6 When they reach Dry Valley,
springs start flowing,
and the autumn rain fills it with pools of water.
7 Your people grow stronger,
and you, the God of gods, will be seen in Zion (Psalm 84:6-7 CEV).
Do you dread the heat of the summer? How hot does it get in the summer where you live? What uncomfortable things are associated with your summers? We long for relief from the summer’s heat. We long for refreshment from the rain.
The heat of the summer is dreaded in Palestine even today. There is virtually no rain in the Mediterranean from May to October. The heat in the summer is so oppressive that as a rule people rest under cover during the middle of the day. Even on the mountains where the temperature of the air is lower, the sun is even more unrelenting because of the lighter nature of the atmosphere.
The first word of advice given to visitors to the Mediterranean is to protect themselves from the sun. The human body is about three-quarters water. Water is found inside cells, within blood vessels, and in-between cells. Water is constantly lost during the day, but is replenished by increasing our fluid intake.
In the heat of the summer
The heat of summer takes its toll on the body. Even low levels of dehydration can cause headaches, lethargy and constipation. The continuous summer sun often causes sunstroke, vomiting and even a loss of intellectual and mental functions. If dehydration continues, internal organs like the kidneys, liver and brain, can undergo severe damage.
Dehydration causes your blood to become thicker and more concentrated. Your heart has a more difficult time pushing the blood through the cardiovascular system. To make up for the struggle, your heart increases its rate to maintain blood pressure. When the dehydrated body is pushed, the risk of exhaustion and collapse increases.
Dehydration is treated by replenishing the fluid level in the body. It is most effectively accomplished by drinking clear fluids such as water, clear broths, frozen water or ice pops, and sports drinks like Gatorade. Interestingly some drinks appear to be quenching our thirst and aiding hydration when actually the drinks add to the dehydrating effects. Alcohol, coffee and sodas are diuretics which actually remove water from the body. We have to be careful what fluids we put into the body.
God is not only concerned about the effects of the physical heat upon the physical body, He is aware that the spiritual body can be affected by spiritual heat.
Wandering in the wilderness
The absence of water creates a desert – a constant reminder of dangers, hardships and even death. But the desert also plays a symbolic role for God’s people. Because of Israel’s sins, “I will stretch out My hand against them, and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah. Then they will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 6:14 HCSB).
In the Bible many passages speak of actual physical deserts and wilderness areas. John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness. Jesus was led into the wilderness for forty days during His temptation experiences with Satan. But like the time of the Messiah in the wilderness, the desert is often used to the spiritually parched times in our lives where we are drawn to our relationship with God for the quenching of thirst.
The dangers presented by the desert to human survival can be a warning of what life becomes when God is banished from our lives. The desert can be a sign of the punishment that is awaiting those who are rebellious against God (Psalm 68:7). It can be the result of leadership gone astray (Jeremiah 12:10-11). It can speak of diving judgment and punishment (Isaiah 32:11-16).
Israel’s wandering in the wilderness for forty years speaks to the punishment received for sin. Yet even in the midst of the wilderness, God cares for Israel, nourishing them with manna and quail, quenching their thirst with water from a rock (Exodus 16:4, 13; 17:6).
Even in the desert, God provides
It is significant to realize that God is said to have found His people in the wilderness, in the desert. Deuteronomy records:
“He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He kept him as the apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10 ESV).
Centuries later, God will call them from the wilderness that separates them from each other and from His presence back to a pathway to Himself. “A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3 ESV). The gospel writers would later apply the passage to the ministry of John the Baptist in preparation for the coming Messiah (Matthew 3:3).
Are there geographical deserts that you have visited? What characteristics do you recall? What impression did they make upon you? Describe a time in your life that felt like you were in a desert. What caused it to feel that way? Did you find the experience to be both a time of struggle and a time of renewal?
Matthew, Mark and Luke all record that Jesus, following His baptism, went into the desert to fast and pray. Forty days He spent contemplating His ministry and direction, fighting off the Devil’s wiles and temptations. The desert became a place of renewal as angels came and ministered to Jesus (Matthew 3:13 – 4:11).
The Promise of Autumn Rain
The draught continues into the weekend, but a cold front approaches our area by Sunday evening bringing a chance for showers and a drop in temperatures. We will have the complete forecast in fifteen minutes.
For God’s people of Israel, the desert areas of Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula were a vast expanse, mountainous terrain that burst from the Sea of the Mediterranean. Life in these lands was harsh, barren and treacherous. Even the necessities of life like food and water needed to be provided by God because the bounty of the land was scarce.
God’s people experienced the hardships of desert life. At times they were overwhelmed by the circumstances they met which left them feeling powerless and abandoned. “Why did you bring us out here to perish?” In the midst of their despair, God provided, teaching Israel that He could be leaned toward and counted upon.
Solomon’s insights
The wisdom of Solomon painted a beautiful image of love on the canvas of the Hebrew poetic book, the Song of Solomon. “Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved” (Song of Solomon 8:5 ESV)? The words that captured Solomon’s beloved also described Israel as God’s people came up out of the desert.
It is not by accident that many servants of God spent time in the desert. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Moses, Joshua, David, Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus and Paul all spent significant time in the desert before fulfilling their roles of leadership in God’s magnificent plan. The desert always proceeds the Promised Land.
It is also not by chance that today we journey through desert experiences – times of struggle, times of pain, the diagnosis of cancer, the break-up of a marriage, the failure of a business, the wayward child, the rebellious spirit inside. Circumstances and emotions, uncertainty and the lack of control push us to the end of our resources, the end of our abilities and the end of our rope.
God still uses the heat of a desert to touch lives. When temperatures soar, we look for a way out of the desert. We look for a redeemer.
God used the challenges and pains of desert life to teach the people to listen and trust. But He always promised relief.
Listen to the words of the Old Testament writers
He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil (Deuteronomy 11:14 ESV).
then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit (Leviticus 26:4 ESV).
to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground sprout with grass (Job 38:27 ESV)?
May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass,
like showers that water the earth (Psalm 72:6 ESV)!
Major prophets
And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures (Isaiah 30:23 ESV),
24 They do not say in their hearts,
‘Let us fear the Lord our God,
who gives the rain in its season,
the autumn rain and the spring rain,
and keeps for us
the weeks appointed for the harvest (Jeremiah 5:24 ESV)
When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain,
and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses (Jeremiah 10:13 ESV).
Are there any among the false gods of the nations that can bring rain?
Or can the heavens give showers?
Are you not he, O Lord our God?
We set our hope on you,
for you do all these things (Jeremiah 14:22 ESV).
Minor prophets
Ask rain from the Lord
in the season of the spring rain,
from the Lord who makes the storm clouds,
and he will give them showers of rain,
to everyone the vegetation in the field (Zechariah 10:1 ESV).
Sow for yourselves righteousness;
reap steadfast love;
break up your fallow ground,
for it is the time to seek the Lord,
that he may come and rain righteousness upon you (Hosea 10:12 ESV).
“Be glad, O children of Zion,
and rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given the early rain for your vindication;
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the latter rain, as before (Joel 2:23 ESV).
The Lord will send rain to refresh His people. Count upon it; He is faithful.
The Valley of Baka
Our deserts are not always made of physical sand.
The word “heat” is often used in connection with anger in the Scriptures: hot anger (Ex 11:8), hot displeasure (Deuteronomy 9:19), anger waxing hot (Psalm 85:3), and works that are neither hot nor cold (Revelation 3:15). We often speak about things done or said in anger, things that are done in “the heat of the moment.” Perhaps your desert is anger or another emotion that seems to cover over you like the ash of a volcano or the sands of the desert.
In a word, the wilderness or desert signifies what is uninhabited and uncultivated. Times in the desert are times when our way is unsure. Perhaps we are uncertain of God’s plan and purpose for our lives. It may be that we are unsure of the decisions that we need to make. Frightened by the darkness, unsure because of the sameness of the grains of sand or the heat of the sun, we find ourselves wandering, sometimes aimlessly, always cautiously.
It was in the desert that Jesus went for a time of prayer and fasting. It was during those times, times that were to be used for strengthening and intimate time with the Father that the Devil came firing his most severe temptations. The desert represents time when we are most vulnerable, most alone. Satan works hardest when we are weakest, when we are in the desert. The desert is synonymous with spiritual struggles and battles.
Perspective from the Psalms
Valleys and deserts are a part of the journey of life. David reminds us,
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me (Psalm 23:4 ESV).
Where can my strength be found? To whom do I look for help? Again the Psalmist is very clear in his instructions.
121 I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore (Psalm 121 ESV).
It is critical to see that people who put their faith in the strength in God “pass through” the valley. God wants you to go beyond the valleys, not stay in them! There is relief on the other side.
Living Water
The Feast of Booths (known to some as the Feast of Tabernacles, and to the Hebrews as Sukkot) is the seventh and last festival on the biblical calendar. The feast was one of three Pilgrimage Festivals in Judaism – Passover (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot) and Tabernacles (Sukkot) – where the ancient Israelites living in Judah were to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. The feast lasted seven days in the Jewish month of Tishrei, in our September or October.
Few of the feasts of the Old Testament were as joyful a celebration at the Feast of Booths. It was the last of the fall festivals and was held at the end of the agricultural year when the grapes and olives were harvested in Israel. It was a time set aside to thank God for all of the year’s blessing and to pray for a good rainy season which lasted from October through March. The instructions for the festival can be found in the 23rd chapter of Leviticus.
Remember
The main reason for the feast was for the Israelites to remember their journey in the desert, in the wilderness from Egypt to Canaan when God made the people live in booths (Leviticus 23:33-43). During the time of the feast, each Israelite family was to construct a booth and live in it for a week. The booths were small, temporary shelters with thatched roofs made of palms and other plants. According to one interpretation of verse 41, the booths were decorated with different kinds of fruit that grew in Palestine. It was common to find grapes, olives, citron (a fruit that looks something like a large lemon) and a pomegranate.
The sukkah or booth was an incredible structure of beauty. It was fragrant, allowing in sun and star light, light being another symbol of the celebration. It was also frail. Rain could easily seep in and the structure was likely to blow over in high winds. The booths were to illustrate the transient and temporary nature of the shelters and of our earthly homes. The sukkah allows the Jewish people to rejoice in community and hospitality. Integral to the customs were inviting guests: the homeless, the old, the frail and the lonely.
Journey
In order to help them remember the wilderness journey, later Israelites added a water-pouring ceremony to recall the occasions were the Lord gave Israel water in the desert (Exodus 17:1-7 and Numbers 20:1-13. The ranking priest would draw water from the pool of Siloam and pour it into the basin near the altar in the temple.
The Gospel of John brings to our attention the preaching of Jesus in the outer courts of the Court of Women on Hoshanah Rabbah, the last day of the feast.
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:37-39 ESV).
By speaking about living water, Jesus made a connection between His presence and the Spirit that He would leave believers as a Gift and the water that was being remembered as a refreshing gift from God. In Isaiah the prophet mentions the “wells of salvation.” By later talking about being the Light, Jesus was once again referring to messianic prophecy that most would recognize. Saying “I am the Light” was like saying “I am the Shekinah, the pillar of fire.”
Belief
Notice that Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” This isn’t just about Jesus anymore, is it?
Moses often warned the Israelites not to forget the God who redeemed them from slavery once they were fat and happy in the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 8). Living in booths for a week reminded them that their success was completely dependent upon the grace of God.
The Refreshing Blessings from the Father
Isn’t that an important lesson for us to know today?
In our quest for Christianity to be relevant and real, have we forgotten to remember? Shouldn’t we set aside time to remember the One who is refreshing rain; living water, in a parched, dry land?
The Feast of Booths began with the wandering Israelites living in booths and the symbolism of God dwelling with them, showing His presence in their midst, providing for their needs by His grace. The fulfillment is seen in the book of Revelation when in a loud voice we hear the proclamation, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3 ESV).