As the Israelites traveled through the desert on their way to the Promised Land, they went through many barren places. At one point in their journey, after three days without finding any water, they came to an area with water only to discover that the water was bitter. “When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter” (Exodus 15:23).
By this time, the people were very thirsty and distressed, and when they found the bitter water, they reacted badly. They grumbled to Moses, who then cried out to the Lord for help. God answered with an unusual solution:
“Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink” (Exodus 15:25).
Isn’t that a unique solution? Boiling and filtering the water sounds more logical than chucking a piece of wood into it, but God’s ways are not like ours. His peculiar solution was intentional and for our benefit.
Every story in the Bible, in some way, points forward to the main story of the Bible - that Jesus would suffer, die, and rise again to save His people from their sins, and to transform us into His image. We, humans, are in a desperate situation because of our sin, but God loved us, so He gave us Jesus who died on the cross, a piece of wood, to save us, rescue us, heal us and deliver us, and in this case, transform our bitterness into sweetness.
Just as God came to the aid of the Israelites, transforming their bitter water into sweet with a piece of wood, so God came to our rescue by sending His beloved Son to die on a piece of wood. But unlike the Israelites who experienced the transformation of bitter waters only once through the wood, Jesus’ cross would be the means of life transformation for people from every tribe and nation eternally. The cross is the Solution for the bitterness of your life. "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24 ESV).