A Gathering Voices Post by Don McKim
I remember hearing the story of the manna in the wilderness as a child in Sunday School. It was amazing: God provided what the people of Israel needed for food, each day, during their forty year sojourn in the wilderness (Exodus 16)! The manna didn’t sound too tasty—“like wafers made with honey” (v. 31). But it sustained the people along their way (Exodus 16). This provision was so important that Moses ordered an “omer” of the manna to be put in a jar and “kept throughout your generations” in order that, as God said: “they may see the food with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt” (v.32).
God provided for the people with manna as “bread from heaven” (Exodus 16:4; Psalm 78:24; 105:40; John 6:31), along with quails to sustain them in the midst of the dire environments of the wilderness. The wilderness was a “wretched place” which was “no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates” (Numbers 20:4,5). It was a “howling wilderness waste” (Deuteronomy 32:10). So manna meant life!
God’s “glory” (v. 7) was seen in these gracious provisions, even as the people complained they would have rather returned to the “fleshpots” of Egypt where they ate their “fill of bread” (v. 3). But now, God’s allotment was just right, for everyone. For, “those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed” (v. 18). The people were provided for so they would “know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (v. 6).
This showed God was “for” Israel, interested in preserving the people whom God had liberated. There is a “follow-through,” here. God mighty act of setting the people free was followed by God’s continuing sustenance so they could endure the zigs and zags of the long journey toward the promised land. God provided manna and quail and water (Exodus 15:27) at the point of Israel’s greatest need, when the people could not provide what they needed for themselves and were on the brink of disastrous extinction. Day in and day out, year in and year out, in the rhythms of their lives, the people knew who was keeping and feeding them.
The only exception was that on the sixth day, the people “gathered twice as much food” so they would have enough provisions for the Sabbath, when they were to rest and not to gather (Exodus 16:22-23). When some people became greedy and tried to gather more than the daily allotment of one omer and left it overnight, they found it “bred worms and became foul” (v. 20). The people were to trust God’s good gifts, “morning by morning” (v. 21). As God told Moses: “At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God” (v. 12).
Even when the people complained and rebelled, God was determined to provide—to give mercy and grace. The manna was “fresh every morning,” as we might say. Whenever manna was needed, it appeared, by the work of God, every day (cf. Exodus 16:4; Joshua 5:12; Nehemiah 9:21). As the Old Testament scholar Christoph Barth put it: “The Israelites were living ‘from hand to mouth,’ from God’s hand! They could not provide for themselves. They could not even keep the manna from one day to the next. Each day they depended on God and his ongoing provision for his people.”[1]
God still provides for us, as God’s people, even though our “manna” comes in different forms. Though we may have pantries that are full and the grocery is nearby, at the bottom we know our “daily bread” comes from the hand of God. We are fed by God’s manna, everyday in what we are enabled to eat and drink, to sustain life. We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). No wonder we say a prayer of thanks at mealtime. Our eyes of faith see beyond all the cultural layers of consumerism to realize the bottom line is, truly: God provides. As John Calvin put it: we are fed by the blessing of God and “in the manna we may clearly see, as it were, in a mirror, the image of the ordinary food that we eat.”[2]
God gives us what we need, when we need it, physically and spiritually. God reminded the people of Israel, later that though manna was provided, they should understand that “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:2). Jesus spoke this in the midst of his temptations (Matthew 4:4). Jesus himself is “the true bread from heaven,” given to show us God’s being “for us,” in action. God gave the manna to the people so all will know that “it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.” Jesus, “the bread of heaven” now “gives life to the world” (John 16:31-34).
We do not live by “bread alone,” but God provides our bread. It is up to us to help provide “manna” for those in need throughout this world who do not have the physical bread they need for life to continue. We give to others because we have been given unto—by God.
When we do receive the manna we need—daily—we recognize, as Calvin put it, that we are “supported by God and kept safe and preserved by the secret power of His Will who has created all things.”[3]
There are “manna moments” in our lives, those times when we know in very real ways that God is directly providing for our needs, sustaining us, helping us. May we be alert to these special times, even as we thank God, everyday. May we see the glory of the Lord in all our moments so we may know that “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 16:12).
[1] Christoph Barth, God with Us: A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991), 95-96.
[2] John Calvin, The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, and the Epistles to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. T.A. Smail, rpt. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979), Commentary on 2 Corinthians 8:15 (p. 114).
[3] Calvin, Commentary on 2 Corinthians 8:15 (pgs. 113-114).
