Life in the Wasteland: Exodus 15:22–18
Reading for Wednesday 3.22 – Friday 3.25
So much of Lent is about confronting the wilderness and looking towards the glory of God. It is a picture of our daily life with Jesus in this respect. We, too, look back at our deliverance wrought by the strong outstretched hands of Jesus. We know and believe that we were miraculously snatched from the grip of death at that moment. Yet we look up and see nothing but wasteland.
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Read Exodus 15:22–18
“And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel,
they looked toward the wilderness, and behold,
the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud.”Exodus 16:10 (ESV)
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Life in the Wasteland
Israel, emancipated by the outstretched hand of Yahweh, find themselves wandering in the barren desert. Stripped of the illusion built by the empire, they are left entirely dependent on Yahweh. Their oppressors gave them the illusion of security, provision, and life.
The manna is the lesson of the wasteland. Dependence on Yahweh must be renewed each day. There is no place for substituting reliance on Yahweh's presence with Yahweh's provisions. So water is given as it is needed, and always miraculously. And manna is to be gathered for the day (with the exception of the sabbath) with the knowledge that God will provide it again tomorrow. This material provision points to the more important life-giving reality in the wasteland. Yahweh is with Israel.
Israel's refusal to gather only enough for the day betrays their refusal to believe Yahweh will provide. A refusal to believe that Yahweh is with them and for them. They doubt that God can and will continue to sustain them.
So, Israel hoards.
So much of what Lent challenges us to do is to confront our desire to hoard. Hoarding offers the illusion of control, security, life. We hoard, or desire to hoard, food, clothes, information, money, others' attention, and power to provide ourselves with life amid the barrenness. This scarcity mindset can only see the wasteland and fails to see the giver of life that resides with us in it.
Jesus invites us to live risky lives of dependence, lives free from hoarding. Jesus invites us to see that actual provision in the wasteland is divinely initiated. Everything else offers a mere illusion of provision and will only rot.
We cannot provide this life for ourselves. So the wasteland life insists that God be with us while letting go of the illusions of life.
And God does. Each week at communion, we are reminded that the bread of heaven sustains us, carries us, satisfies us, gives us life. Turn away from the illusions of life. Behold the glory that goes with us in the wasteland providing life when there is none to be found.
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Reflect with a friend
In what ways is life like the wilderness? In what ways is it not? Does this difference somehow direct us to God?
How do the illusions of empire follow us into the wasteland? What illusions of life do you find yourself allured by?
In what ways is our desire to build lives of flourishing for ourselves hoarding? Do you see this tendency in yourself? What might it mean to let go of some of this? Is that a scary idea or a freeing on?
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Next Reading
Sat 3.26 – Tue 3.29
Exodus 19–20
