I’ve been thinking about the incarnation, what it means that Jesus came in the flesh, as an individual.  I’ll be posting more on this theme in the coming weeks.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.  Hebrews 4:15-16

In Exodus 17, just after God delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians, bringing them across the Red Sea, then providing manna and quail from heaven to feed them, they camped at a place with no water.  They quarreled against Moses and grumbled, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

We’re so quick to judge these people for not trusting God, but I think we can only do that from the outside of the story.  It’s easy to criticize them, from my armchair of judgment, from my position as an observer of the “big picture” of the whole story in Exodus, and especially from my remoteness to the situation.  I know that they were supposed to remember how God provided in the past and that they were supposed to trust Him again.

Just for a moment, when I read this passage recently, I got a glimpse of how terrifying it would be not to have any water.  This is not a short, “I’m thirsty but there’s no faucet or refrigerator at hand for an hour or two,” this is an, “I’ve been walking through the desert all day, and there is no water, and there are over 600,000 people here, and I have nothing to drink, nothing to give my family, nothing to give my livestock” kind of thirst.  I would not just be thirsty, I would be afraid.

Thinking about this makes it all the more powerful that Jesus entered into history.  God is not a remote judge who knows all the “right” answers.  Jesus entered this world, into the thirsty, fearful places.  He always trusted his heavenly father perfectly in those places; he was not fearful, afraid, desperate, or grasping.  But he has compassion on people in those situations.  He didn’t make the standards any less holy, but he came close to us and through his life and his Spirit makes it possible for us to trust God more.  He doesn’t hit us over the head saying, “Trust God;” he says, “I understand, I’ve been there.  And God is trustworthy.  You can trust Him.”

This little detail from the story of Exodus is giving me such a more compassionate, less judgmental perspective.  I pray that will extend into my life and to the people in my world, not just on this page!

For this is what the high and exalted One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.”  Isaiah 57:15