The Grumbling in the Wilderness

Exodus 16:1–8; Colossians 1:15–23

The whole congregation of Israel murmurs against Moses and Aaron: If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. It has been only weeks since the Red Sea parted. Already, slavery with full stomachs sounds better than freedom with empty ones.

We should not judge them too quickly. The grumbling of the Israelites is the grumbling of every person who has ever chosen a difficult path and then, halfway through, wondered if it was worth it. Lent itself can feel like this—the initial resolve fading, the old comforts calling, the voice that says, Why did you sign up for this?

"The only way out is through." —Robert Frost, "A Servant to Servants"

God’s response to the grumbling is not punishment. It is provision. I am going to rain bread from heaven for you. Manna—the word itself means What is it?—appears each morning like dew. Enough for one day. No more. You cannot stockpile it. You cannot save it for tomorrow. Each day you must go out and gather, trusting that tomorrow’s bread will come tomorrow.

This is the economy of grace: daily, sufficient, impossible to hoard. It dismantles the anxiety of accumulation. It refuses to let us build storehouses against future scarcity. It asks us, every single morning, the same question: Do you trust me today?

Paul’s hymn in Colossians takes us to the cosmic scale: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created. In him all things hold together. The same Christ who holds galaxies in orbit is the one who rains bread in the desert. The God of the incomprehensibly vast is also the God of the daily portion.

Henri Nouwen wrote that the spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now. Manna cannot be separated from the wilderness. The bread comes precisely where the hunger is. Not in the temple. Not in the promised land. In the desert.

Today, if you are grumbling—about the difficulty of the journey, the emptiness of the wilderness, the things you have given up—hear the promise: bread is coming. Not enough for a week. Not enough to eliminate the need to trust again tomorrow. But enough for today. And today is all you need.

The twentieth-century monk Thomas Merton wrote about manna in language that still rings true: The grip of possessiveness is the source of most of our problems. We clutch things—including spiritual things—because we are afraid. The manna economy directly confronts this fear. You cannot stockpile grace. You cannot store up tomorrow's mercy against tomorrow's need. You must go out each morning with open hands and trust that what appears will be sufficient. This is not recklessness. It is the deepest form of wisdom—the acknowledgment that we are creatures, not creators, and that our sustenance comes from beyond ourselves.