is faithful,
and through the rock, Jesus Christ,
He pours out His spiritual drink
and bids us to come and slake our thirst. Amen.