NL Manna in the Wilderness Oct 5th, 2025

Last week we met Moses hearing of how he learnt the name of God and learned to trust God.  This week we are further ahead in that story and a lot has happened.  Moses returned to Egypt with Aaron his brother, and tried to persuade Pharoah to free the enslaved Hebrews.  It took all the infamous plagues of Egypt to convince Pharoah …and that was not accomplished until the final horrific plague.  The very last plague that Egypt was cursed with was ‘the death of the first born’ every first born creature would be killed, including Pharoah’s own son.  However, God spoke through Moses saying that the Hebrew’s first born would be saved.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household…6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 … 11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord.

 12 I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 14 “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this observance mean to you?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed down and worshiped.

 

So, finally Pharoah relented and let the people of God go from slavery and from Egypt; and the Lord went before them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 

Now remember not only was this a time of great rejoicing and celebration, but it was also a time of huge change.  Israel had been in Egypt for four generations.  Slavery in Egypt was all they knew, as did their mothers, and their mother’s mother.  Now they were free! There was no one to tell them what to do!...but that also meant there was no one to tell them what to do.  They had to learn how to be a free and a righteous people, how to be people of the covenant once again.

And it was a fearful and uphill battle…which God knew it would be; from the very start.  We read “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer, for God thought, “If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.”  The Hebrew’s were not used to fending for themselves and there is some honest reflection in that old saying ‘better the devil you know…”  The biggest challenge that Israel faced was daring to change.  I don’t mean remembering to worship God rather than Egyptian deities but learning to trust God and live their own lives and make their own choices as a faithful independent people once more.

So, as they continued to travel towards the Red Sea they travelled following God’s pillars of cloud and fire, but Pharoah had begun to regret the loss of his great workforce and began to change his mind.  And we read God hardened the heart of Pharoah, so that he pursued the Israelites with the entirety of his army. 

 

The Lord hardened the heart of Pharoah.  I wonder at this phrase every time it is in the bible…the Lord ensuring that one side is doomed and the other side victorious.   God certainly is showing favoritism and I wonder at that.  However, this is the story of how the God’s people survived slavery and became a people of the covenant, and it is written by the descendants of this story.  Perhaps a reason was needed to explain why Pharoah after all those plagues; after the death of his son and  the devastation of his country would impulsively and inexplicably risk going through it all again for revenge.  His heart was hard, indeed…and he did pursue the Israelites…across the desert and into the Sea, parted by Moses.   And there the Egyptian army was drowned, while the people of Israel were finally and totally delivered from slavery and Egypt.   There was no going back. 

.“30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.”

The people of Israel…the people of God’s covenant…the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob and indeed of Moses had been delivered…into the wilderness between the northernmost arms of the Red Sea.

God led the people…lead the people who had been enslaved for four generations into a wilderness. A wild and barren place where they would have to learn, like it or not, how to rely on and trust in God once more. 

 The whole congregation of the Israelites set out from Elim and came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. 2 The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

I love these passages.  There are several similar and they follow the same theme.  The people encounter a challenge and they begin to complain, loudly against the leadership.  Oh, if only we were back in the ‘good ol’ days’ … all this change you make us ensure is going to kill us!    Ah the Good Ol’ Days.   In a mere matter of months the fear and uncertainty of Israel’s present circumstance had erased all the horrors of slavery, now what they recall was the literal ‘fleshpots’.  Yeah, we might have been beaten…they may have drowned our sons…but at least there was plenty to eat!

Oh, if only church was like it was in my youth when the pews were full and the Sunday school bursting at the seams.   And the first black priest had to change diocese in ’66 to find a bishop who would ordain him.  Women only got ordained in ’76 under major protest and sex scandals were more often hushed up then dealt with.  Oh, but in the good ol’ days things were simpler, predictable, and stable.  The wilderness, either of the Israelite exodus or of now…is anything but simple, predictable or stable. 

But the Lord, heard the complaints of the people and provided for them with Quails for meat and Manna for bread.  A miracle.  A blessing.  Proof that God will provide.
However, the habits of generations take time to break and although grateful, people didn’t entirely trust that they would be fed the next day too.  So, many tried to hoard the food, just in case… much like their ancestors they trusted their own plans more than they trusted God.  But the food rotted, because God had provided for each their daily bread.  Some gathered more, others less…each to their own needs…but each one had enough, for each day.

In the wilderness God provided circumstances in which the people had to change…be transformed.  From a people enslaved to what was, to a people who could trust in God and live into his promises.  This hasn’t changed we still find the wilderness a place of transformation.  Times of challenge and change force us to rely on God more than times of stability and nostalgia.

For Israel it took 40 years in the desert to become a people of the covenant once more.  A whole generation of those who had been enslaved to what was entered into wilderness and a new people, who had grown up relying on God left the wilderness.

We are living in a time of wilderness transformation, a time of change and uncertainty and it is tempting to lean on nostalgia and the Good Ol’ Days… but we too must become a people who rely on God to provide in ways we never could have imagined.  So that we too can be a people who live into Gods promises, a righteous generation, following God into the wilderness and out again in trust and faith. amen