SHADYSIDE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Your son, our Savior, said this after he had been talking about the manna you gave to the Hebrews as they journeyed through the desert.  The manna was a curious way to sustain life on a long wilderness journey.  It wasn’t much – just enough to keep them alive.  Everyone had to get their own manna, and they had to gather it every day.  All of these conditions provide helpful insights into how you care for each of us on the journey through the hard places of life.

What is most fascinating to me is the name of the manna, which in the Hebrew means, What is it?  So every morning the Hebrew mothers would gather up a bowl of What is it?  Then they would prepare it as creatively as they could, I am sure.  But their kids would always look at it and say, “What is it?”  All that the mothers could say was, “Yes.”  This means that you kept your people alive not with reassurances, but with a question.  “What is it, O God, that you are doing to us out here in the desert?”

This question just kept being asked for centuries until Jesus appeared.  Then he claimed that he was the new manna.  That means your answer to the old question is revealed in Jesus Christ, but he only claims to be the new What is it?  So the answer to the great question is another question.  Only it’s a better question, which is most of the agenda in true spirituality.

Now our souls are nourished by taking in the daily question of What is it that Jesus is doing?  We really don’t need the answer to that.  We just need to believe that Jesus the Savior is doing something.  So help our unbelief.  Amen.