Water is a simple gift hardly noticed, until you are in the desert. At Mara, three days into the wildernes, “the people grumbled against Moses, saying ‘What are we to drink?’ Moses cried out to the LORD, who pointed out to him a piece of wood. When he threw it into the water, the water became fresh.” (Exodus 15)

Later, no water again, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “Why then did you bring us up out of Egypt? To have us die of thirst with our children and our livestock?”

So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!”

The LORD answered Moses: Go on ahead of the people, and take along with you some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the Nile. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink. (Exodus 17: 2-6)

Moses striking the rock with his staff is a favorite painting in the ancient catacombs of Rome. Why, we wonder? Is it a reminder that the waters of baptism promise life, even to the dead? Water is a sign of more than physical life; it promises a journey to eternal life. Jesus makes it so.

A map I came across recently showing the water sources that feed our country reminds me our own country could be a lifeless desert without water.