From Exodus:16 And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. 2 Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
This story starts right after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. They had been brought out of Egypt by the Lord's mighty hand and outstretched arm. They had been miraculously delivered from the hand of Pharoah at the Red Sea. But their problems were far from over. Now they were truly out of inhabited lands. They were in a real wasteland, dry, barren, and empty. They were led by God in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And He had brought them to water, Elim where they were camped had plenty of water but the issue of food was becoming serious. And as soon as problems showed up on the physical level they showed the lack of trust and the willingness to turn on Moses and Aaron and God. Problems immediately brought forgetfulness, forgetfulness of the road that had brought them here, a road paved with the Lord's Salvation and care for His people. And forgetfulness of where they had come from, such that they described their Egyptian slavery as sitting around beside stew pots and stuffing their faces with bread all day.
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. 5 And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.”6 Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, “At evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt. 7 And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord; for He hears your complaints against the Lord. But what are we, that you complain against us?” 8 Also Moses said, “This shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to the full; for the Lord hears your complaints which you make against Him. And what are we? Your complaints are not against us but against the Lord.”9 Then Moses spoke to Aaron, “Say to all the congregation of the children of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your complaints.’ ” 10 Now it came to pass, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.11 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 12 “I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”13 So it was that quail came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. 14 And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.
In the morning, when the dew was gone there was a tiny layer of...well, of something, on the ground. In a minute we will hear about it's very strange properties. It seems to have been tiny white balls...of something, that they scooped up into baskets. Any that didn't get gathered up in the morning melted and was gone when the sun got hot. Any that got left in the cool darkness of their tents quickly bred worms and was gross, but sometimes more quickly than others. The Israelites couldn't figure out what it was. And I can't either. I have tried to fit something to its described properties, maybe little colonies of bacteria or blooms of fungus, or just protein self-assembling on the ground as the evolutionists are convinced happens, somehow catalyzed in the night by the otherwordly light and radiation from the pillar of fire? But whatever it was it was truly outside of human experience. It didn't belong to our ordinary world. They called it, Manna, which literally means, "Unknown", what is this crap?, and they baked it into wafers that were like flatbread. They were fed with mysteries, with sacraments.
We are gonna skip down to 19 for now: And Moses said, “Let no one leave any of it(in their tent or basket) till morning.” 20 Notwithstanding they did not heed Moses. But some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. 21 So they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted.22 And so it was, on the sixth day, that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning.’ ” 24 So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. 25 Then Moses said, “Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. 26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.”27 Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. 28 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? 29 See! For the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.31 And the house of Israel called its name Manna. And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.32 Then Moses said, “This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: ‘Fill an omer with it, to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ ” 33 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a pot and put an omer of manna in it, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept for your generations.” 34 As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept. 35 And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
The manna was clearly a miracle from outside, a transcendant experience that was contrary to normal experience, maybe contrary to biology, maybe even contrary to terrestrial physics. The Lord stepped in to provide for His people. But it was also a Sign, it was intended not merely to feed the people but to educate them about the One who provided it. It appears to have been, and was certainly gauged to suggest, Creatio de Nihilo, creation from nothing, to illustrate that the provider was in fact the Ultimate Creator, the Beginning. All of the miracles of the Exodus are otherworldly, they, on their face, illustrate the holiness, the separateness of God not just from sinful men but from all creatures whatsoever. They proclaim the giant gap between God and man. They are unambiguous declarations of a truth, that while easily relegated to the back of our minds is not in any way subtle or elusive.
Why don't we have miracles like that? Although we have been together a long time now, I don't necessarily know the specific miracles that you are looking for. But I do know that we are a needy people. God has gathered us together, the broken rejects of society and I know that we all have plenty of pain that we can't find healing for. As for me, I just want my boy to walk again. That seems straightforward enough. Why isn't it like this for us? Where's the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire? Where's the bread from heaven, the food of angels that bears our burdens and takes away our infirmities? Where's the healer who bears our sicknesses in His own body and says to the lame "Rise up"?
From John 6: 26 Jesus answered them and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”28 Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”
This happens about a day after Jesus fed the 5000 with the loaves and fish. And here Jesus uses the word that is so characteristic of John's Gospel when it describes miracles. He calls them signs. And that is the first point that I really want to look at. The manna was a sign and Jesus miracles were signs. But although they were both miracles of healing and provision when you dig into them a little the form was very different and I think maybe that is because they were signs of different things. When Jesus fed the crowd with just a handful of food, they don't seem to have realised what happened right off the bat. Each guy sorta saw that he was eating and the people around him were eating, but he didn't know that the food had been multiplied until later. Even the disciples seem to have had to sorta compare notes when they gathered up the baskets of leftovers which were indisputable more than they started with before they were sort of in on the miracle. When He turned water into wine, the servants didn't taste the wine, at least not until afterwards. They went and gave their boss what they knew was water. The guests didn't fill the jugs. They just drank wine out of them. They didn't know the wine used to be water. Not until later. With Jesus' miracles there is introduced this element of subtlety, of obscurity. To see the miracle you kinda have to be in on the whole story. But to get the miracle you don't have to know nothing. You are only called to believe and receive. You just eat the bread when it is handed to you. Drink the wine when it is offered.
30 Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”41 The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” 42 And they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
When The Word of God entered this world as the Man Jesus Christ everything changed. We look back at antiquity, the BC era and don't realise how different everything is. More things have changed than we realise and they have changed in ways that are unexpected. As a general rule that is fairly indisputable. But specifically, in this case, miracles have changed. We saw above in a couple instances that their form has changed, but we haven't talked yet about why. If miracles are signs then they have changed their form to reflect the change in the deity which happened when Christ took on flesh. They no longer appear as something outside of nature, because God is no longer outside of nature. Miracles need not appear to be outside of physics or biology, in fact, to picture a God who placed Himself under the Law, all of the Law including physics and biology as well as the moral law, no sign could be more perfect than one that appears to be in accord with normal life. We hear of miracles quite a bit. A friend got just what they needed for no apparent cause, most of us have heard Al's story of his mortgage being inexplicably paid off. Someone was in the hospital and their disease disappeared, without cause, between one scan and the next. We hear these things and we don't so much doubt that they happened, but we wander if they were really miraculous. We suspect that they have fairly ordinary causes that are just unknown. But if you think about the miracles of the New Testament, it seems clear that quite a few of them are just like that, anyone without inside knowledge wouldn't consider them a miracle. A little girl was thought to be dead and Jesus "discovers" when He tells her to "Get up", Greek word anastasius, literally resurrection, that she was just in a deep sleep. And I guess the people who had heard she was dead thought something was a little fishy but went their way. And mom and dad are left there with their jaws hanging open. "We know she was dead. He is sent from God but He is still out of His gourd." they say to one another. Christ has become a part of nature and under the Law but when His people need a miracle Heaven and Earth have to just look the other way and pretend everything is kosher. An angel breaks Peter out of jail and he thinks it is just a dream and when he knocks on the door the guys inside have all of these normal explanations about him sending a messenger and the servant girl being confused. And in the morning, when Peter is at the breakfast table, we pretend everything is normal. But the ordinary explanations that we have been promised for so long are still held up in traffic. The Jews knew where Jesus was born, they knew Mary and Joseph. So where did He get off claiming to have come down from Heaven? Where do I get off hoping that Christ still performs miracles when the ordinary explanations for events will show up any day now? Maybe more to the point, how can we believe in the Real Presence of Christ, His body and His blood, when we all know that Margaret went to the store and bought the bread and wine and probably still has the receipt?
43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
The Manna had all the hallmarks of a miracle of the highest order. No one ever questioned its credentials as a miracle. Really, it is kinda the standard by which miracles are judged. At least until the Man who cared only for the Real and ignored the Apparent came into the world. The people who ate the manna are dead. In fact, the ones to whom that miracle originally came, were all excluded from the Promise, none of them entered the Promised Land. But our bread and wine which no one even suspects of being miraculous, carries in it the substance and fulfillment of the Promise, the miracle of miracles, the Body and Blood of Christ. I am aware that people can and have twisted Christ's words here, He Himself after His full tilt praise of consuming His flesh and drinking His blood, cautioned the disciples at the end of this chapter that the flesh profits nothing but the Spirit is life and His words are Spirit and life. Mysterious words which fools have used to make the Word which He preached and we have just read ineffective. Let's not make that same mistake. We are in little danger of overemphasizing the miraculous at the cost of the rational. The church at this time seems to err very much in the opposite direction. The great contrast here is between the Apparent and the Real. Between the Manna which appears to be miraculous bread yet does not carry with it the Covenant, and the plain bought crackers and juice which are the vehicles of Communion with Christ and the Fellowship of the Saints. Between the miracles that point to a God outside of nature and the miracles that point to Immanuel, present whenever two or three are gathered. One last point.
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.
Second half of 15 where we skipped earlier: And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. 16 This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: ‘Let every man gather it according to each one’s need, one omer for each person, according to the number of persons; let every man take for those who are in his tent.’ ”17 Then the children of Israel did so and gathered, some more, some less. 18 So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack. Every man had gathered according to each one’s need.
God announced on His people a test, whether they were worthy of the miracle, whether they would follow instructions and gather the right amount at the right time. Some gathered too much and some gathered too little. But God is not Goldilocks. And everyone who believed enough to receive, that is not some high and exalted faith, not some rarified perfected faith, but just stuck their hand out to take what He handed to them and then ate it received the miracle.
