Pastor
Tom Johnson, August 2, 2015
Our first reading
from Exodus begins with the Israelites already at the point of hunger and
despair. “If only we had died in Egypt…where we had slowly cooked meat and plenty
of bread to eat.” Hunger and
hopelessness has given them a selective memory. They remember the meat pots and
bread. But they seem to have forgotten the burden of slavery, the whips of
their masters, and the threat of death from Pharaoh and his army. Even worse, they
accuse God of attempted murder: “You have brought us out into this wilderness to
kill this whole assembly with hunger.” God, they say, has only brought them
through Red Sea on dry land and drowned Pharaoh’s army in order to end their
misery with starvation—to leave them as orphans in the wilderness. These refugees
from oppressive Egypt had been through a lot—a lot more than we could probably
imagine. They had been through hundreds of years of slavery. They had spent
generations living under oppression and the abuse of power. Their fear is
legitimate. Their basic, human needs were not being met. They were being
brought low and to their knees again by their homelessness and hunger. Most of
us can only imagine the kind of regrettable things we would say under the same
circumstances.
What kinds of
things have you or I thought, said, or prayed when we feel discouraged or
hopeless? What malice have we accused God of when things haven’t gone our way? “God, you allowed
this to happen to me!” “This is out of my control—you did this to me!” “I was
happier before I began to take my faith more seriously.” “My spiritual journey
seems to have reached a dead end without any hope in sight.” I wonder if you
are like me when I think about the nature of God. When I consider the Creator
of heaven and earth listening to such prayers and outcries; even when—especially when they well up in my heart, fill my thoughts, and come out of my mouth.
Shouldn’t God be
supremely annoyed? Doesn’t he deserve the utmost respect? Does he not shoot
daggers at us when he hears such outrageous ingratitude and unbelief? Will he
not send lightning and fire and brimstone from heaven? No. Thanks be to
God, no. Not daggers, lightning, fire, or brimstone but bread from heaven. Gracious
bread of heaven. Bread that we do not deserve for good behavior nor have we
earned by our toils. So he gives the Israelites bread. Mysterious bread of heaven.
Every morning there was a layer of dew that covered the camp. The fine, flaky
substance was gathered as fine as frost on the ground. And only one Hebrew word
came to the lips of the Israelites: “Man?”
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“What?” “What is
it?” Moses answered that it is the bread that the Lord provided for them to
eat. But it was too late. The universal wonder and mystery of this bread was so
striking that the question sticks. The question becomes a name. And for the rest
of the Hebrew Bible into the New Testament, this bread from heaven is known by
the initial question: “Man?” or in it’s Greek transliteration “Manna?” It is an
inside joke for those who know the story. It is a constant reminder that God
answers his peoples cries with grace and mystery.
So his people are
not only filled with bread for food for their bodies but he also fills them
with wonder for food for their souls. This manna—this bread of heaven helps us
more fully understand the gift that we have in Jesus, our Bread from Heaven. He
is the one who says, “I am the Bread of Life.” He also
mysteriously is sent from heaven to earth. He is the gracious gift from God
that we neither deserve nor have earned. He covers the camp of his people
healing assurance that the God who created us will sustain us by the Word of
his power. He covers us by
his perfect life and righteousness. Though our sins are as red as scarlet, he makes
us as pure as snow and the morning dew. He gives Body as bread and his Blood as
wine. He graciously and mysteriously communes with us, forgives us, and assures
us of life everlasting body and soul.
One of the great
things about this gift is the continuity of that inside joke that began in the
wilderness thousands of years ago: “What?” “What is this?” “What is God doing?”
“What do we call this stuff of grace?” So it is with
God’s gift on the Altar today. What do we call it? “Holy Communion”? “The
Eucharist”? “The Sacrament?” “The Lord’s Supper”? “The Lord’s Table”? Is it possible to
fully explain this gift? Can we make it into a manageable formula? Or do we
allow for and even celebrate the mystery? “What?” What is this?
What? Grace instead of judgment? Mercy instead of indignation? What? A gift
that transcends human understanding? A meal that surpasses human hunger and comprehension? We come out from
the wilderness with our complaints, unbelief, despair, and hopelessness. And he
feeds us with life, assurance of his forgiveness, and mysterious grace and
strength for our bodies and our souls.
“What?” we ask.
“Exactly,” says our Lord.
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