What is it?

Manna--bread from Heaven sent by God to feed His people as they wandered in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. What delightful images that word conjures up in the minds of Christians and Jews alike! Can any person of faith hear that word without being moved? Considering the monikers that have been attributed to manna, it seems unlikely.  A list of synonyms from Merriam-Webster includes: “feast, joy, delight, pleasure, treat.”

Exodus 16 gives a detailed description of the first time manna fell. After being delivered from slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel were hungry, and God sent vast numbers of quail into the Israeli camp so that they would have meat. The following morning when the dew disappeared, it left behind tiny flakes on the ground that were white and flat and tasted like honey bread. The Israelis called the food “manna” and ate it for forty years until they arrived in the land of Canaan where they had crops to eat.

Why did the people of Israel call the food “manna?” The word sounds exotic to our English language ears. If we did not know better, we would expect it to mean something equivalent to “God’s gift to his people” or “provision” or “bread from Heaven,” but manna means nothing of the sort. When the people saw it, they said, “What is it?” Even after they realized that these tiny flakes were food from God, they did not even bother to give it an appropriate name. They just continued to call it manna—a Hebrew word meaning “What is it?”

Manna was a free gift sent by God to nourish his people as they waited to enter the Promised Land. During those forty years, the manna was a constant; the people never lacked for food. Were they grateful? Of course not! They complained that when they were slaves in Egypt they enjoyed garlic and leeks and cucumbers, and they looked back to that time of horrible bondage with longing.

Fourteen hundred years later the people were again in bondage. They were living in the Promised Land, but they were now living under Roman rule, and they felt hopeless as they struggled under the oppressive Roman yoke. God chose this time to send them more bread from Heaven.

This second bread came in the form of a baby born in a manger in Bethlehem. He grew to manhood and became both the most loved and the most hated figure in history. He multiplied the loaves and fishes and fed the multitudes literal bread. The night before He was crucified, He broke bread which He gave to His disciples saying, “This is my body, broken for you.”

Unfortunately, Jesus Christ, God’s second gift of bread from Heaven, was treated in just about the same manner as the manna. For the past two thousand years, people have been looking at Him and saying, “What is it?” Some say that He was a “good man.” Others say that He was a prophet. A few argue that He was a charlatan who staged His life and death to fulfill the scriptures of the coming Messiah.

Those of us who call ourselves Christians recognize that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who was crucified and rose on the third day so that we could have eternal life. We never need to look at Jesus and say, “What is it?” We know that He is the bread from Heaven that completely satisfies our souls.

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