They were lost in the desert, with no water to drink. And so they complained to Moses. “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst?”
They had forgotten the exodus from slavery in Egypt,
the parting of the Red Sea and the hope of the promised land. All they could think of was their thirst, their misery and the man of God who had led them to it.
I can relate to their feeling. For here we are in the uncertain first days of the Corona pandemic. All you ever read about any more is how horrible it is, how much more horrible it’s going to get and how very thirsty we are.
It’s like we’re lost in a desert that God knows who led us into, and if we can’t find someone to blame, we’d might as well blame God.
But isn’t it remarkable how moments of misery are so often accompanied by such amnesia…the kind of spiritual amnesia which forgets the blessings God has showered upon us?
Was it not God who put breath in these mortal lungs, without which I would never have known how to sing and speak of love and the beauty of life?
Was it not God who first breathed his breath into the dirt that he formed into a mortal coil, which he taught to embrace and be embraced, and to care for others as he first cared for me?
Was it not God who put the spark into this mind which can imagine the wonders of his creation and the infinity of his plan?
Was it not God who set this heart to beating in the image of him whose sacred heart was pierced as he taught us to live and to love from the Altar of the Cross?
Was it not God who gave us everything that is good and beautiful and wonderful?
So where is he now?
Lamentations
That question is perhaps the most asked in all of the scriptures, but never more starkly than in the third chapter of the Book of Lamentations.
We don’t know the specific afflictions of the author of the third chapter, but we do know he was pretty miserable. “I have known affliction,” he begins. I have known “the rod of God’s anger…driven and forced to walk in darkness.” For “he has worn away my flesh and has broken all my bones.” I am surrounded by ‘poverty and hardship, hemmed in like those who long for death.’
Pretty stark stuff.
And he even touches a nerve with those who wake up in the middle of the night wondering what a pandemic is really like. “My life is deprived of peace,” he goes on, “I have forgotten what happiness is; The thought of my wretched homelessness is wormwood and poison; Remembering it over and over, my soul is downcast.”
Now, to be honest, I don’t think our present state is nearly as miserable as all that. But in our darkest moments, we can be afraid it will be.
But then, in a remarkable moment, his whole tone changes. And it begins with the word BUT.
But this I will call to mind;
The LORD’s acts of mercy are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent;
The LORD is my portion, I tell myself, therefore I will hope in him.
The LORD is good to those who trust in him, to the one that seeks him;
It is good to hope in silence for the LORD’s deliverance.
For I have called upon your name, O LORD, from the bottom of the pit;
You heard my call, You drew near to me and you said, “Do not be afraid”
So, he is reminding us, this too will pass, in God’s good time. And when Corona returns to being the name of a beer, we will return to this place, before that Cross and that Altar, with the Lord looking down on us with love.
And on that blessed day, we will sing a hymn of praise, a Te Deum, that he has delivered us once again. That he has brought water from the rock and delivered us from evil.
Cling to that hope. Let it sustain and refresh you.
For the LORD’s acts of mercy are not exhausted.
May the good God bring us to that day, very very soon.
