A sermon on Exodus 16:2-21 for the Fourth Sunday in Lent. Delivered by Pastor Caleb Strutz.
One of the things I’ve learned while raising my children is that I prefer the toddler stage to the baby stage. I think the most helpful difference is that a toddler can tell you what they want. A baby just cries for everything and you kind of have to guess what they need. A toddler is capable of articulating their needs, of telling you what they want.
If my kids are hungry, they can tell me, “Daddy, snack,” and then we’ll go into the pantry and look for a snack, problem solved. Of course, the process is rarely that easy. Usually it seems like being hungry is a very upsetting experience for a child. They get upset and whine and yell and… well, I can see why not everyone likes the toddler stage.
But even when my kids are throwing a little tantrum because they’re hungry, I’m still going to give them food. I know what they need and I’m going to give it to them. They might not be handling that in the best way, and I might be a little annoyed, but my love and care supersedes their whining.
In our text for this morning, the people of Israel are whining to Moses and Aaron and, by extension, God. They’re complaining and grumbling that they don’t have food. We can see in their case and in ours that, although He had reason to punish them, God provides for grumbling people.
On the surface, it seems like the Israelites have a point. They’re in a desert and they don’t have food, and we’ve all been hangry before. But everything about their complaining is just ridiculous. For starters, they do have food. They’ve been on the road for about a month by now, so their supplies are probably exhausted, but they still have cattle and flocks so it’s not like starvation is near. More ridiculous than that is the content of their complaint. They’re viewing their past in Egypt through rose-tinted glasses. Sure, they probably had enough food to keep their strength up to be good slaves, but they certainly didn’t just sit around pots of meat all day.
But even more ridiculous than that is that they’re doubting God. They’ve seen what he can do! They’ve seen the plagues God sent on Egypt, they’ve seen the Red Sea part for them to cross and then swallow up Pharaoh’s army, they’ve seen the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, leading them through the wilderness. Time and time and time again they’ve seen God’s power and how He rescues and delivers His people, but they still doubt and grumble and complain.
Although we can quite easily see the failures of the Israelites, we need to direct that same criticism to us as well. We make the same ridiculous mistakes. The Israelites were in a wasteland and wanted food. That’s reasonable. How often do we grumble and complain about trivial things?
Although we have what we need for life—food in the fridge, clothes in the closet, a roof over our heads—we often struggle with contentment. There’s always a new toy to buy, a purchase to ponder, an investment or retirement account to worry about. Or, like the Israelites, we view sin with rose-tinted glasses. Just like they longed for slavery, we, at times, long for the fleshpots of sinful living as if by disobeying God our lives will be easier or happier or more free, even though the opposite is the case.
These little things might not seem as serious as the grumbling of the Israelites, but it’s indicative of the same exact attitude. “I don’t have enough, why hasn’t God given me what I want?” We would never consciously phrase it like this because when we do it shows how ridiculous it is, but complaints are still complaints, doubts are still doubts, grumbling is still grumbling, no matter how subtle or implicit it might be.
God had reason to punish the Israelites and us, but He chooses to provide for His people instead. God regards His promises higher than His people’s sins. God’s people were hungry. They didn’t deal with that in the best way but God still provided for them. He saw their needs and because He had promised to care for them, He gave them food. Miraculously. Bread from heaven just lying on the ground, flocks of quail crowding the camp. When we stop and count our blessings, we will realize that we have been richly provided for as well.
But these physical goods only make sense in the more important context. God gave His people food just not because they happened to be hungry, but because He had chosen them as His special people purely by His grace. They weren’t better or more deserving than anyone else, this account and many others shows us that, but God chose them to be His own. Because of this He delivered them from the land of slavery in Egypt and promised to guide them to the Promised Land and provide for them on the way. And He treats us the same way. God provides us with material blessings to sustain our bodily life because He has chosen us to be His own, because He wants to pour out His mercy and grace upon us. He has already rescued us from the slavery of sin, death, and hell and will now provide for us during our earthly wanderings.
Physical things won’t really do us any good unless we recognize who they’re coming from and why. After all, God “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Mt 5:45). Later on in John chapter 6, after our Gospel lesson, Jesus tells us, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” (vv. 48–51).
The manna in the wilderness was just bread. Those who ate it still died. But it was a picture of Jesus, the Savior to come. He provides for us not just physically, but spiritually. He provides nourishment and strength not only for our bodies, but more importantly, for our souls. We were imprisoned by sin and death, but by His death on the cross, Christ set us free and is now leading us through the wilderness of this life into the promised land of the life to come. Whoever eats the Bread of Life, whoever receives Jesus by faith, will live forever with him.
But the manna is not only a picture of Jesus, it is also a picture of one of the ways which Jesus comes to us to nourish and strengthen us: the Lord’s Supper. Jesus himself is the Bread of Life, but God also sent quail with the manna. Flesh and bread are sent together, a picture and a foreshadowing of Jesus’ Body in, with, and under the bread of the Sacrament. The manna nourished and strengthened the Israelites in their journeys through the wilderness. In the same way, we are strengthened in our faith during our earthly wanderings as Christ gives us his Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins. We are later told (v. 31) that manna tasted like honey. This reminded the Israelites of the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey, and served as a foretaste of the bounty to come. In the same way, the Lord’s Supper provides for us a foretaste of the heavenly banquet waiting for us in paradise. At both meals, this one and that one, Christ is the host and the feast.
Come to this banquet with joy and thanksgiving for God rescuing you from the slavery of sin. Come to this banquet to receive Christ, the Bread of Life, truly present for you. See how He gives you his Body and Blood. “What is this?,” we cry with the Israelites. So great a mystery that it cannot be comprehended, only venerated and adored. This blessed Sacrament is the true manna, the bread of heaven, the food of angels (Ps 78:24-5).
God’s love for us, like a father’s love for His children, is there no matter what. That love moves Him to bless us and provide for us even when we are grumbling and complaining. He did this especially by sending His Son to die for us for our forgiveness, especially for those times of grumbling and complaining, and in giving us the Supper so that we can receive Jesus and his forgiveness and be strengthened by him. “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!” (Ps 34:8). Amen.
