On Friday in the third week of Lent the first reading is taken from Numbers 20 where we read about the rebellion of the Israelites. They contended with Moses saying they wished they had died with their brethren because they had been brought out to the evil place of the desert only to die without water. Moses went before the Lord in the tabernacle and fell on his face with Aaron and the glory of the Lord appeared and the Lord instructed Moses to take his rod in hand and speak to the rock in the presence of the Israelites and it would yield its water.
But Moses did not obey the Lord, instead in anger at his brethren’s rebellion and unbelief he struck the rock twice before the Israelites. Water did come out of the rock and the people were refreshed but Moses suffered because of his anger and the sentence of the Lord’s punishment was to bar Moses and Aaron from bringing the people into the Promised Land:
“Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel…”
Again and again in the Scriptures the see the Rock as a symbol for Jesus Christ, St. Paul tells us explicitly in his first letter to the Corinthians that the Rock the Israelites drank from was Christ:
I Cor. 10: 4 …and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.
Moses in his anger struck Christ and was barred from entering the Promised Land.
Just a few chapters earlier we read in Numbers that Moses was the meekest man on the earth:
Numbers 12:3 Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.
As lawgiver and deliverer of Israel Moses was a type of Christ himself. It was perhaps in his meekness that Moses best exemplified Jesus Christ. But in this instance Moses anger and unbelief profaned the Lord before the people and for this he was punished.
Reading this passage as we make our way up to Jerusalem with our Lord one cannot help but think of the beatings Jesus will suffer at the hands of the wicked. One cannot but think of Moses, the meekest man on earth who loved God and yet he too struck the Lord in anger as we all do when we lash out in anger. We are all guilty of death and yet the Lord is gracious and merciful. Moses was not permitted to enter the Promised Land with the Israelites as a sign of his great offence but he was granted entrance into the heavenly Kingdom because God is a forgiving God who loves all that He has made.