July 27, 2015

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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