Advent 2023: November 27 - Presence

Monday November 27th: Presence

Read Exodus 17.

Where is Jesus here?  Today we focus on a time when Jesus himself was present in the Old Testament.  What we have in this chapter is the people complaining about there being no water. God then tells Moses to strike the rock and let water pour out for the people to drink.

Jesus is hidden here until you think of a few New Testament passages.  Mainly John 4 and 7 and 1 Corinthians 10.

First read 1 Corinthians 10:1-5.  I will pick out the verse that is the point.  When referring to the people in Exodus 17, St. Paul writes, “and all at the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

Whoa.  Hey there.  And he was made rock, we could say.  Paul asserts that what the people of Israel were drinking from was Jesus Christ.  In fact, popular Jewish ideas at the time asserted that the rock was traveling with the people in the wilderness and was the source for their water each time they complained and needed it.
 
And we can also go to John 7:37-39, when Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow streams of living water.’”

Or as Jesus would say in John 4 to the woman at the well, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

When we read the Exodus account, we see that Jesus Christ is present.  He is caring for the people as they travel, and even in their sins is providing them with the means for the journey.  Even with the manna, we can read John 6 and see that there Jesus calls himself the true manna.
 
You probably didn’t think of looking for Jesus in Exodus 17, but this is a good reminder that you should leave no rock unturned when paging through the Old Testament in the search for Jesus Christ.