Transitory Breadcrumbs

Exactly one year ago yesterday, I hugged a couple of my Kindergartners standing under the covered entrance of the school where I work and said, "I'll see you tomorrow!" and they said, "Bye, Mrs. Shoemaker!" and they looked so cute with their big eyes and happy smiles, and I really, honestly did look forward to seeing them again.

Exactly one year ago last night, I read the list of school closures and shoved aside my lesson plans I had written out for Friday. Apparently, I wasn't going to be teaching them after all.

Exactly one year ago today, I met at the school with fellow teachers, all of us in various stages of shock, to macgyver take-home bags of educational materials for families who were no longer allowed to send their children to our school. I remember staring at the computer screen where I'd listed dates and activities to do for a period of a few weeks. I felt utterly inadequate. I had no idea how long to plan for, what to offer -- what to suggest with equity so every student had equal opportunity to learn.

I felt like Hansel or Gretel, leaving breadcrumbs to make a path through a dark wood, realizing -- when it was all said and done -- that my efforts were as transitory as the crumbs' rapid migration from path to birds' beaks.

Transitory bread. Easy come, easy go. 

In Exodus 16, the Israelites have been on the road for approximately a month. They're heading southwest instead of northwest. The northwestern military and trade routes to the Promised Land would have been much shorter, but they are roads heavily spotted with Egyptian fortresses. The roads cut right through Amalekite land and enter Philistia (which means political tensions), so Moses leads the people along the "way of the sea" (around the perimeter of the Saudi peninsula). He takes the Israelites to Midian, where he had lived for forty years as a shepherd, and where he had first seen the burning bush where the Lord had given him his great life's work.

Anyway, small surprise, and right in line with what I wrote yesterday, the Israelites are complaining again. "In the desert, the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, 'If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death'" (Exodus 16:2-3).

How quickly we forget the Lord's miraculous work in our lives. 

"God, there's an Egyptian army. We're all gonna die!" 
The Lord clogs up the chariot wheels of the Egyptian army and collapses a sea of water on top of them.

"God, we're soooo thirsty, and the only water we've found is bitter!"
Moses throws a piece of wood the Lord shows him into the water, and it turns sweet.

"God we're sooooo hungry. If only we had died in Egypt!"
The Lord sends manna.

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day, they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days" (Exodus 16:4-5).

The word manna means "What is it?" and as the flakes fell from heaven, forming like frost on the ground, the Israelites pick it up and test it. It's the consistency of bread wafers and tastes like honey.

The Lord sets specific ground rules, a way to test the Israelites to -- once again -- see if they're listening in obedience. He sends plentiful manna for each day, and the Israelites are to gather only as much as they need. If they try to hold any over until the next day, guess what moves into the bread? Maggots. Yay.

Except for the sixth day. On the sixth day, each person gathers twice as much, prepares it, and eats it -- maggot-free -- on the seventh day. This is the first official observance of the Sabbath rest, a precedent set by God Himself when He creates the world in six days and rests on the seventh.

Did everyone pass the test? Nope. "However, some of [the Israelites] paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of [the gathered manna] until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell" (Exodus 16:20). 

On the seventh day, the day the Lord told them He wouldn't be sending any manna, 'cause they were supposed to have gathered and prepared it the day before, "Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none" (Exodus 16:27).

And the Lord is exasperated. "How long will you refuse to keep My commands?"

Yesterday as I prepared to take my Kindergartners outside to enjoy the beautiful warm weather, I told them, "You do not need to wear your jackets." As I sent kids one at a time to use the bathroom and wash their hands, one small voice piped up from the front of the classroom: "Do we need to wear our jackets?"

Patiently, I shook my head. "Nope. No jackets necessary today. It's warm out. You don't need to wear them."

I told the first kid to go line up. Another voice piped up from the middle of the room. "Are we supposed to wear our jackets?"

I sang my line (what I do when I'm about to lose it): "You don't need to wear your jackets!"

We all lined up, and I was getting ready to lead them out the door, when one last voice broke me: "Mrs. Shoemaker, are we supposed to wear our jackets?"

It was frustrating, but how often do we do the very same thing to God? He leaves clear instructions, gives directions and expects obedience, and we question Him and His word. "Did God really say..."

Who else uses that phrase? Oh, that's right: Garden of Eden, serpent: "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden?" (Genesis 3:1)

Back to the bread. The Israelites complain in Numbers 11:5: "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost -- also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic."

At no cost?! The cost of freedom is a steep price for anyone to pay, but the Israelites reduce it to nothing in their forgetfulness. The Lord provides the hungry Israelites with sustenance. Does He give them a nine-course meal each morning or evening? No. 

He provides a one-time meal of quail: "That evening, quail came and covered the camp." The Israelites could eat their fill of meat. And then He provides a continuous supply of bread for the entire time the Israelites journey through the desert.

God's timing is key: This same manna that the Lord sends, with exact regularity, day in, day out -- except for the seventh day of each week -- this same manna stops coming the day after the Israelites celebrate the Passover in the Promised Land. "The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened bread, and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was  no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year, they ate of the produce of Canaan" (Joshua 5:11-12).

Know what this reminds me of? The wedding feast of the Lamb. Revelation 19:9: "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb." Wedding suppers are sumptuous, rich, plentiful. Wedding feasts are an outpouring of generosity on the part of the bride and groom as they lavish their appreciation and love on their guests, and as they invite others to share in their joy.

John 6:25-29 gives us a little speech Jesus tells His disciples when they find Him after the feeding of the five-thousand. "I tell you the truth, you are looking for Me, not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On Him God the Father has placed His seal of approval." He goes on, in verse 35, to say: "I am the Bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and He who believes in Me will never be thirsty." 

See -- breadcrumbs are transitory, until we eat of the Bread of life. Until we sit down at the wedding table of the Lamb and eat the wedding feast, everything else is temporary. Jesus is the only lasting "Bread." Jesus is the only Living Water ("Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" -- John 4:13-14).

When schools let out last year, teachers did what they could to teach. We dropped breadcrumbs onto a path, not having any idea when the trail would run out, or if the bread would be enough to follow. Our goal was to get the children through until we could meet again. 

And wow, that journey has been long, much much longer than anticipated.

This simple example fades drastically in comparison to the pilgrimage we walk here on earth as we wait for the wedding feast in heaven. Revelation 2:25: "Only hold on to what you have until I come." The Lord sends sustenance along the way -- until the very day we eat the wedding feast in the final Promised Land.

What a day that will be!