Instruction
Scripture: Exodus16:2-15
These events took place shortly after God had brought Israel
out of Egypt. They had witnessed the plagues, experienced the first Passover
and the Death of the Firstborn. They had walked through the Red Sea on dry
ground. Now some of the logistics of being free were coming to mind. How would
they eat? Where would they get food? These doubts led to grumbling –
particularly against Moses and Aaron, the visible leaders of the group. God,
however, heard their grumbling and provided miraculous food for them. This
passage displays God’s grace and mercy to us in that he showed his kindness and
provided food even as the people grumbled. There is also another lesson here:
God gave specific instructions on how much food was to be gathered – enough for
one day, or on Friday, enough for the day and the Sabbath. This required the
Israelites to trust God and to obey him.
Teaching
God is good, even when his people are not. The people of
Israel had seen great miracles and had been rescued from a life of slavery, yet
when they ran into difficulty they did not turn to him, but instead grumbled
about the leadership of Moses and Aaron. They did not trust God to provide for
them, and did not even acknowledge that he had rescued them from Egypt! (They
said to Moses, “…you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this
whole assembly with hunger.”)
Trust is central to the life of faith. God drove that point
home in the way that he provided food for Israel. He gave bread from heaven in
the morning; meat in the evening. They were to gather enough for the day,
except for on Friday. Then they were to gather enough for two days so there
would be no work on the Sabbath. And even the bread required a bit of faith to
eat. They called it “manna,” which means, “What is it?” They had to trust that
what God was giving them was for their good.
Life
As sinful people we, too, sometimes grumble. We grumble
about the cold in the winter and the heat in the summer. We complain when it
rains and when it’s too dry. We look into refrigerators that are filled with
food and grouse that there is nothing that we want to eat. Grumbling seems to
be a big part of our sinful human nature. At its core, grumbling reveals the
dissatisfaction of our hearts and hints at a doubt we carry: Is God good?
Grumbling implies that the answer is, “No, he is not. So I must take matters
into my own hands.”
But how has God responded to that grumbling in us? Because
he is good, he sent his Son, who called himself the Bread of Life, to die for
our sins. That includes the sins related to grumbling. And he continues to feed
us in strange ways, giving us Jesus’ body and blood in, with, and under bread
and wine for the forgiveness of our sins.
Prayer
This prayer is written
in the theme of Instruction.
O God, teach us to trust you and to not grumble. All that we
have comes to us because you graciously provide for us. We may not see it as
clearly as the Israelites did in the wilderness, but what do we have that did
not come from you? Your provision is hidden within markets, economies, careers,
skills, hard work, and talent, but none of these would exist without you. You
are indeed, good. Amen.
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