LENT 2020: Third Sunday

• Sunday, March 15, 2020: Third Sunday in Lent
  Exodus 17.1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-42

In the wilderness, the people are complaining.
Again.

But the first thing to notice is that they are journeying onward, from the “Wilderness of Sin.”

They are moving, from redemption, into promise.

But promise is not fulfillment. It is not tangible, here and now.

The wilderness stories are about being stuck, in between, promise and fulfillment.

But wilderness is also a state of mind, writes Fretheim.
It’s about being on the move, not settled.

That can make it seem that God is not there, that God is not providing.

But, as Fretheim reminds us, the law, too, was given in the wilderness.
The law, too, is on the move.

And the people are being led, in the wilderness, by a God who is on the move with them.

Our story ends with this: “Is the LORD in our midst or not?”
That is our question today.

And that, too, is our charge. For God relies on us, to be the hands and feet of God in the world.