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| Gathering the Manna |
Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15
Psalm 78:3-4, 23-25, 54
Ephesians 4:17, 20-24
John 6:24-35
Last
weekend we heard two accounts of miracles involving the multiplication of food,
a clear sign that God will always provide for His people, though often in
unexpected ways. And, as so often happens, the Lord takes the miracle of the
feeding of five thousand and uses it as a stepping stone of sorts to move to
something even deeper and more mysterious. After the miracle the people follow
after the Lord because they were nourished by Him and want to receive from His
hands yet more food. He points this out Himself when He tells them, “You are
looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and
were filled.” But He doesn’t stop there. He continues on, going that next step
as He now challenges His hearers, “Do not work for food that perishes but for
the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
The tactic the Lord uses of
taking something familiar and using it to connect to something even deeper is
something that happens often in His teachings, but it is also something that
happens in the scriptures themselves with what is called typology. Countless
examples can be taken of Old Testament stories being used to understand New
Testament realities. The Old Testament symbol of the Ark that Noah built and
used as a means of safety in the midst of a turbulent storm becomes in the New
Testament a symbol of the Church that welcomes all people to take shelter in
the midst of a turbulent world. The Old Testament story of the Israelites
walking across the Red Sea to be saved from their Egyptian attackers comes up
in the New Testament symbol of being saved from evil by passing through the
waters of Baptism. Another one, which is brought into the spotlight today is
the gift of the Manna and Quail in the desert.
The story of the Manna is, to
me, one of the most fascinating in the whole of the Bible. The people of Israel
had been moved by the Lord from their slavery in Egypt to pursue the Promised
Land. But because of the hardness of the peoples’ hearts, they were detoured and
spent forty years wandering in the desert. Knowing that they would not be able
to survive, the Lord supplied food for them every day: Manna and quail. Some
think that Manna was just a naturally occurring phenomenon in the desert, but
that is foolishness. The Israelites were so confused at it that when they first
saw it they quickly asked, “What is it?” and had to have it explained by Moses.
Furthermore, this miraculous Manna was given only six days of the week. They
were to gather twice as much on the day before the Sabbath, so as not to have
to work. And so every day for
forty years, God provided for the people miraculous bread in the morning and
the flesh of birds in the evening. And the most interesting part: when the
Israelites crossed over the Jordan River into the Promised Land told of by God,
the Manna and quail instantly ceased coming. They had arrived in their destined
home, where the Lord would no longer have to provide miraculously because He
would be there with them to provide in normal manner once again.
The Jewish people remembered
this story clearly and held it in high regard as one of the most important
stories because it was a sign of God’s care for them in the midst of trials.
Being a pious Jew Himself, Jesus knew this very well and used it as the
background for a new journey. When the Lord tells the people to work for the
food that endures for eternal life, He shifts the view of an earthly Promised
Land to a Heavenly One.
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| Receiving the True Bread from Heaven |
The reality is that as the new
Chosen People, we are no longer looking for a special place on Earth, but
rather are looking forward to getting to Heaven. In the Old Testament, when the
Israelites passed through the water, there was no going back and they had
simply to rely on the providence of God to give bread and flesh that would
sustain them to the earthly Promised Land. In the new journey before us, the
reality is the same. Once we were baptized and all stain of sin removed from
us, there is no turning back; we must simply rely on God’s providence for the
food that will sustain us until the day we reach our Heavenly Promised Land.
And what is that food if not the Eucharist?
Before, they had two separate
signs – bread and flesh. Now, those two signs are unified in the Eucharist as
we eat what appears to be bread but which is in reality the flesh of God. It
was not simply as a figure of speech that Jesus tells His hearers that He is
the Bread of Life. It is quite true. He is the Bread of Life, and Bread of Life
is Him! This is the reason, as we will hear in the coming weeks, that Christ is
so strong in His insistence that everyone partake of His Flesh and Blood,
because if He is Life and we fail to receive Him, we have no life in us but
belong wholly to death.
One thing, though, must be
said. Just because we are commanded by the Lord to partake of His Flesh and
Blood, does not mean that we should do so no matter what. Quite the contrary;
if God has blessed us with this gift of Himself, we ought to approach it in a
serious manner. Here I would like to conclude with four points for reflection:
1- We
should examine ourselves before receiving this Heavenly food. So we must ask
ourselves: is there anything keeping me from Communion with Christ? Are there
grave sins that need to be forgiven in the sacrament of confession before I can
receive Communion worthy once more?
2- We
should spend time in thanksgiving after receiving Holy Communion. Rather than
running off to take care of the next task on our list, we ought to spend a
moment and let Christ fill us with His life and give thanks for that gift.
3- We
should be aware that it is truly Christ that we are receiving and strive each
time we receive Holy Communion to do so in a reverent manner rather than
letting it become routine
4- We
are all pilgrims on the journey to the Heavenly Promised Land, but the reality
is that while we are strengthened with the Eucharist, many around us are
spiritually starving. Who in our own lives needs to hear about or be reminded
of the Bread of Life? And are we willing to invite them to come to the One who
gives us the True Bread from Heaven, that Bread which gives us life both on
Earth and in Heaven?
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