Lent 4
Ex
16:2-21
3/27/22
Research has
shown that people eat more food when offered larger portions. If it’s there, we
are inclined to eat it. Do this on a regular basis, and you will, of course,
gain weight. Now avoiding putting on
extra weight – and seeking to lose some – is something that many of us are
concerned about.
One of the
most basic things that can be done in working toward this is portion control. You don’t deny yourself what’s being served,
but instead, watch how much you actually put on your plate. There are various methods that have been
suggested to gauge how much food you are taking. The Mayo Clinic even suggests that using
smaller dinnerware can be helpful since there is evidence that the size of the
plate unconsciously influences how much food we eat. Naturally, going back for seconds is not
helpful. And when it comes to snacking, we are told not to each straight from
the container. Instead eating a prepackaged
amount, or putting it in an appropriately sized bowl helps to avoid overeating.
In our Old
Testament lesson for today, we learn that “portion control” is not a new
idea. In fact, that is exactly how God
dealt with Israel as he gave them manna. However, in the case of Israel the portion
control was not tied to concerns about weight.
Instead, it was about trusting in Yahweh to provide each day.
Our text
tells us of events that took place immediately after the exodus. Yahweh had sent the ten plagues on Egypt. In
the final one, the Passover, he had killed the firstborn of Egypt while sparing
the Israelites. Pharoah told them to
leave. However when he changed his mind and
sent his army after them, God had parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites
could pass through it on dry ground. The Egyptians went in after them in
pursuit, and Yahweh drowned the Egyptians as he returned the waters to their
normal place. In the previous chapter,
Moses and the people sang a song of praise about Yahweh: "I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The LORD is my
strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God,
and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.”
The verse before our text says that it
was the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land
of Egypt. After a month and a half, any
food the people had brought with them was gone.
They were now in the wilderness where there was no ready supply of
food. And we learn in our text that the people
of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron saying, “Would that we had died by
the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots
and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to
kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
The people grumbled. They grumbled against Moses and Aaron. But
Moses told them, “Your grumbling is
not against us but against the LORD.”
The grumbling of the people found its source in a lack of trust in
Yahweh. After all, he was the One who had just rescued them from slavery in
Egypt by mighty acts of power.
Israel is not the only one who grumbles. We do too. We grumble because we don’t think
what God has given to us is enough or good enough. We covet what others have. We look at the size of their house, the car
they drive, the gadgets they own, the time when they were able to retire, the
trips they take, and wonder why we don’t have that. God promises daily bread – the things that we
need to support this body and life. And we think that he should be doing better
than that.
In response to the people’s grumbling, Yahweh said to Moses,
“Behold, I am about to
rain bread from heaven for you.” Then Moses and Aaron announced to the
people: “At evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory
of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against the LORD.
For what are we, that you grumble against us?”
Then the glory of Yahweh appeared in a
cloud in the wilderness and he said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling
of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in
the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the
LORD your God.’” That evening quail came upon the camp, and the people were
able to catch them for meat. In the morning
when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine,
flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people asked what it
was Moses said, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.”
The people called it manna, and God gave
Moses instructions about how they were to gather and eat it. They were to
gather one omer per person each day.
They were not to save it overnight.
On the sixth day they were to gather twice as much, because they were to
rest on the sabbath and there would be no manna. These commands were to lead
Israel in trusting that God would provide them with daily bread – that he would
provide what they needed day by day.
God fed Israel with manna – the bread
from heaven – all during their journey in the wilderness until they entered
into the promised land. In our Gospel
lesson, we see Jesus perform a miracle with bread as he shows that he is the
presence of God who delivers his people.
He uses five loaves of bread and two fish to feed a crowd that numbers
more than five thousand people. In fact,
he provides such an abundance that twelves baskets of left overs remain.
Yahweh provides manna to the
people. But the real purpose of this was
so that Israel would know that Yahweh was their God who had rescued them. Jesus provides a miraculous feeding. But the real purpose of this was to make
known that he was God in the flesh bringing salvation to the world.
The day after Jesus performed the
miracle, people sought him out. Jesus
told them that the work of God was to believe in him whom God had sent.
Incredibly, after Jesus had just performed the miraculous feeding, they said to
him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What
work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it
is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Jesus corrected them as he said that
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven. Instead, the Father gives the
true bread from heaven. Jesus said, “For
the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the
world.” When the people asked for this bread, Jesus said, “I am the bread of
life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me
shall never thirst.”
Our Lord describes himself as the
bread of life. He is the bread of God who came down from heaven in the
incarnation as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Our Lord, the Son of God, came into the world
to give us life. He came to give us life
that overcomes sin and death. He came to
give us eternal life.
Jesus went on to say, “I am the bread
of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they
died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat
of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from
heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that
I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Son of God became flesh in order
for that flesh to be nailed to a cross. He came as the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. We prepare
during Lent to remember the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus, for by his death he
has given us the forgiveness of sins.
On Friday of Holy Week, the dead flesh
of Christ was buried in a tomb. Yet Holy Week leads us to the first day of a
new week – to the beginning of the new creation. On the first day of the week – on Easter –
God raised Jesus from the dead. That is why Jesus could say, “For this is the will of my
Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in
him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
In the Old Testament lesson, the glory
of Yahweh appeared to Israel in a cloud out in the wilderness. But before that happened, Moses told Israel, “and in the morning you shall see the glory
of the LORD.” He was, of course, referring to the manna that they were about to
receive – the bread from heaven. In the gift of the manna, Israel would see
God’s glory.
We continue to see God’s glory in bread. Like the manna, this bread is no ordinary
bread. In the Sacrament of the Altar,
the risen Lord uses bread and wine to give us his true body and blood, given
and shed for us. Jesus said, “And the bread that I
will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” He went on to say, “Truly, truly, I say to
you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you have no life in you.
Whoever
eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise
him up on the last day.”
In the Sacrament of the Altar Jesus
gives us the forgiveness and life that he won through his death and
resurrection. He puts into your mouth
the very price he paid for your salvation. He applies it to you as an
individual. He leaves no doubt that his body and blood were given and shed for
you.
And at the same time, it is the body
and blood of the risen Lord that you receive into your body. He gives you what the early Church called the
“medicine of immortality.” As our Lord
has promised, bodies that receive the body and blood of the risen Lord will be
raised on the Last Day. The Lord who comes to you in his body and blood in the
miracle of the Sacrament is the same Lord who will come in glory on the Last Day.
In the Old Testament lesson, God gives
manna to Israel. He gives them this food to keep them alive as they journey to
the promised land. Our Lord Jesus does
the same thing with the Sacrament of the Altar.
He gives us this food for the new man to sustain us in faith during our
pilgrimage of life.
We believe in our crucified and risen Lord, and so we know that
we have life that will never end. Jesus
the bread of life feeds us through his Word.
He feeds us through his Sacrament.
Our Lord said, “As the living Father sent me, and I live
because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of
me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the
bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live
forever."
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