Sermon online 2026-03-08 At the Well by Rev. Dr. Mark Caggiano, 3/8/2026

Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42

Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go.

Moses is dealing with a rebellious group. They are mad that there is no water and are wondering why he has dragged them out into the desert to die. So, God spoke to Moses and told him what to do.

I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.

The people complained, and God through Moses fixed the problem. Isn’t that how all of this is supposed to work? You complain to me, I reach out to God, and miraculous results sprinkle downward. Everyone gets what they want. God is praised, the people are satisfied, and I get a nifty staff.

But if you have ever read through the Book of Exodus, you might come away with a different impression. God is right there advising Moses. Moses sends the plagues, defeats the Egyptians, and leads them all through the desert. Good work, good communication, good everything it seems. And yet the people complain. They lament their conditions. They demand water, they complain about the food or lack thereof. And we might think, look how ungrateful.

Please also note that the events of Exodus are supposed to transpire over the course of forty years. The Hebrew people are wandering in the wilderness in what appears to be an aimless fashion. The distance between the cities of Cairo and Jerusalem is over 400 miles. A long way to walk, but at least according to Google maps, you could walk there in a week. I did not factor in bathroom breaks.

That time spent wandering in the desert is not random. Forty is a number with Biblical overtones. In this case it represents something specific—the time it would take an entire generation of people to die. Because between leaving Egypt and finally settling in the Promised Land, every adult who set on that journey, except two, died along the way. Those two were Joshua and Caleb and that was because they did not sin against God over the course of those forty years. All the others, the sinners, were meant to die…