Lent, Day 18: THE ROCK WAS CHRIST

I Corinthians 10:1-4

In The Message paraphrase of I Corinthians 10:1-4, Eugene Peterson gives us what is almost a commentary on this text.  The Message reads,

Remember our history, friends, and be warned. All our ancestors were led by the providential Cloud and taken miraculously through the Sea. They went through the waters, in a baptism like ours, as Moses led them from enslaving death to salvation life. They all ate and drank identical food and drink, meals provided daily by God. They drank from the Rock, God’s fountain for them that stayed with them wherever they were. And the Rock was Christ. 

The apostle Paul believed that even in ancient Israel, all the way back to Egypt and Moses and the Exodus, God was at work in Christ.  There is a wonderful story about a time when the people were thirsty for water, and God told Moses to strike a rock, and when he did, water flowed out to satisfy their thirst (see Exodus 17:6). Water from a rock is a strange event, but this rock wasn’t about a rock, it was about the Rock, Jesus Christ;  grace in the desert; God meeting needs in an impossible place; provision in the place of desert heat.  

And the past becomes present in the life of Jesus today.  In ancient Israel, even though the people couldn’t see it, they were safe in the arms of Jesus.  God was there, step-by-step, leading and guiding and protecting, but the people did not have a heart for God, and time after time, they walked away from the Source of their salvation.  They walked themselves away from Hope, to the place of anger and hostility and rebellion. 

Paul calls to mind the past so that he can teach Believers, in the present, never to forget from whence they come.  “Remember our history, friends, and be warned.”  Remember who you are when left to your own devices. Remember how easy it is to take your eyes off Jesus and get caught up in the desert heat around you.  When you are thirsty, and you will get thirsty, don’t run to the nearest fountain; run to the fountain of grace.  Run to the renewal of God.  Run to the rock which is “Christ, the messiah” (vs. 4).  Remember, and maybe pray, 

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,  

let me hide myself in thee;  

let the water and the blood,  

from thy wounded side which flowed,  

be of sin the double cure;  

save from wrath and make me pure. 

                 (Augustus Toplady, 1776)