He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna,
a food unknown to you and your fathers,
in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live,
but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.
We need food to live. We can go without it for a while and become hungry. Our very bodies insist on the importance of food. Yet even in our hunger we are meant to remember something even more important than food and even more basic. We need the word of God to sustain us. He is the one who can provide food for us even in the desert. By his power he supernaturally ensures that we have what we need for our journey.
We depend on food. But in truth, we depend on God for that food and for everything else. It is that dependence on God that we remember. This is why there is something greater than the manna in the desert which is meant to satisfy our souls at a deeper level.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
We are meant to depend on God. Here's the cool part. He wants to satisfy us not merely with things external like the food for which we hunger. He wants to satisfy us with himself. We hunger in order to learn to hunger for him.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me
will have life because of me.
Around a table we are united in sharing a meal. The manna in the desert was a source of unity for the people of God. But when we receive God himself we are united with one another in an even deeper way.
Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.
He feeds us with word and Sacrament. He dwells in us and we in him. He unites us as one. Let us give due honor to so sacred a feast. Let us gather at the table of the altar of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment