Exodus 17:1-7
One of the truly enjoyable periods of my life took place back in the 1980’s when my good friend Len S and I joined forces to buy an airplane – a Cessna 172. We flew a lot of miles together and made a lot of bad landings. Some of our favorite flights were those we took on hot summer nights from our home airport in Fall River, Massachusetts over to Martha’s Vineyard for a tasty cup of real New England clam chowder.
That flight, of course, was not without its hazards. It entailed flying out over Buzzards Bay. An engine failure out over the ocean at night would not be a happy experience. So we always carefully plotted a point-of-no-return – that hypothetical place beyond which it would be shorter to reach the island than to return to the mainland. And once we got that figured out, we’d calculate an altitude to fly from which we could glide to the island if the engine went out.
Thankfully, nothing like that ever happened to us on those summer evening flights to the Vineyard. But I have experienced many such critical moments over the course of my life. And you have, too.
We were sitting in the trauma waiting room of the local hospital. A boy’s parents were anxiously pacing back and forth. When would the doctor be able to tell them something about their son who’d been rushed to the hospital that morning? His heart had stopped beating. The EMT who’d called me said it didn’t look good. The boy was only seventeen years old.
Finally, the door to the waiting area opened. The look on the doctor’s face told the story. “I’m so very sorry…” he began to say. The mother let out a scream. The father slammed a fist against a wall. And among all the many desperate cries of hurt expressed in those dark and sad days, the one I’ll always remember was that of the boy’s mother who, a few days later, moaned in pain, “Oh God, how can we ever go on?”
Life is full of points-of-no-return. Pivotal moments when our instincts are to go back, but from which the only way to life and hope is to press onward.
And these points-of-no-return show up in our lives not just in those larger-than-life moments when we face life-shattering experiences, but also in much smaller, daily occurrences.
You make a terrible mistake. You know it was wrong. And every fiber within you urges you to deny it. To try to glide on back to where you started and pretend the mistake never happened. It would be too painful – maybe even dangerous – to move ahead. To admit the mistake. To ask for forgiveness. To right the wrong.
You have a relationship that’s broken by someone else’s sin. The hurt is immense. The words that were said ring in your ears. The justified anger is so deep that you sense it is better to stay on this side of the experience – the injury side – never speaking to, or seeing, the person again. You just don’t have the will or the spiritual resources to move ahead toward reconciliation.
In our personal lives…in our spiritual life…in our life together as a society… there is a constant stream of points-of-no-return. Junctures from which we are reluctant to go on, and where it seems safer to either go back or go nowhere at all.
It is a universal experience. And today’s Scripture reading brings us to one such moment in the life of the Hebrew people.
There they are, making camp in a God-forsaken part of the Sinai desert called Rephidim. And right away, the Hebrews know they have a problem. There is no water.
Now, these are the people of God. These are the people God has called forth from the slavery of Egypt. These are the people chosen to settle the Promised Land. These are the people by whom God will bless the world, for from among them will one day come the Messiah. They are on a mission from God.
But they have no water.
Sometimes I wonder why God didn’t just bring the Hebrews to the Cairo bus station and put them all on a Greyhound bus bound for the Promised Land. The trip would have taken less than a day, and probably would have cost God a whole lot less aggravation.
But God didn’t do that. Instead God chose to let the Hebrews take the scenic route through life. Just like we do. Through the sea. Over the mountains. Into the desert. For forty long years they wandered. For forty long years – day after day – they encountered point-of-no-return experiences like the one at Rephidim and like the ones you and I face every day.
And I think the Bible shows us why.
You see, some of the most valuable lessons you’ll ever learn about yourself and about God can only be learned at the-point-of-no-return.
Lesson number one is that we humans are vulnerable creatures. Try as we may to organize and manipulate life, it seldom holds together the way we want it to. The Hebrews dream of freedom did not include parched lips in the desert. But that’s what life served up. Life seldom holds up to expectations. Why, boy meets girl and girl meets boy. To her, he is the original knight in shining armor, Prince Charming in the flesh. To him, she is a beautiful princess right out of Cinderella’s castle. They fall in love and have a storybook wedding. They ride off into the sunset together and all is well. Well, for a while.
Then one day they realize they have fallen out of love. Prince Charming is not so princely anymore. Cinderella’s slippers don’t fit anymore. And both he and she gasp at how different reality is from their dreams of long ago!
Life is bigger than any of us. It’s not true that you can be whatever you want to be. It’s not true that you can do anything you want to do. It’s not true that you can engineer a solution to any problem. It’s not true that insurance can protect you. Life has a way of coming along and poking you in the nose. And shattering your dreams. Life has a way of forcing you into corners you don’t want to visit. Life is BIG, and comparatively speaking, you and I are pretty small.
We human beings are terribly vulnerable creatures. The Hebrews found that out at Rephidim. You and I find that out every day. And its an important lesson to learn about ourselves.
And then there’s a second lesson. Our faithfulness to God usually lasts just about as long as the water holds out.
You see, the truth is that no matter how highly you estimate your own faith, there is a point at which you will abandon God and God’s purposes. For some, like the Hebrew people at Rephidim, the point arrives when the water runs out. For others of us, it’s when the diagnosis comes in. Or when the hurt is so bad we can’t even think about forgiveness. Or when the love we once had for our spouse is gone and we find excuses to break our most sacred vows. Or when God’s claims exceed our intellect’s ability to comprehend and we rationalize God out of existence. Or when the will of God runs contrary to our political point of view. Or when tragedy strikes and we get so sick and tired of this God who lets bad things happen to good people.
Oh, every one of us has a point where the water runs out and we drop God like a hot potato.
That’s a powerful lesson that can only be learned at life’s points-of-no-return. We are not really people of faith though we may pretend to be. We are sinners who tolerate God only as long as God delivers what we want.
And that’s a tough truth to learn about yourself. But it’s the beginning of discipleship. You know, it’s the same lesson Peter was learning when he said to Jesus, “Lord, even if THEY all fall away, I’LL stick by you to the very bitter end!”
But Peter was kidding himself. When push came to shove, he denied Jesus three times. You see, we all have a price. We all face points-of-no-return. And Peter had to learn that about himself before he could ever become effective as a disciple of Christ.
We are vulnerable to life. And we are sinners. These are two of the most important lessons we can ever learn about ourselves, because they lead us to the greatest truth about God.
And that is that God loves us and can be trusted with both our sin and our vulnerability!
In other words, God can and will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves!
Right now as we worship this morning, you may be facing one of those point-of-no-return moments in your life. A situation in which you’ve gone as far as you can go, done all you can do. A circumstance in which you don’t have the ability even to be faithful anymore. You’ve run out of spiritual gas – or water – as in the case of the Hebrews.
As you think about the situation you’re experiencing, I want you to know that you face a critical choice. You can respond to your vulnerability and inability to have faith by stopping where you are and just giving up.
Or, you can respond to your vulnerability and inability to have faith by pressing on past that point-of-no-return, trusting God to supply you with what you don’t have!”
To press on and love someone you don’t love anymore; to press on and forgive someone you don’t feel forgiveness for; to give away what you don’t have plenty of; to offer joy to others when you’re feeling sad; to pray even though you don’t get the answers you want; to offer someone food when it means you’ll go hungry yourself; to work at saving a relationship that seems broken beyond repair – these are the works of a person who trusts in God.
This is the story of Lent as Jesus presses on toward Jerusalem and the Cross that awaits.
Many years ago, a man was climbing the face of El Capitan, a rather famous rock formation out west. The mountain is something like one mile high, and it runs straight up like an arrow. Well, this climber was almost to the summit when his hand slipped. The rock face began to crumble, and he began to fall, slipping down the face of El Capitan. But at the last second, the climber’s grasping hand found a little green branch growing out of the rock. He clutched it as hard as he could, and it held.
Dangling there, almost one mile straight up, almost one mile straight down, the climber yelled toward the summit at the top of his lungs, “Help! Help! Is there anyone up there?”
Amazingly, a voice responded. “Yes, I’m here!”
“Who are you?” the climber asked.
“I’m the Lord!” the voice answered.
“Can you save me?” the climber asked.
“Yes, but first you’ll have to let go of the branch! Don’t worry, I’ll catch you!” said the Lord.
The climber looked down at the frightening depths below. Then he lifted his eyes to the summit above and hollered, “Is there anyone ELSE up there?”
Well, the answer is “no”. There is no one else we can turn to but the Lord to move beyond our points-of-no-return.
There, in the desert, God provided the water the Hebrews needed. And here in this season, God provides Jesus with the strength and courage to carry on.
And here YOU are.
What point-of-no-return are you facing this week?
And who will you trust to press on?
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