Manna

This week I had the privilege of teaching the second of eleven classes to a group of next-generation believers at our church. The subject? The same great one as the first round of classes I taught. The group? For the most part, also the same. Which at first took a chink out of my confidence. How do I teach the same people (mostly), the same subject back-to-back without them getting bored out of their minds? And how do I keep the momentum and freshness even in my own heart while going over the same material, probably throwing in some of the same personal stories I told the first time?

“Lord please, I ask for something fresh!”

The word “manna” came to mind so quickly I couldn’t help but grin.

Manna. I’d forgotten about this supernatural food God provided the Israelites on their wilderness journey from Egypt to the Land of Promise.[i] It’s the same food the angels ate.[ii] In Psalm 105:40, it’s called the “bread of heaven.” Psalm 78:24 calls it the “corn (or grain) of heaven.” Because the Israelites couldn’t figure out what in the world it was, they called it “Manna”, which in Hebrew means, “what is it?”[iii]  

At a glance, there was nothing all that impressive about this little, white, sweet-tasting wafer, or seed, or flake, or . . . what is it again?[iv] But this miraculous bread of heaven fed hundreds of thousands of people in an arid setting where food and water were scarce. In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven; in their thirst You brought them water from the rock . . .[v] 

Day after day, month after month, year after year, manna quietly appeared at night when the ground became wet with dew.[vi] Every morning, as instructed, people gathered it and measured out among themselves the portion needed for that day—with the exception of the day before the Sabbath when they collected double. If they tried to stock up any other time, it bred worms and stank.[vii]

Each day they ground their allotted portion with a hand mill till they could work it like flour. Or they beat it in stone mortars till it became mash. Or boiled or stewed it in a pot and made it into cakes that were then baked or dried.

But no matter which way they prepared this, their daily bread, it was still the same, simple manna. Their bitter complaints and lusts for something “other than” finally provoked God’s anger. Twice, He sent them quail to eat, which they gladly gorged themselves on. The second time, while the meat was still between their teeth, God struck them with a very great plague.

Yet, in the midst of His chastising, their daily manna kept coming. For forty years this unremarkable looking bread of heaven came. [viii] No one saw it as anything more than God’s provision for that period of time. They didn’t think of it as a prelude to the heavenly Bread to come. But they all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them and that rock was Christ.[ix]

Jesus Christ is that heavenly Bread. I am the Bread of Life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the wilderness and yet they died. But this is the Bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and never die.[x]    

Like manna in the wilderness, Jesus quietly appeared in the midst of humanity.[xi] He walked among them daily. There was nothing particularly remarkable about His physical appearance, nothing kingly in the way He carried Himself that anyone would think Him extraordinary.[xii] He raised not His voice in the streets and often avoided attention drawn to Himself.[xiii] Truth be told, people saw little value in Him at all. To them He was nothing more than some poor guy smitten by God. Yet, He invited them in a gentle unassuming way, to eat of Him.[xiv] 

If mere crumbs of this Bread of Heaven bring healing, we could never ingest the fulness of Him all at once. The world can’t even contain all the words He said. No wonder He taught us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread.[xv]

One way He gives daily Bread is through reading His Word. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.[xvi] The Word of God may seem unremarkable going down the gullet, but the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.[xvii] The written Word reveals the Living Word, who is our Bread of Life.   

So, here’s what I’m thinking. I will switch things around a little in this second round of classes. I might even throw in some new personal stories to drive home a point. But the Scripture verses remain the same. I’m trusting that today’s manna (which perhaps looks and tastes the same as yesterday’s), will not only be sweeter than honey to our mouths, but will nourish and sustain us on this next leg of our journey through the wilderness.[xviii]

Photo by Laura Kimball on Unsplash

[i] Exodus 16

[ii] Psalm 78:25

[iii] Exodus 16:15

[iv] Exodus 16:14–15; Exodus 16:31; Numbers 11:7–9

[v] Nehemiah 9:15

[vi] Numbers 11:9

[vii] Exodus 16

[viii] Numbers 11; Exodus 16:35

[ix] 1 Corinthians 10:3–4

[x] John 6:48–50

[xi] John 1:14

[xii] Isaiah 53:1–3

[xiii] Isaiah 42:2; Luke 5:16; Mark 6:31–32; Matthew 12:15–16; John 6:15

[xiv] Isaiah 53:3–4; Philippians 2:7–8

[xv] John 16:12; John 21:25; Matthew 6:11

[xvi] Matthew 4:4

[xvii] John 6:63

[xviii] Psalm 119:103