Episode 9: 11/05/08

Readings:

Psalm 119:73-96
Nehemiah 13:4-22
Revelation 16:1-11
Luke 13:10-17

Sermon:

"For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."
Jeremiah 2:13

Grace, Mercy and Peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ...

Imagine that you had a spring...

Imagine that you had a spring and all that poured forth was pure and clean water, water that sparkled by the light of the sun and the moon. Cool to the tongue it would rejuvenate you when you were thirsty, when the sweat of your brow beaded against your face, when all you see around you is dirty and mud and sand. Plentiful, it is a spring that will never dry up, that you can drink from all the days of your life, and yet that will never show any signs of coming close to being used up.

So you begin to dig...

You begin to dig a hole and you place a cistern...

Perhaps you don't trust that the spring will always be there, you worry that it will, in fact, run dry. You look around and there isn't any more water that you can see so you don't have faith that it will provide you the water that you need for you and your family...

It may be a strange concept for us, the idea of a cistern or the idea that we won't have clean drinking water, we always have. You can turn on a tap and it will pour right into a glass for you or you can go to the store and you can buy it in bottles or in jugs. Treated and retreated it's safe to drink, you never really have to worry about that all too often. Yes, at times perhaps we hear about tainted water but the cases are few and far between.

So what is a cistern?

Unlike a spring a cistern is man made, much like a well except where with a well you dig until you reach water this is a giant vat you dig into the ground and place a wall of rock or stone around to keep water stored for drinking. The problem is that it wasn't a great solution. As is often the case the water would stagnate and grow algea, it would become poisonous to drink, snakes and other animals would get into it and it would make it unclean, a veritable ceaspool

Now imagine that with the wear and the use of it, with the natural erosion of time the cistern cracked and would break with the strain of it all.

So it was with the children of Isreal...

Except that, as God spoke, it wasn't a real cistern, nor was it a literal spring... of their bodies and souls, of their spirits and minds they had built cisterns of themselves, turning their backs on the Lord God Almighty, He who had delivered them from the Pharoahs, who had tore down the walls of Jericho, and had slain Goliath, to protect and care for children. The spring of living water the God of Abraham and Isaac, Moses and Joshua, would provide them with all that they would need, He would lead the from slavery to their own land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

But never would they trust Him to be there for them always.They would cave under pressure and they would build their own gods, or they would blow before foriegn gods, idols with eyes that could see and ears that could not hear their cries. They would be the cisterns of faith that would stagnate the soul, filling it with poison.

Believing they could hold God in the golden form or in statues and rock they would bow before these cisterns and drink of its water. Slowly, drink by drink, they would bring their own spiritual death...

Those ancient Isrealites would not be alone...

How often does God provide for us? How often does He show Himself to be the Spring of life, an eternal water flowing that will rejuvenate and revive us? So much so has He shown this in our lives that He gave His only Son, a sacrifice for our sins that we might find eternal life through our faith in Him.

Yet we turn, we look elsewhere, we worry that He isn't always going to be there or He isn't going to always provide for us, the first time we see dry weather we begin to worry that his well spring will dry up leaving us nothing except to mourn and wonder at our lot in life. So we build ourselves false idols, earthly wealth, earthly success, governments that promise to provide everything we need from craddle to grave, we look to new cars or a new house, or a bigger pay check or an entitlement check, it really doesn't matter. There we put our faith, like so much fresh spring water, in these cisterns, cracked and broken.

Still no matter how much faith we place in we find that it's never full or its never able to hold it, and what's left is sheer poison, bitter to the lips, warm and always leaving us wanting more....

But there is hope...

Turning our backs to those cisterns of this world, our eyes transfix upon the spring of living water, turning looking from the false idols and false gods we create in our own imperfect images, we look upon God in all His perfect form. There He is great enough, strong enough, powerful enough, to provide for all we want and all we need. Stronger than any earthly creation, He will never crack or break. Able to provide for us that which will rejuvenate He will never go bitter or warm, but will always be cool and quenching to us.

In Him and through His beloved Son our salvation is made perfect, it is made whole and we are never left to want, we are never left to thirst. In all that we are and all that we do He will give us all that we need to perservere and to go on in strength.

Place your trust in His well spring, turning from the stagnate waters of this world, and never find ourselves disappointed.

The peace o the Lord that Transcends all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus even unto life everlasting. Amen.