Bitter made sweet.

Exodus 15-17

The Lord Provides Water

²² Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. ²³ When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it was named Marah. ²⁴ So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” ²⁵ Then he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet.

There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them. ²⁶ And He said, “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer.”

²⁷ Then they came to Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and they camped there beside the waters.   

In today's text from the Old Testament reading in the One Year Bible, we read about the continuing journey of the nation of Israel toward their inheritance, "the promised land". After being miraculously delivered, by God, from the Egyptian army, they continue and come to a place to drink. We need to understand that providing enough water for the people and their livestock was no small thing, there was after all in excess of one million people who left Egypt. The nation of Israel is often characterized as grumbling and complaining and indeed those are words that are used to describe their actions. Yet if we look at the things they lacked and grumbled about, food and water, we need to be honest with ourselves and ask how much more would we be considered grumblers and complainers today. We complain when our internet isn't fast enough or when our cell phone drops a call. We question God's plans and intentions when we face the slightest hardships. 

Our text says: ²³ When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it was named Marah. ²⁴ So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” ²⁵ Then he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet.    Marah is the Hebrew word for bitter.

We will see this name again in the book of Ruth chapter one, when Naomi returns to her home town with her daughter-in-law after the death of her husband and both of her sons.

¹⁹ So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. And when they had come to Bethlehem, all the city was stirred because of them, and the women said, “Is this Naomi?” ²⁰ She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹ I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?”  

There is an understandable deep bitterness of the soul that has taken over Naomi's life, she has seemingly lost everything including her hope for the future. The story of Naomi and Ruth however,  is  a story of the redeeming heart and  work of God. Here's what happens in the end.

¹³ So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. ¹⁴ Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. ¹⁵ May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.”

The Line of David Began Here

¹⁶ Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her lap, and became his nurse. ¹⁷ The neighbor women gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi!” So they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Not only was Naomi redeemed and the bitterness of her life taken away. But  the new line of her family becomes part of the lineage of Jesus Christ, who through the finished work of the cross is the redeemer of all mankind.

Let's return to our Exodus text.  ²⁵ Then he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet. The tree that the Lord showed Moses represents the cross of Christ. There is nothing, no bitterness in our lives that is too much to be redeemed by the cross of Christ. As we are on our journey to the promise and inheritance of God there may be times that we, like Naomi, feel that we are empty, that all the sweetness is gone from our lives. When we come to the bitter waters of Marah in our lives, we have a choice to make. We can like the nation of Israel grumble and complain. We can long for the things of the world. Or, we can like Moses cry out to the Lord and He will show us a tree, the cross of Christ, where all of our bitterness has been redeemed.

Jesus came to redeem and restore all that is lost. If we will subject the bitter waters of our lives to the cross He will redeem and restore the sweetness and give us the abundant life He promises. 

There is one more thing that God did for the Israelites at the waters of Marah. The text says:        There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them. ²⁶ And He said, “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer.”

The Lord is our healer. He made a covenant promise to them that if they kept His statutes and commandments, He would be their healer. We have in Christ, the fulfillment of the law, the statutes and commanments of God. Jesus says "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill."(Matthew 5:17) We, also then, have in Him the covenant promise that He is our healer.  Isaiah 53 speaks propheticly of Jesus redemption and restoration.

Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.