What is it? Manna, the Bread of Life.

When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.” Exodus 16:15

Can you imagine the first light of dawn breaking over a huge expanse of desert – The light is dim and uncertain but already hundreds of men and women are about – men and women dressed in the flowing robes of the East. They are moving slowly over the sand – some going this way – some that – and all with heads bent and eyes glued to the ground. Yes’. They are looking for something which every now and then they seem to find. They stoop and pick up a little white pallet out of the sand – examine it – and excitedly shout to one another, “Man-hu”, Man-hu?” That is to say “What is it?”

AND JUST BECAUSE nobody knew wht it was, and no body could explain it or give it a name the word they used when they asked the question “Man-hu” clung to it and it has become known down the ages as “Manna”

The Psalmist you remember called it “Angels Food” “They did eat Angel’s Food”.

Now it strikes me this is a very fine story and quite suggestive for a temperance day discourse.

Let’s reconstruct the story. I’m fairly sure that most of us will have forgotten some of the details and the whole story is most interesting, almost peculiar.

The Israelites have been led from Egypt down the East side of the Gulf of Suez, past Marah and on to Elim. Now leaving Elim – Elim with it’s Palm trees and crystal fountains, it’s comfort and abundance – they were led by the Pillar of Cloud and Fire into the hot and arid desert. Soon they found themselves far from sources of supply and the provisions they had brought with them exhausted. The farther they marches the worse conditions became till in answer to cries and grumblings God met their needs with the equivalent of bread and meat.

The story reads like a romance of the desert and though I know it has a quite natural explanation there is no doubt that the story has been preserved throught the ages to show that God was and is of such a nature that He never leads men into circumstances where His provision for them fails.

The desert is a cruel, rentless place but it is true now, as then, that God never with-holds His grace.

So the manna came – and it continued for forty years – it continued, that is to say, all the while they needed it. Until they reached the Promised Land - “And the Manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the corn of the land, neither had the Children of Israel any more but they did eat of the fruits of the land of Canaan that year -”

God doesn’t do what men can do for themselves; “Piety must never paralyse the wheels of industry”

But there were never allowed to forget the wonder of the Manna. It was one of the things that was preserved as a memorial in the holiest of all places – the ark of the Covenant – Along with the rod that budded and the table of stone, was the golden “casket containing manna.” Ever to remind them how miraculously they had been sustained.

1. As Paul points out “He that gathered much has nothing over, whilst he that gathered little had not lack.”

It was the kind of pro-rata ration. The strong and agile gathered much but found that he had just enough to satisfy hi need. The weaker, less active man gathered less yet found he had enough in his smaller portion to make a new man of him.

There is behind it you see a divine principle of justice – fair treatment for all.

That was one of the earliest and most important lessons man had to learn, and still has to learn.

The security of national and international peace depends on it. The well being of each is the well being of all.

It is because some want more than enough that others have to go short. - Human greed in any shape or form is harmful.

We don’t need reminding that conditions have changed since bible days but the general principles of living haven’t. Men still need food, warmth, clothing etc and God’s provisions haven’t altered.

There is abundance in the world for all and thought men are slow coming to realise this truth gradually I think they are.

We may do much in our own personal lives to work out this principle but the state certainly has the obligation of providing living conditions for all; but let men having received enough for their needs be content and thankful for the provision.

Whilst no state can justifiably look upon appalling needs and conditions and ignore them, neither is an group of people justified in trying to exploit others.

2. There is another striking provision about the manna – it would not keep. Hoarding it became putrid and revolting.

It had to be gathered each day afresh

No man can live successfully on the graces of the past. What grand feasts and good times we have had are happy memories – good to be remembered – but they will not do for to-day.

Yesterday won’t serve for to-day not to-day for to-morrow. I need new grace with each situation. In our Christian life that is very true. I wonder if it’s general impoverishment isn’t due to our neglect to gather the heavenly food.

The Bible never lays down detailed regulations of conduct which are hard and fast rules for all men everywhere – it suggests divine principles to be applied to every human problem and need. And the principle here is that each new situation needs new consideration and fresh supplies of grace.

There is rather a delightful suggestion in the apocraphal Book of Wisdom that on the tongue of every Jew the manna assumed a different palate – just according to his taste -

God loves individuality. He revels in variety.

I may not need His grace in the same way as you may need it, but the glory of it is, it is just what I do need when I seek it.

That is the glory of the Christian Gospel it’s principles are the need and can be applied to all men everywhere.

3. And there is another thing about this manna – in spite of the rule that it would not keep – it was specially ordained that it should keep once a week, for a period of 48 hours. “For on the sixth day they gathered twice as much, as Moses said to-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath of the Lord.”

This is another important and vexed problem that is taxing our Temperance and Social Welfare Dept.

Nowadays folks would have been saying “Why shouldn’t we gather manna on the day of rest? What possible harm can there be in it?

Whether anybody talked like that then I don’t know, but I do know that as the story says they didn’t gather on the Sabbath. It was forbidden.

Seems that one day had to be set apart to honour Him from whom the Manna came. And you see with God it was so important a point that He made special provision for the day so that the question of whether it was right or wrong to gather it needn’t arise.

At bedrock the principle of the Sabbath is for ever the same. For us the day has changed and the customs of observing it; but right from the day the underlying principle hasn’t. THE UNDENIABLE FACT IS, THAT THERE IS ITS NEED. The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

We all know the various, religious, psychological and historical arguments for the need of a day of rest but that is beside the point.

It is a divine principle that our very exhaustion should compel us to rest.

The Sabbath is a divine creation and anything that tends to destroy is must be wrong.

What it is right or what it is wrong to do on the Sabbath is hardly the point – the point at issue is that we observe it.

The surest way of keeping our Sunday, and most folks want to, it by honouring it as God’s day. If we love God we should love His day and if we believe in Christ then we shall be zealous about keeping the day that celebrates the fact He is alive!

Now in case you just think this ancient story of the manna just a fable let us turn to the New Testament and listen to what Jesus has to say to those who taunted Him about this story of the manna. “It is true; your fathers did eat manna in the Wilderness and are dead; but as for Me, I am the bread of life; he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”

If this means anything it means that far from being an ancient episode, it may become a present and joyful experience.

We all know Matthew Arnold’s Verses -

‘Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead

Smote on the squalid Street of Bethnal Green,

And the pale weaver, through his windows seen

In Spitalfields Look’d thrice dispirited.

I met a preacher there I know, and said;

“Ill and overworked, how fare you in this scene

‘bravely;’ said he, ‘for I of late have been

Much cheered with thought of Christ, the living bread;”

How wonderfully everything brings us back to Him who is the Bread of God sent down from heaven, it Him who is the answer to the world’s need.

Year Unknown

The mention of the Temperance and Social Welfare Department implies this sermon is from between 1932 and 1950, though Temperance Sunday continued to exist until 1960.