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Sunday 6 March 2016

'MISSING THE MANNA?'


Rev. Brian Wilkie
By Rev. Brian Wilkie                                                                                    

Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario


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PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, March 6th, 2016: 

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Broadcast Notes:

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Welcome to Good News In The Morning a program of words and music bringing a Christian message of hope and encouragement to those who are looking for intelligent meaningful and spirited approach to faith and to life.

This program is sponsored by Good News Christian Ministries PO Box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario K0G 1W0. I'm your host today, Brian Wilkie of St. Andrew's Christian church in Rockland. As always I want to thank you our listeners for your constant encouragement and support. Please remember that you can always visit our website for materials to encourage and support you in your Christian walk.

If you miss an episode of the show you can go to our website and download the podcast or the MP3 of our broadcast. Details can be found on our website.

Today and throughout the month of March, we want to thank Wills Transfer for their sponsorship. Wills Transfer is local company providing full service logistics and warehousing in eastern Ontario and western Quebec since 1945. We want to thank them for their support this year, and in previous years.

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Missing the Manna?

 Today I want to address with you the question of who is satisfying your hunger. I am titling this "Missing the Manna?," because the idea of God providing for the needs of his people is expressed in the story of providing the Manna, which occurred during the wilderness journey, as they escaped Egypt to Israel. But Jesus referred to that story of the Manna in the Gospel of John, and so I am reading today from  Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John:

(John 6:28–59). 28 Then they (the crowds) asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
32 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who 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 “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 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: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, 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 real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

Now that was quite a long bit, but in fact was such a difficult teaching the many people stopped following Jesus after he said this. They didn't understand the meaning of it. Let's take a look at the meaning of this in a few minutes, and let's continue to follow Jesus! But first let's listen to a song. This is a song that speaks about God feeding us with the bread from heaven is called Guide Me Oh Thou Great Redeemer and it's from a collection of hymns called a Celebration Of Hymns

Manna in the desert. If you read in the book of Exodus where the people of Israel were wandering in the desert. Of course a desert doesn't provide much in the way sustenance especially for such allowed large crowd of people. God provided for them by providing this thing 'manna.' The word manna means "what is it?" they really couldn't identify it. It was a white flaky thing that was on the ground and it was sweet to the taste. They were able to go out and gather it, and that was what sustain them through their years in the wilderness. Of course, sometimes they got tired of plain old manna, just as any of us can get tired of something even if it's the best thing we could possibly have. Having it day after day seems to bore us, seems to exhaust us. Well, they got tired of it and asked for other things and God sometimes provided alternatives. Sometimes he reacted with annoyance at their pettiness and their complaining. But the fact is the bread that they ate in the wilderness did not sustain them for eternal life. In fact the generation that refused to go into the land of Canaan, when the scouts had returned and given a message about that land, they got afraid they wouldn't go in. That entire generation passed away in the desert before the people of Israel were allowed to continue on into the promised land. The manna sustained them but it didn't give them a lasting life, an eternal life. Yet there a few things about manna that make it a great symbol of God's provision, God's graceful provision. Israelite people didn't do anything to deserve that manna. They were being rescued. They were helpless as slaves in Egypt, they were delivered across the Red Sea by miraculous sign and when they were in the desert they couldn't make their own way.  They didn't know how to provide for themselves in the desert. God provided this manna gracefully and he did in a way that taught them a lot about his character. For instance the manna appeared every morning six days of the week and on the sixth day, when people went to gather the manna, they could gather twice as much and they could keep it overnight so that on the seventh day they could rest from that little tiny labor they'd had.  They could take a break and they still have enough to supply them in the in the coming day.  Jesus Christ, God, wanted to teach them the importance of that seventh day rest so they would stick to it when they were farmers and craftsmen and traders in the promised land. It was going to be worked into them through the 40 years the desert has God made it possible for them to take a break. In fact he made it impossible for them do anything other than take a break and have a rest on the seventh day. The seventh day is still a day when we should be taking time away and especially focusing on God to renew us and remind us of the importance of God in the whole of the week.

This was one of the lessons we learned from the manna that came in the desert. Another lesson that came from the manna in the desert was how God provided a gracefully to all people as they had need. You see the manna was something that people could collect but if somebody went out and really got energetic and collected a whole bunch of manna they would find that they didn't have any more than they needed at the end of the day. Those who were only able, because of the weakness or infirmity, to collect just a little bit of manna, or those having a large family to feed, they would find that somehow or other God provided enough. It was something like that miracle that Jesus did with the fish and the loaves when he was teaching the people. Just a few fish were enough to feed the entire multitude with much left over. A graceful provision and ability to give what people need when they really needed it. The manna that they collected in the desert was also something that they couldn't keep, except for a couple samples that were put in the Ark of the Covenant. If anybody tried to keep the manna overnight, "just in case God wasn't going to provide it the next day," well, on every night except the night before the Sabbath that manna would go rotten and there would be worms in it in the morning and would be completely inedible. God wanted the people to trust him day by day for the provision of manna. They couldn't have a Manna Bank where they could store up their Retirement Savings Plan of manna in the background. That was not part of God's training of the people of Israel.

Now when Jesus says that he is the bread from heaven, it's at a interesting turn in his ministry. The people are starting to recognize that Jesus is something special they aren't quite sure how to identify him. Some of them are offended because they know he's just Mary and Joseph's son. "He can't be anything special, we knew him when he was growing up, we know his parents, we know where he comes from!" Jesus points out to them that his origin is not just what you can see. The mom and the dad that you find in the town of Nazareth in Galilee. The origin of Jesus Christ is beyond that. He comes down from heaven. He was conceived in Mary's womb by the Holy Spirit, he is the eternal son of God. He doesn't spell all that out, but he does drop hints that cause them to wonder. "Who does he think he is?" Now he declares this to them in words that really reflect the kind of questions they're asking, because they ask him for some miraculous sign that he is the one that God has sent. When they refer to the manna in the desert Jesus turns that phrase on them. He says. "You know what? That bread that they had in the desert, that wasn't the bread that came from heaven. The true bread that came comes from heaven is the bread that gives eternal life." They respond, "Oh, Oh, we'd love to have this bread."

If you dig through the words that Jesus says here, he's really saying, "the bread from heaven is me, the thing you really need is not a sign, not a wonder, but it's me." Jesus is the one who has come to save and to provide eternal life, to give us everything we need to live a new life in relationship with God. In fact Michael Card has recorded a song that reflects this sentiment, reflects this truth and reality, when he sings an old hymn, Jesus Lover Of My Soul. Won't you listen to that song with me now?  

The crowds that followed Jesus hadn't quite figured out who he was, and now he was saying that he was the bread that came from heaven. They were being very literally minded because they were thinking of bread. Maybe they were hungry, maybe it was lunch time, but they couldn't get the idea of literal bread out of their minds. They wanted something to fill their bellies, they want something to satisfy their bodies; Jesus had come to satisfy their souls. First and foremost he had come to give them eternal life. When he says he's the bread of heaven they take some offense, but he's not going to let them off with some light pat answer. In fact he says something even more offensive to them. He says, "Yes in fact, you've asked the silly question, 'How can I give you my flesh to eat?' Well, I am the life you need, I am the bread that you need. If you want to be silly about and say that you have to eat this flesh, then I will tell you the truth unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you. Now let's face it, if you’ve been listening to the gospel throughout your life you've heard this phrase. It's become just part of what Jesus said, and we understand something of what he means by it, and even so we find it an uncomfortable saying. We find it difficult and challenging and can imagine that the first people who heard this, these Jewish listeners, were very much put off, saying that we needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Well you and I know that he wasn't mean that quite literally. Even though when he comes to the Last Supper he breaks bread and offers the cup and says this bread is my body broken for you and this cup is my blood poured out for you, for the forgiveness of sins.

We understand that that while we're receiving Jesus, we're not actually eating flesh and blood. We're still eating bread, we're still drinking wine, but we know that that at the same time as we doing this we're receiving Christ. We're letting Christ into our lives, to actually be, to really be our strength and our nourishment, to really be our cleansing and our life. We really do need to have Jesus in us in order for us to live. That doesn't sound very offensive.

But the truth, the further truth behind Jesus words is this: that he actually had to die. His body had to be broken on the cross in order for us to gain eternal life. He actually had to have his blood spilled out in order for us to be forgiven. We like to think that sin could be dealt with in some subtler way, some more poetic way. This is kind of ugly, the crucifixion. It's kind of challenging. Surely the problem isn't that bad! Surely the problem isn't that serious that God, having become flesh, would actually have to lay down his life in order that we could be reconciled to him.

Well, unfortunately there's no way around these words of Jesus. This is the testimony of his life and death and resurrection, that our rebellion against God, our sin against one another, all that we have done wrong, all that the ways we have fallen short are extraordinarily serious to God. In effect our rebellion against God counts as our attempt on his life, our attempt to push God out, to kill God in order to have our own freedom and our own way.

How sad that our own freedom and our own way has led to destruction, led to so much hurt in the world, led do so much harm being poured out in so many directions. The only way to stop this is for God to come and offer himself. Offer himself to take up the weight of our sin, offer himself to be the one who gets attacked, the one who gets killed in order for us to be given forgiveness and eternal life. It's a mystery and a mystery which the people at that time really weren't ready to accept

The question today is whether you're ready to accept it, whether we're ready to accept it. Many people have hunger in their lives. They're looking for satisfaction and it doing it through so many physical means. They are trying to find the best food, trying to find drugs, or medicines to ease their pain, and to change their life. Many people are starving in the midst of plenty as they look for meaning and purpose, but refuse to turn to Jesus.
Can you imagine being in the desert and seeing that manna on the ground, seeing everybody eating of that manna and being satisfied, but perhaps you're one of those picky eaters that just goes "oh, no, no, I couldn't possibly, I don't know what it is. It looks weird. It probably tastes weird."

We had children like that at our table, and it's amazing to see that people can go hungry with wonderful food all around them.  Jesus is with you now. Jesus is right in your presence and you are able to feed on him simply by receiving him, by crying out to him. Even the person who calls out, "God I don't even know if you there, but I need you!" That person is calling upon a God who lives to hear and respond and to come and meet needs, and so we are able to receive Jesus, receive this bread of life and receive a gift that will change us eternally.

 I hope this message has been helpful for you. Especially as we prepare for the Easter season that you'll think about how God has given his life for you and how he has provided you with the very thing you need through his death on the cross and his resurrection.

Let's pray for a moment and then we'll conclude the program.

Almighty God, we thank you that you have given yourself. It's hard to comprehend how great your love is. It's also sometimes hard to admit how great our need is. We are thankful that when we cry out to you, Jesus, when we call upon your name, you do save us.
Be with each one who calls upon you, Lord, and reveal to them that you have given them life as they have received you as their Savior. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name Amen.

Once again I want to thank our listeners for your encouragement and support. We do thank you because you keep us on the air week by week. Can we please encourage you to support our ministry financially Your gift can help us to continue to meet that one vital expense, the cost of broadcasting, which enables us to reach you and over 7000 listeners in the Ottawa River Valley. If you can please make a cheque payable to Good News Christian Ministries and send it to P.O. Box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario K0G 1W0. We will be happy to send you a receipt at income tax time. I also want to encourage you to tell others about this program.

Be sure to worship in a church where the gospel is soundly proclaimed and lived out with compassion, integrity and resolve. Now to conclude our program I would like to have you listen to a song called  I'd Rather Have Jesus sung by Winchester native, George Beverly Shea. Good News In The Morning is produced in the Studios of News Talk Radio 580 CFRA.

- Rev. Brian Wilkie
St. Andrew's Christian Community, Rockland, Ontario
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To listen to the above broadcast, click on the following link:

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