430
years. A long time. In our own history as a nation, if we were to
go back 430 years that would put us 35 years before the Mayflower Pilgrims
landed at Plimoth. But that’s how long
the Israelite community had been enslaved in Egypt. Imagine - 430 years of slavery – without freedom,
without dignity. For 21 generations.
And
we know the story – God miraculously intervened in their history - by plagues
and finally the pass-over, led them through the Red Sea, set them free after
430 years of bondage! And the very next scene
is today’s first reading - we see the
community of Israel in the desert, less than two months later…complaining! Grumbling.
Longing, even, to return to their enslavement where at least there were
fleshpots and plenty of bread to eat.
Now
my first inclination was to preach about their ungratefulness. About their grumbling. To think that they’d be complaining so soon
after their freedom, especially after 430 years of slavery! After all, aren’t we each, to some extent,
ungrateful? Don’t we all, at least a
little, take for granted what we’ve been given and sometimes grumble? Some people more than others, of course. Some people, and I’m thinking now of a woman
I recently met and got to know over a few months, seem never to be
satisfied. Nothing is ever quite good enough, never quite
pleased.
But
after further reflection, what I realized is this – the Israelite people were
hungry! Starving. And physical hunger is a very powerful
motivator, such that the “entire community” joined in grumbling against Moses
and Aaron. More powerful a motivator,
apparently, than freedom.
Now
if I were God, hearing this complaining and grumbling immediately after freeing
this people, I might just have smote them, but our loving and merciful God does
nothing of the sort – no, He listens, and He feeds them. Quail in the evening, flakes of bread every
morning – manna, it’s called, the Hebrew word for their question, “what is it?”
Food,
He gives them, for strength, to sustain them for their journey to the land He
has promised them. Food to satisfy their hunger.
In
our Gospel, Our Blessed Lord also speaks of hunger, but a different kind of
hunger. Each of us is not any less
dependent on our daily bread than the Israelite community to keep from bodily
hunger, but each of us has another, different, even greater kind of hunger –
the hunger for God, the thirst for His love.
This hunger is imprinted in our being, God created us with this hunger,
indeed God created us for intimate union with Him. At the very beginning of the Catechism, we
read “the desire for God is written in the human
heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw
man to himself.”
But
so many of us go through life seeking to satisfy this hunger, quench this
thirst, in all kinds of ways that are not God.
“Looking for love in all the wrong places,” so to speak, as the song
goes. And the inevitable result? As Mick Jaggar sings, “I can’t get no
satisfaction.”
Now
it’s true that many of us get some satisfaction, become quite comfortable, with
the things of this world, so that this hunger for God is kind of buried deep
down. Like the crowd in this Gospel whom
the Lord had just fed with the loaves and fishes, fed til they were full, with
twelve baskets left over. So satisfied,
so comfortable, that the flame of desire for God in our lives becomes barely a
flicker.
But
even so, that hunger is always there. Whether
we know it or not, whether we admit it or not, and many people go through life
denying it, each of us has this hunger for God, for God’s love, imprinted on
our hearts. It’s a restlessness - a
hunger of which St. Augustine wrote at the very beginning of his book
Confessions: Lord, “You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are
restless till they find rest in You.”
Now
just like the Lord God satisfied the hunger of His children in the desert, so
He satisfies our hunger for relationship with Him as well – and He does so in
the person of His very Son, Jesus Christ.
That is the message of the Gospel today – He, Jesus, is the only way our
hunger for the eternal can ever be satisfied.
It is only He, the “true bread from heaven” as He calls Himself, given
by our loving, merciful Father, who gives “life to the world.”
The
message today, what Our Lord is saying to each of us, and not only us but to
everyone out there who doesn’t know Him yet, is that we will only be satisfied,
we will only find rest for our restless hearts, in relationship with Him. “Whoever comes to me will never hunger. Whoever believes in me will never thirst,” He
promises us.
He,
Jesus, is the new manna. He is the new
Man - sent from heaven as sustenance, as strength, as food for our journey – as
we journey to the Land the Lord has promised.
In this life so often filled with pain, heartache, with sin, it is only
in faith in Him, in intimate relationship with Him, in following after Him that
we find peace, joy, rest.
And
He will teach us at length in next Sunday’s Gospel and the week after that, He,
Jesus, is the new manna here at this altar, here in Eucharist. He has given to us this most amazing gift,
Himself, His sacred body and precious blood, his real presence hidden under the
appearance of bread and wine. In this
true bread from heaven He feeds us and nourishes us to sustain us on our
journey to the land He promises us.
Let
us never take for granted, let us always be thankful, for His most amazing gift
to us. And let us always be filled with
His fire to share this most amazing gift with others.
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