Bread From Heaven

Exodus 16:13-18
The Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.

Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”

The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed.

The Israelites are fresh off their dramatic liberation from the captivity of the Egyptians when they seem to suddenly realize something very important: they are stuck in the desert with nothing to eat!

Now, the Israelites are often maligned from pulpit to pulpit for being complainers, but to be perfectly honest with you I can understand their concern! Imagine dragging your children through the desert with no shelter, no food, and no water. These are people who are accustomed to being provided for. Yes, they were slaves, but they were slaves with homes, and beds, and bread and meat to eat, and water and milk to give their children. However free they may be, here in the desert – on the journey from bondage to liberation – they are a vulnerable, hungry, and wandering people. So, God feeds them.

God reveals something here about himself. The Lord is a hospitable God. He is not a God who selects the rich and sophisticated to be his people; he is not looking discriminately for the worship and adoration of the powerful elite. No, our God pursues the poor, the desperate, and the lost and he gives them shelter and food and water for their journey. He reveals that his heart bleeds for the wanderer, and he opens the door of heaven and raids his storehouses of provision on behalf of the miserable, the rejected, and the needy stranger.

God also reveals something here about each of us. For the Israelites, the difference between feast and famine was only a few miles of geography. Their security in Egypt was fragile at best. In reality, they were always one meal away from hunger…and so are we. Each of us is on a journey. Each of us is in need of bread to eat and water to drink, and each of us – whether we know it or not – depends on the hospitality of God every day for the provision of our very lives. All bread – no mater where we get it – is bread from heaven.

Our fragile state, then, not only unites us with God and his compassionate generosity, it also unites us with each other. Realizing that each of us is on an exodus from bondage to liberation – and faced with the charitable hospitality of God – we are given the opportunity to charitably share the bread from heaven with others in this wilderness, just as the Israelites did.