It's Not About the Manna Our Sermon Text Comes from Exod 16: “Bread from Heaven.” It's One of the Best-Known Stories Of

Travis Heide 2018

It’s Not about the Manna

Our sermon text comes from Exod 16: “Bread from Heaven.” It’s one of the best-known stories of the Old Testament but least understood. Let me share a bit about myself. The best four years of my life I owe to Toastmasters International. During my university career and beyond,

Toastmasters helped me to improve my speaking skills and confidence in everyday life. During one speech contest I listened to a speaker tell about his experiences learning how to cook. He put on a bandana and the title of his speech was “It’s Not about the Sushi.” Coming up with titles is not my forte, but this title recommended itself for our sermon today: “It’s Not about the Manna.”

The setting for our OT text is between Egypt and Sinai, between slavery and freedom.

The Israelites were en route from the Red Sea, where they saw the Lord smite the Egyptians. For centuries the Pharaohs had oppressed the children of Israel with heavy burdens, made them serve

Egyptian task masters and slave drivers. And yet they multiplied. (Exod 1) God had not forgotten

His people. With an outstretched arm, He delivered them out of the land of Egypt and gave them a glimpse of His salvation (6:1). The Lord had rescued His people. Once they reached Mount

Sinai, they would meet Him face to face. There God Almighty was ready to come down in a cloud with horns and trumpets. He would write His Ten Commandments on stone. The Israelites’ slave status in Egypt was over; now was their chance to rest and to live as God’s children.

God designed a special program to introduce His Law to them before they reached Mount

Sinai. As soon as the Israelites realized their provisions were running low – it had been two and a half months – the Lord said to Moses: “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” (16:4) [emphasis added] God was testing them the same way

He “tested” Abraham by demanding him to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice (Gen 22).

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Here we have the first record in Scripture where God commanded His people to observe

for “rest.” “On the שׁבת a holiday: here the Sabbath-day, which is derived from the Hebrew word sixth day when they prepare what they will bring in, it will be twice as much as what they gather daily.” (5) Later, when came the sixth day of the week, Moses said: “This is what the

Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept until morning’… Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a

Sabbath, there will be none.” (22, 25) Every day they gathered as much food as they needed, and for their wives, their children, and their household servants. But it all had to be eaten the same day. Any leftovers they had didn’t last, and the next day they had to go out again. But this was not the rule for Saturday. On Friday they were to have gathered twice as much as they needed, cook it or do whatever they wanted with it; on Saturday, they were to have a break.

So was established the Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. This command lives among the Ten Commandments which God inscribed on the tablets of the Law at Mount Sinai (Exod 20:1-6). After these commandments were written down, Moses and Aaron set aside a jar of manna with the tables of the Law; and they placed it inside the Ark of the Covenant, which was the visible reminder of all God had done for them.

Now, as always seems to happen when there’s a new rule in place, a few wise guys went out on the Sabbath to score some more manna. But there was none to be had (27). As with the other Commandments, the Israelites kept a poor record of observing the day of rest. The punishment for profaning the Sabbath, which God had sanctified and made holy (Gen 2:3), was death (Deut 31:12-14). In the book of Numbers, a certain man was caught gathering wood on the

Sabbath. The people brought the man before Moses and he was stoned to death (Num 13:32-36).

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Of course, there were other ways of violating the Sabbath. People are very resourceful in breaking God’s Law. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees built a fence around the Third Commandment; they added laws about Sabbath observance that God had never commanded. Strict rules such as not walking more than a mile on the Sabbath managed to make the day off a burden for most of the common people. Failing to realize that the Sabbath was about relying on God to take care of them, the Jews of Jesus’ day made the Sabbath something they needed to take care of.

Even so, the Third Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy,” remains just as binding on us as it was when it was given at Mount Sinai. It’s true that we who believe in Christ are free from the prohibition of working on Saturday. Since the days of Jesus’ first followers, the Church has set aside Sunday – the day of His resurrection from the dead – as a day of public gathering for worship. That understood, any day will do, especially Saturday.

For us, then, what does it mean to keep the Sabbath day holy? Luther’s Small Catechism teaches us, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” (SC I 3)As Luther says again in his Large Catechism,

“Indeed, we Christians should make every day a holy day and give ourselves only to holy activities – that is, occupy ourselves daily with God’s Word and carry it in our hearts and on our lips.” (LC 89) Every day we are free to dive into the Word, pray, and be reminded of God’s great wonders, gifts, and mercies to us. The Bibles in our homes remind us of the stories of the OT, like the miracle manna in the wilderness; but we know that the Bible is all about Jesus Christ, who has ransomed us from slavery to sin and death. Throughout the week there are Sunday

Schools and Bible studies, kid’s clubs, men’s and women’s groups. Most of all, every altar dedicated to worship in His name is a new Ark of the Covenant from which we receive these gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation in His very body and blood.

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We 21st century North Americans have much more leisure time and disposable income than any other generation. We have many opportunities to gladly hear and learn the Word. We have church buildings (whether we own the space or rent it), where we can gather at designated times. Most of us enjoy Sunday mornings off from work; however, not everyone does in our world today. It’s hard for the low-income parent or the immigrant who works two jobs just to make both ends meet. I’ll share with you that being a vicar, a professional church worker, makes it especially difficult to view Bible study and time spent in worship as “rest.” Still, every moment is a gift from God, in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). For all we have, whether a lot or a little, we have a God to thank for it. He richly and daily provides us our daily bread and beyond; food for our bodies, for our families, and for our souls.

Also like the Israelites, we, too, often ignore the Sabbath. Workaholism is one plague which we continue to suffer. The temptation is there to let our jobs consume us while we should consume our daily bread in thanksgiving. In the past I’ve had jobs that became my personal obsessions. Those of us who aren’t struggling to meet our monthly budget deal with a world that advertises more: more and better products, the best technology, the promotion, vacation time… virtually anything will do as long as it takes time away from what truly matters.

Like the Jews of Jesus’ day, we can fall into the opposite extreme of profaning the

Sabbath. As Luther says in the Large Catechism, “Non-Christians can spend a day in rest and in idleness too, and so can the whole swarm of clerics in our day who stand daily in the churches, singing and ringing bells, without sanctifying the holy day because they neither preach nor practice God’s Word but teach and live contrary to it.” (LC III 90) Those of us who have paid positions or devote hours of volunteer work in churches are open to the temptation of making

“busy work.” It’s very easy to pay lip-service to God’s Word while failing to live holy lives

Travis Heide 2018 according to it. More dangerous is the belief that our service as teachers or preachers or sponsors earns us brownie points with God. Or, still worse, that we can make amends for the sins of our past. This is works-righteousness. In olden times, Sabbath-breakers were to be put to death; in

“The Great Sabbath Debate,” Pr. Chris Roseborough of Pirate Christian Radio explained that similarly those who add their own works to Jesus’ finished work “experience eternal death.”

A life of nonstop labour will drive us to one of two extremes: pride or despair, both of which are spiritual death. But we who rest in Jesus truly enjoy life. “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life.” (Rom 6:23) With arms outstretched on the cross, Christ delivered us from slavery to sin, from the crushing debt which an eternity can’t repay.

The Israelites of old were given not only bread for their bodies but something else they needed: rest. God’s gift to His people was a day every week where they didn’t need to collect their bread or cook it; they had only to relax and thank God for it. Moses reminded the people with his parting words: “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Deut 8:3)

When Christ was criticized for feeding His disciples on the Sabbath, He reminded the

Pharisees that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) Then, speaking of Himself, He proceeded to say: “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath;” (28) and, in our Gospel, “The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life for the world.” (John 6:32). We keep the Sabbath day holy by remembering that He is the Lord who sanctifies us (Exod 31:13). Every day called “today” is our Sabbath: every time we hear His voice, as we enter that great Sabbath rest reserved for the people of God both here on earth and there in heaven where all our labours will be past. It’s not about the manna – it’s all about Jesus.