The first plague: all the water turned to blood. To the Egyptians that was a curse - a slap in the face of their gods; but to the Hebrew people there would have been a buzz through the whole camp... Did you hear? Water's turning to blood. Hope's fixing to flow through suffering! Pishon, hope is here!
Salvation is not some day; salvation is here now, today. Hope is flowing through suffering.
Moses leads them to the banks of the Red Sea - hope flows through suffering. The waters part, they go through, the waters come down, destroying the biggest army in the world in one swoop - which changed the course of world history; because you can't take the biggest army out, and not replace them. If CNN and the internet would have been around back then, the whole world would have swooped down on Egypt.
So they get through that and then they end up at Mount Sinai, and Moses goes up, which is like a three and a half hour trek up that mountain. Then God sends him back down to get Aaron; then He sends him back up - like this is like an all day thing going on. Moses comes back down with the Ten Commandments and what have the people done? They have made a gold cow! Moses gets so angry that he takes his staff, and he beats the gold cow into powder.
They had to throw it into the water from the rock, and drink it for the redemption of their sins. If you take perfect gold and throw it into the water from the rock- red; hope flows through suffering. Pishon is flowing through Havilah; the water is turning red.
Fast forward way later and there was this rabbi - pretty important to us. He was a rabbi with authority, which meant He could make up His own yoke. This new rabbi with authority would have drawn crowds of say 5,000 to 10,000 people, in a place where there were no automobiles. People would have come from all over the nation to hear this new yoke, which they heard might be easy, and might be light - it would be easier to live. He shows up at this wedding, and He performs His first miracle: turning water into wine - hope flows through suffering. Water is turning red.
His first miracle is for a whole group of people, and He's communicating to a Hebrew audience, with Hebrew ideas. He makes water turn red - hope flows through suffering.
Fast forward way later, and Jesus had the worst day ever. They beat Him. They mocked Him. All His friends had deserted Him - everything that would mess us up psychologically for a long time!
They beat Him, mocked Him, spit on Him, put crowns of thorns on His head, strapped a tree to His back, make Him walk up the thing; and since they can't have people hanging around on Sabbath on crosses, they break everybody's legs - except His, because He was already dead. The Roman centurion says ‘make sure that He's dead’, and they stick a spear in His side, and blood and water flowed. In other words, in the greatest suffering man has ever known, hope still was flowing.
It's almost like Jesus, at His death, gave anybody with any glimpse of hope, hope. He said: look, even in My death, blood and water is going to come together. Hope flows through suffering.
One of the greatest messages of the cross is this: no matter where you are, no matter what you're going through, there's hope for your situation - there's blood in the water. Hope flows through suffering, because: behold, the one who brings us substance for survival, brings it to us in the house of God. Through a river of blood, hope can flow through suffering.