The Bread of Life
Opening Song:
Messenger Dox
Call to Worship:
Pastor Zachary McGuire
John 6.35-40
Historical Reading:
Pastor Brett Eckel
Apostles' Creed
Song:
O Church Arise
Confession & Pardon:
Pastor Michael Champoux
Song:
Doxology
Song:
Christ is Risen (Come Awake)
Sermon:
Dr. Alex Loginow
Exodus 16
Introduction
Americans have a strange love/hate relationship with bread. On one hand our love of bread can be summarized in a Jim Gaffigan tweet, which simply read, “My favorite flavor is bread.” We love carb-y goodness in all of its forms. On the other hand there has been a resurgence of health consciousness in American culture in recent years and the first casualty is always bread. If you want to lose weight, cut out carbs. The strictest of health nut Pharisees will gladly voice their disproval whenever they see you eating any form of bread.
But in the ancient Near East bread was not viewed on the spectrum of indulgence or health consciousness. In the ancient Near East bread was a matter of life and death. To have bread was to have sustenance; it meant you would not go hungry that day. In contrast to be without bread meant that you might go hungry. No bread meant death. Bread meant life.
This is the setting of Exodus 16. Remember in Exodus 14 YHWH, via Moses, led Israel out of Egypt and through the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds). Then in Exodus 15 Moses led Israel in a congregational song to worship God in response to his salvation. At the end of Exodus 15 Israel travels three days finding no water. They arrive at Marah where YHWH tests them with bitter water and they complain. God then miraculously turns the bitter water to sweet. Israel failed the test but God tells them that if they obey the covenant they will be blessed and if they disobey the covenant they will be cursed.
Now we come to Exodus 16 and there’s a sort of recapitulation of the end of Exodus 15. Exodus 15 was about water. Exodus 16 is about food. And once again we will see that the Holy Spirit, both in history and in the Canon, providentially oversees and documents these events to lead us to the good news of Jesus Christ.
Bread from Heaven
There are three major themes in Exodus 16: (1) More complaining and testing; (2) Sabbath; and (3) Remembering.
Complaining and Testing
The first theme we see in this pericope is that once again YHWH tests Israel and once again Israel complains. In Exodus 15 YHWH tested Israel with water. Here in Exodus 16 YHWH tests Israel with food. Both times Israel complains.
Verse 2 says the whole congregation of Israel grumbled. They say, “in Egypt we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full but you brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” In verse 8 Moses says that Israel is not grumbling against him but against God. Like the water 2 weeks ago we can be tempted to give Israel a pass here. After all, as Snickers commercials have reminded us, “you’re not yourself when you’re hungry.”
But actually the opposite is true. It is in adversity that true character is revealed. Charles Spurgeon said, “if we do not trust God when circumstances are adverse then we don’t trust God at all.” Complaining is telling God, “I don’t like where you have me.” Complaining is questioning God’s ability and motives. Complaining is a vote of “no confidence” for God.
And like He did with water YHWH tests Israel in verse 4. God will rain bread from heaven and the people will go out every day to gather a day’s portion and God will test them to see whether they will walk in his law or not. YHWH will literally give them this day their daily bread. God gives them quall meat in the evening and they wake up in the morning to this bread on the ground.
When the people wake up and find the bread they ask, “What is it (verse 15)?” Like Jack Skellington in Christmas Town Israel asks, “what is this?” ’Israel calls the bread manna because it sounds like the Hebrew phrase, “what is this?” What God is doing is testing Israel once again through miraculous provision. And Scripture reveals that once again Israel fails.
Moses tells them not to save any bread but to go out and get new bread every morning. But some of the people try to save bread and it stinks and produces maggots. Moses tells them to collect twice as much on Friday evening because they are to rest on the Sabbath but some of the people go out on the Sabbath to collect bread. Over and over again in the old covenant YHWH is gracious to Israel and Israel rebels against YHWH. Like Adam before them Israel refuses to obey God’s law. They need one who would obey God’s law in their place.
We pointed out 2 weeks ago that in this way Israel serves as an anti type to Jesus Christ. After his baptism Jesus went out into the wilderness and he passed God’s test. He did not complain after a month of fasting. Instead when Satan tempted him with food Jesus responded, “man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt 4.4). Jesus is the true and better Israel who passed God’s test by obeying God’s law in perfect righteousness.
Sabbath
And an important part of YHWH’s law was keeping the Sabbath. In Exodus 20 YHWH will give Israel the first ever written Scripture – the 10 Commandments, written by the finger of God himself. The 4th commandment is to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. But those commandments hadn’t been given yet and YHWH still commands Israel to keep the Sabbath. Israel breaks God’s law by going out to collect bread on the Sabbath. The Lord takes the Sabbath seriously. In verses 28-30
YHWH said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.
The Sabbath was enforced even before it was formally given in the 10 commandments because the Sabbath in ingrained in the fabric of creation. Genesis 1-2 tells us that God created all things in 6 days and then on the 7th day he rested. The Hebrew word שַׁבָּת (Sabbath) means rest. The pattern of work and rest is part and parcel of what it means to bear God’s image. The Sabbath isn’t merely an old covenant institution but it is a creation reality. Like marriage the Sabbath has been a human reality since the beginning.
But the New Testament also reveals to us that the Sabbath is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus calls himself the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12.1-8). He is the true and final rest for the people of God. And because Jesus resurrected on Sunday, the first day of the week, the Sabbath has moved from Saturday to Sunday.
Quoting the Westminster Confession of Faith, the 1689 London Baptist Confession says this of the Christian Sabbath:
7. It is the law of nature that in general a portion of time specified by God should be set apart for the worship of God. So by his Word, in a positive-moral and perpetual commandment that obligates everyone in every age, he has specifically appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy to him. From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ the appointed day was the last day of the week. After the resurrection of Christ it was changed to the first day of the week, which is called the Lord’s Day. This day is to be kept to the end of the age as the Christian Sabbath, since the observance of the last day of the week has been abolished (LBC 22.7).
Christians keep the 4th commandment by gathering for worship with the church every Sunday morning. When we neglect to gather together we are breaking the 4th commandment. Don’t believe the lie that God cared about the Sabbath in the Old Testament and that He doesn’t now. The Sabbath has been ingrained in creation from the beginning, Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, and we keep the Sabbath now by gathering for worship with the church every Sunday morning.
Remember
The third theme in this passage is remembering. Verses 32-33 say,
‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so 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 jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.”
YHWH commanded Israel to keep manna in a jar to remember how YHWH fed them bread from heaven in the wilderness. When their children asked about the manna in the jar, they were to teach their children how YHWH fed them bread from heaven. The generations were to remember God’s salvation and provision through the tangible witness of the bread.
Because we are embodied creatures and God created the world good, God cares about the physical, the tangible. We must guard against a form of Christian Gnosticism wherein we value the “spiritual” over the physical. The Spiritual and the physical are always connected. In the new covenant God has given us the sacraments as tangible signs of the gospel. This is most ultimately true because eternal God descended to the physical creation and took on human flesh in the incarnation.
The Bread of Life
Ultimately the bread from heaven in Exodus 16 is another Holy Spirit inspired providential picture leading us to the good news of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the eternal second person of the Holy Trinity. He was in the beginning with God (John 1.2). We confessed earlier in the creed that the eternal Son of God was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus lived a truly human life and obeyed God’s law perfectly in thought, word, and deed.
Jesus had a three-year ministry wherein he announced the inauguration of God’s kingdom. Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, and exorcised the possessed. But most importantly he preached. In our Call to Worship Pastor Zack read from one of Jesus’ sermons in John 6. After Christ fed the hungry he declared himself to be the bread of life that came down from heaven.
Just as YHWH provided manna from heaven for his people in Exodus 16, God provided the bread of life from heaven for his people in Christ. And on the cross Jesus’ body was broken like unleavened bread. In Scripture leaven represents sin. Jesus was the sinless one whose body was broken on the cross. At Calvary Jesus took the just penalty for the sins of his people. He could only do so because he was the true and final unleavened bread; Jesus was the sinless righteous one.
Jesus died and was buried. And on the third day God raised him from the dead proving that God had accepted his sacrifice. Now everyone who repents and believes in this good news will receive the forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternal life. Repentance happens after the Holy Spirit changes your heart and you see that you are a sinner who deserves hell. You then turn from your sin and place your faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus means that you have the knowledge of who Jesus is and what Jesus did, you assent to the validity of these truth claims, and you transfer your trust to Jesus alone.
If you reject Jesus Christ you will receive eternal conscious punishment in hell; to reject the bread of life yields death. If you will repent and believe God will forgive your sins and you will live forever in the new earth when Jesus returns to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new; to receive the bread of life nets eternal life. If you have any questions about the gospel please come speak with me afterwards. Come talk to Pastor Kevin or any of the Elders who have led in the liturgy this morning. We would love to tell you about how you can be right with God and have assurance of eternal life.
Remembering and Requesting the Bread
Bread is not only a major theme in the old covenant; it is also a major theme in the new covenant. Scripture uses bread to teach us about Christian discipleship both as individuals and also in the community of the church. We see this teaching for us individually in the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus teaches us to ask the Father to give us this day our daily bread. We should note though that even this petition isn’t purely individualistic. Jesus doesn’t teach us to pray, “give me this day my daily bread;” no Jesus teaches us to pray give us this day our daily bread. The first person plural reminds us that the Lord’s Prayer is for the church.
That being said, the petition for bread in the Lord’s Prayer certainly has individual application. First and foremost in the prayer for daily bread we are looking to Jesus as the bread of life that satisfies our souls. Jesus is the bread of life that came down from heaven. Jesus is the true and better manna. We need Jesus every day. The gospel is not merely the doorway into the Christian life but it is the Christian life.
But the petition for bread is not merely spiritual it is also tangible. Just as our Father in heaven provides for us spiritually in Christ, he also provides for us physically. The prayer for daily bread is asking the Father to meet our daily needs. That’s why we ask for daily bread. Just as the manna was new every day and would melt away in the sun or rot if it was kept, so we should ask God every day to meet our needs. God wants us to rely on him every day.
When I was in seminary I was a grader for Dr. Chad Brand. Dr. Brand had a great post on Facebook about a month ago where he discussed what we mean by the petition give us this day our daily bread.
“It is a prayer that God would give us health, the ability to work, a place of employment so we can earn our bread, a wife who can bake the bread that is to come, children who can join us in the feast, a government that will not interfere with our working for bread or take too much of our taxes that we cannot afford bread, a roof over our head so that we can eat the bread in comfort. And it is a prayer that others around us would have the same opportunity, since he said give US our bread, not ME.”
The petition for daily bread is the petition that God would meet our daily needs. He is our heavenly Father. He is our protector and provider. There is nothing we have that has not been given to us by him.
No one is a self-made man. No one pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. God is meticulously sovereign over every molecule in the universe. It is fitting not only that we acknowledge God’s provision in our lives but also that we look to him to provide. We must not trust in ourselves. We must not trust in our money or our abilities. It is our Father in heaven who gives us our daily bread.
The bread symbolism is not merely individualistic; it is also communal. We see this every week as we come together to the Lord’s Supper. We mentioned earlier that God has given us the sacraments to remind us of his grace just as he had Israel keep the manna in a jar to remember his grace. The bread reminds us of God’s grace but it also binds us together in God’s grace. The Apostle Paul makes this clear when he writes, the bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread (1 Cor 10.16-17).
We make a radical statement of unity when we come to the Eucharist every week. We all come from different ethnic, political, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds but we come to the same table and we eat the same bread and we drink the same wine. Holy Communion is the place where we not only look back at the death of Jesus and foreword to the marriage supper of the lamb but it is also the place where every week we remember that we all stand on level ground in Christ. We all eat the same bread. Regardless of skin color, gender, age, financial portfolio, address, education we are all sinners who need the righteousness of Christ imputed to us so that we can have communion with our holy God.
Conclusion
Scripture does not view bread as a matter of indulgence or health consciousness. In the Bible bread is a matter of life and death and the bread from heaven in Exodus 16 points us to the bread of life that came from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in Christ alone that we find eternal life. And Jesus gave us the bread and the wine to be consumed every Sunday so that we can remember and proclaim that Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again!