In the last post, we discussed the Israelites (and by extension ours) inability to follow simple directions. This time we are going to go over the same story again but instead we are going to focus on the meat of the issue.
About two and a half months after Israel skedaddled out of Egypt, they find themselves wandering around the desert of the Sinai Peninsula. As mentioned previously, the Sinai Peninsula is one of the most desolate, barren, god-forsaken (no pun intended) places on the face of the earth. There is literally nothing there; I mean a shrub makes your day.
In said miserable and god-forsaken place, the Israelites begin to run out of food, which is a legitimate problem. Naturally the Israelites panic and start to complain against Moses and Aaron.
Now we dealt with how Yahveh solved the food problem in the last post, so there's no point in rehashing that here. Instead I want to focus on what it is they said to Moses and Aaron.
"If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve the entire assembly to death!"
Running parallel to this story is the story in chapter 17. Now, instead of food, the people have no water and again they freak. "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and our livestock die of thirst?"
Whoa. Those are some pretty strong words. I mean, think about what the people are basically saying. Basically the Israelites are saying that they were better off in Egypt; they are saying essentially that they want to go back.
I can imagine Moses and Yahveh's reaction being something like, "Hold on, what? You were slaves to those people. They were literally working you to death. They murdered your children. And you're saying you want to go back? You're saying you were better off?"
When we read these stories, they don't make much sense. The Israelites have a small food and water shortage and everybody losses their minds. My question to the Israelites is what did you expect? That the road to the Promised Land would be paved with dandelions and daisies and you'd all go skipping down the way arm in arm singing "We're off to see the Wizard"? Did you not think that there wouldn't be any problems along the way?
The problem is that that is probably what they were expecting. Not necessarily in those specific terms, but that idea. They seem to have thought that it would be an easy, luxurious jaunt to Canaan where they'd live like kings.
However Yahveh never promised any of that. He said that he would bring them to "good and spacious land," but he never said that it would be easy; all he promised was that he would get them there. That was it.
But that's not what the Israelites had in their heads and so when trouble rose, they panicked and started looking back. They began to forget the copious bad that defined their pathetic lives in Egypt where they worked for a genocidal Pharaoh and began to remember the very little good that existed. In essence, the Israelites started suffering from grass is always greener syndrome.
This is syndrome is an issue that plagues Christianity today (probably always has). Thanks in part to poisonous theologies such as the Prosperity Gospel Christians have gotten it into their head that being a Christian leads to a life of ease and luxury. Christians don't have problems and struggles; the path of the Christian is paved with dandelions and daisies.
That sounds nice except absolutely nowhere in the Bible does Yahveh even suggest that possibility. In fact Christ himself repeatedly drives home the opposite point. The life of the Christian is fraught with struggles and trials and persecution. A good chunk of the Gospels are devoted to explaining that Christians will suffer in this life and if you want a pointed explanation of the real Christian life, read Fox's Book of Martyrs. A lot of Christians came to less than savory ends.
This is the reality of the Christian life. There are desert moments were we feel that we are out of food and water. And in those moments it is tempting, like the Israelites, to look back to Egypt and long.
At the core, this was the problem with the Israelites complaint. It wasn't what they were complaining about. Not having food or water is a legitimate problem. No, the problem was how they were complaining. They were looking back to Egypt, forgetting all the problems that were there and all that Yahveh had done.
But instead of looking back, they ought to have been looking forward to the Promised Land. The Israelites were standing between two points: Egypt, the land of slavery and misery behind them, and the Promised Land, the land of freedom and joy ahead of them. Instead of doubting Yahveh and wishing for the life, no matter how terrible, they knew, they ought to have had had faith that although Yahveh never promised it would be easy getting there, he would get them to Canaan.
As Christians, we are in much the same boat as the Israelites. We are between two points, bondage to sin behind us and the freedom that Heaven will offer ahead. Our journey between has not been promised to be easy and neither will it be. We have our desert moments. Often it is tempting to look back to our lives in sin without Yahveh and long for it. We forget the pain and suffering that we endured and the pain and suffering we inflicted. We begin to think that it wasn't that bad.
But it was that bad. Instead of looking back, we ought to look forward to the salvation that Yahveh has promised us. This is the Christian Peace that has baffled persecutors through the centuries; a peace among Christians that no matter what is done to them, they never waver or budge. They don't complain or freak out. They just carry on. It doesn't mean that they are ignorant of their present trials; it means that they are cognizant of their destination.
This is what Christ offers us today. It isn't freedom from struggles and trials; rather it is the strength to get through them if we just keep looking forward. So as Winston Churchill once said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Never surrender, never retreat, and never give up." To which I add, never look back.
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