a reflection by Mark Gates: A Spring of Life, Eternal Life.
“I’d like to buy a clue for $1.95 please.” -AND- “The passage of Time”
My brethren, I have often pondered, wondered and actually said out loud, “When are these guys gonna get a clue? How much proof do ‘they’ need?” Of course, I’m referring to the Pharisees, scribes and/or The Apostles. But as our Old Testament offering for today, Exodus 17:3-7, tells us, the Israelites in Moses’ time were no better. God frees them, guides them, opens the Red Sea for them and destroys Pharoah’s army… for them. Next, at the first sign of discomfort, the Israelites grumble against God. HOW much proof do they need.
Moses, seemingly aggravated & disappointed in the people, cries out to God (complains really) to ‘fix it’! While God does fix-it, you’ll noticed that prayer was not the first option for anyone. God will remember this and not allow Moses to enter the Promised Land.
The Red Sea saga was only one of the notable grumblings and disobedience. Approximately 400 years previously was the time of King David, Bathsheba and King Solomon. Those 3 couldn’t teach a ‘Piety & Reverence 101’ class if they tried!! Even though they did repent.
Let’s proceed forward to the 15th century. A very upset Martin Luther was asking my question at that time. The Crusades were spreading Christianity through war. Christianity should always increase by spreading the WORD!! After the reformation, we lost contact with brothers and sisters of our One, Holy, catholic (universal), and Apostolic church. The WORD is the clue.
TODAY, all Christians & Hebrews alike are under attack from Satan. Sorrowfully, some folks give-in, they give up the fight. Sometimes hourly, daily or even lifetimes.
It appears to me that no matter if the songs are with timbrels & flutes or drums & lyres, or with ram’s horns, choirs & pipe organs… we hear the same, old, tired tune. ***But, when we love God… We change the tune, we get our clue.!
ROMANS 5:1-8, Paul tells us a story of the price that was ‘prepaid’ to ensure our Salvation. Salvation is not fast-food, where YOU pay first, & then receive, NO!! “The love of God has been poured out into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly. **Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” ***ALL of the Torah and prophets predicted Jesus. ALL of the New Testament disciples and regular citizens lived or had lived the life & death of our Rabbi Jesus. Our Lord and Master, never started a war, there’s a clue.
“The woman at the well” is, I believe, a universally loved scripture. This Gospel John 4:5-42 contains preaching, asking, revealing, sin, trust, evangelization, forgiveness and eventually, the Living Water!!
I enjoy this story because Jesus did not allow the norms of the current times to sway His desire to bring souls back to God.
We start with a woman who is spiritually and morally dehydrated, gathering water to relieve her physical thirst. Such is the life of the first century Holy Land, DRY desert!! Jesus asks the woman and us to look inward, to satisfy the desert of our soul. God did not gift us with a soul to punish us. We are to have life and have it to the full. **When I was younger and thought that I was Super-Human, I would get dehydrated, often from cutting the grass or remodeling my house. I forgot how vicious and unforgiving the sun and Mother Nature could be. Neither one cared about me, if I didn’t care about myself first.
Eliminating my dehydration would usually mean drinking a soda-pop, coffee or beer. It temporarily relieved my thirst, but I was not satisfied. None of those specific items being what my ‘inside’ body needed. Sure, they would wet my whistle, but my muscles, tissue and organs needed water, pure & simple!
You know that I’m a cradle Catholic, but it wasn’t until a Charismatic Conference in 1996 that the Holy Spirit opened up a whole new world of thirst for me. A thirst for the “Living Water”. Now, as then, I THIRST for Jesus & the Holy Spirit. I thirst for the Word of God written, spoken & in my redeemer. I thirst for Eucharist, Jesus Christ alive and in person. My thirsting IS for God as the Blessed Trinity!! My thirst is my clue. What’s yours?? JOY-JOY-JOY, May all of God’s Love and Joy be yours, Mark “G”. 😊
