Manna from Heaven

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, August 4, 2024
John 6:24-35

    Last week, we spent some time looking at two important gospel stories from the New Testament that influence our Holy Communion practices:  Jesus’ changing water into wine at the wedding at Cana, and Jesus feeding the 5000.  As a reminder, we are focusing on chapter 6 in John for the next few weeks, and I’d encourage you to read through this chapter a few times as we go along.  Today, I would like to focus on some Old Testament influences on our Holy Communion practices.  There is one important story in Exodus 12, the story of the first Passover, that we will not spend a whole lot of time on today.  Jesus is celebrating the Passover with his disciples at the Last Supper before his arrest and crucifixion.  The other story is our first reading from today, from Exodus 16, where God sends manna or daily bread in the morning and quail meat in the evening so the people do not starve as they journey in the wilderness from Egypt to the promised land.
    The Passover and manna stories from Exodus are one reason we usually use flat communion wafers for the bread at Holy Communion.  God instructs the people to make bread quickly, without yeast or other leaven, so they can take it with them on their journey out of Egypt.  God leads the people out of slavery, oppression, and danger, into a promised land of freedom and safety.  As Christians, we believe that you can actually use pretty much any kind of bread for Holy Communion, but this flat bread reminds us of our connection to God’s promises to the faithful throughout history.  God provides for the people of Israel in the wilderness so they don’t go hungry.  It’s a flaky, white substance, not the bread they’re used to.  In fact, they aren’t even sure what to call it – that’s what manna means, “What is it?” And yet this manna and quail is enough to sustain them forty years until they arrive in the promised land, a daily reminder of God’s goodness and provision.
    This story reminds us first of all how quick we are to complain about our current situation and forget the goodness of God and the many blessings of each day.  Last week, we talked about how easy it is to doubt that we have enough.  We in our scripture readings for today how easy it is to forget to be grateful for what we have.  The people of Israel have only been wandering in the wilderness for a short time when they already start to complain to Moses and to God that they are hungry.  And what is worse, they start talking about how it was better to be slaves in Egypt.  They look back at what was in actuality a horrible way to live with nostalgia, forgetting all the horrible things they’ve gone through and what God has freed them from.
    In the movie Inside Out 2, emotions are personified inside the brain of the main character, a thirteen-year-old girl named Riley.   As the sequel, new emotions appear as Riley grows older, including Nostalgia, who is mostly waiting downstairs because Riley isn’t quite ready for nostalgia yet.  However, the emotion Joy tries to remove all unpleasant memories from Riley’s consciousness so that she has a strong, positive sense of self: “I’m a good person.”  Without giving too much of the movie away, Joy and the other emotions discover that even holding onto bad memories are important for Riley to be a whole person.  In fact, at any time in our life, we experience ups and downs, some more extreme than others, and our memory of events isn’t always trustworthy.  God, along with Moses, has to encourage the people with heavenly food, manna, to remind them that moving forward is better than looking back with faulty memories and nostalgia.  The wilderness journey, even if difficult, is worth it.
    Similarly, in our gospel for today, the people ask Jesus questions like, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?”  Um, Jesus literally just fed 5000 people with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish.  Then he walked on water. What more do you want, people?!  How quickly we can forget what Jesus has done for us!  God parts the Red Sea and leads the people out of slavery in Egypt and then provides for their daily needs – bread, meat, and water from a rock, until they come to the promised land, but the people forget.  When we are going through difficult times, how can we remember even when things are really hard and we are struggling, that God is still good? That God is still enough? That God has blessed us and will continue to bless us daily, despite the struggles?
    So, Jesus talks to us about manna from heaven as this tangible reminder of God’s blessings and goodness to us despite our mis-remembering, our complaining, our love of nostalgia and dislike of anything that makes us too uncomfortable including change!  Then, Jesus asks us to look beyond the physical object to the source of the gift – it’s not the bread itself, the manna, Moses or the pastor who are doing the miracle/the blessing.  It’s God.  In Jesus Christ, God comes down from heaven and gives life to the world!  The material stuff we receive are gifts and blessings from God – and God is the source.  Bread feeds us for a day to get by to the next day, and we trust that we will have enough food tomorrow.  But God in Christ is the constant, the eternal, no matter how our memory fades or fails.  Christ is, was and is to come – our past, present, and future, thanks be to God!  
    If you remember the full manna story in Exodus 16, some people try to save enough manna to last another day, and it rots and is full of worms.  God provides just enough for each day, and that’s part of God’s lesson – trust that God will provide enough, and what God gives is enough, we don’t need to hold onto more.  In our gospel reading for today, Jesus makes this radical assertion that he has come down from heaven as the bread of life as spiritual food that will last.  God’s greatest gift to us is Jesus himself, given for us once and for all – who is born, dies, and is raised for us!  Beyond the miracle of manna from heaven and bread multiplied to feed thousands is the true gift of Jesus, given once and for all for us to know that in Christ forgiveness, love and salvation truly lasts for all eternity.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.