until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.
He prayed for death saying:
“This is enough, O LORD!
This is the effect that walking in the desert can have on us. We do OK with some shade, a cool breeze, and food in our stomach. But once things got hot and we get hungry it is only a matter of time before "bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling" surface. Just walking in the desert takes so much strength that we just don't have the reserves to remain "kind to one another, compassionate, "forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ."
Our way does lead through the desert. There is no changing that. We need something to strengthen us. We need food for the journey. In our hunger we want to give up, but when we are strengthened by the food which God gives we have the strength to journey on. Elijah is ready to quit after a single day but with the food the angel gives him he makes the entire forty day journey to the mountain of God.
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.
We receive even better food than Elijah. An angel gives him water and a hearth cake. We receive the bread from heaven and the cup of salvation. We need to taste and see just how good the LORD is. The angel of the LORD encamps around us just as he does around Elijah. When we trust in the bread God gives for strength we are delivered from all of our fears and our faces our radiant with joy, even here in the desert.
The risk we run is to look at this bread from heaven and see mere bread. The risk is to look at Jesus and see the earthly only, the son of Joseph only. We need to look to Jesus and see him who is both Son of God and Son of Mary. We need to look at the Eucharist and see the bread from heaven and not mere earthly bread. The Father wants to draw us and teach us to see Jesus here. It is absolutely vital that we do so. The desert is too much for us on our own. In the desert this bread from heaven is the only oasis of life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
May the Father reveal this to us by his Holy Spirit "with which you were sealed for the day of redemption". Filled with the bread from heaven and sealed with the Holy Spirit we have strength enough for our journey. We no longer risk bitterness and fury because of our weakness and hunger. Instead, we have grace enough to look beyond ourselves and exist for others, just as Christ does.
So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.
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