Down the road a ways (I'm feeling 'country' this morning) from us is a large pond, or the remnants of a large pond. It is mostly small spots of marsh now, with but a bit of water remaining. The 'covenant' with the pond has been broken because of the minuscule amount of water that fell from the sky in June and the heat, which has been as you all know uncommon for this early in summer.
The 'water' came down, I believe, three times in a devastatingly dry month. God put it this way in the book of Zechariah: 10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."
The grieving for the "one they have pierced" goes on today, does it not? We long to see the one who means so very much to us. We long to be with him, to sing to him, to 'worship' him and his Father.
And what does all this have to do with the dry land? I believe it is quite metaphorically speaking of a time when the spiritual dryness of the land is rampant, and the people are searching, slowly I admit but searching in any case, for the "one who has been pierced."
The writer of Hebrews gives us this: "To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned."
The message is this ... God loves us; God sent help; we, dry as we could possibly be, missed the help that was sent but still have chances; today is one of those chances.
It's almost like we have an automobile that has no water in it on a brutally hot afternoon. It's sitting in terrible heat and we're not able to run the air conditioner. Sweat rolls down our face onto our shoulders. We're getting weaker and weaker. What we wouldn't do for a cup of cold, pure water.
God loves us; God sent help in Jesus the Christ who has come with a cup of cold, pure water; we, dry as we could possibly be, reach out for the cup and oh, no, no, no ... it spills. Are we out of chances? Are we without possibility? Will we die?
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