Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends all around the world,
As I’m writing this today, I’m in the city of Dakar, Senegal and the world cup global ‘futbol’ tournament is being played in the country of Qatar. Last night the National team of Senegal won their game, and this city of several million people became a giant, city wide celebration! Every street was filled with honking horns and flag waving cheering fans! When was the last time you were in such a setting? While there are yet more games to play, for last night it was a nationwide celebration.
In our 30-day journey toward Christmas 2022, I’ve been leading you back into the Old Testament of the Bible to see how in events hundreds of years before that miraculous night in Bethlehem, God was doing miraculous things which pointed FORWARD to Christmas!
What I experienced here in Dakar, Senegal last night, was probably very similar to what was happening that night in Egypt, about 1400 years before Jesus was born, as the Pharaoh finally succumbed to the pressure of God’s miraculous plagues, which had decimated the land, and Pharaoh released 1 million Hebrew slaves from their bondage. Can you imagine the cheering as they ran out of Egypt carrying everything they could, including food and water.
That remarkable scene is described for us in Exodus 14. Soon both food and water ran out and these 1 million people were in the desert. Yesterday we saw how God provided water miraculously for the thirsty people and their animals.
Today, look with me at Exodus 16. It had been about 45 days since that celebration night of escape from slavery, but by now the heat, the scorching sun, the endless sand was getting old, very old. The record says: “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said, ‘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 us to death!” (Ex. 16:2) Have you found that hard times, tragedy, crisis, problems usually distort your perception of what’s really going on in your life? In their starving, heat exhaustion desperation, their recollection of what slave life had been like back in Egypt was distorted! As our world is caught in rising inflation, some countries are in recession. In other places famine is killing thousands of people as it hasn’t rained in years and crops and animals and even children are dying. In other places harsh, corrupt governments or militaries strangle the hopes for freedom of people. All over the world, the moral implosion taking place has plunged humanity into an evil darkness that is suffocating us and unbridled violence and wickedness seems uncontrollable. Do you see a desperate desire for hope and help wherever you live, just as those desperate Hebrew slaves in the desert had?
Christmas is a major part of God’s response to the desperation of our world; do you see that? Look at how God responded to those desperate cries of starving Hebrews in the desert: “The LORD said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out and gather enough for that day…. In the morning you will see the glory of the LORD because He has heard your grumbling…” (Ex. 16:3-7) If you know the miraculous story of God’s provision of what they called “Manna” it really is remarkable! A daily bread delivery from heaven, fresh each morning, but it required the people to go out and pick it up and cook it. Do you remember God sent this miraculous ‘bread delivery’ 6 days per week and only on that sixth day was the manna such that it did not spoil but it lasted the weekend. Also, do you remember, this miraculous bread delivery fell from heaven every day for 40 years as they traveled the desert. No matter where they camped each night, in the morning the manna was there for them! Never late, never did it fall in a place far from where they camped.
God kept these 1 million people alive with His daily provision. Now can you see how this pointed forward to Christmas?
One day Jesus found Himself on a hillside near Lake Galilee with His disciples and as often happened a crowd gathered around them. This time the crowd grew very large, in fact several thousand people. Jesus healed some, gave sight to some blind people, freed some people from demonic strongholds in their lives, and for several hours spoke God’s wonderful truths to that huge crowd. Toward evening His disciples urged Jesus to send the huge throng home so they could eat, but Jesus shocked them by saying, “you give them something to eat”! You’ll find this amazing story in John 6. Of course, the disciples had no food! They were shocked, and one of them, Andrew, spoke up: “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will that go with so many people?” Perhaps you remember Jesus did a remarkable miracle that day by multiplying that little boy’s lunch and the disciples did feed all those people by distributing huge baskets full of fish and bread. Jesus was doing that day, on that hillside, what God had done every day for 40 years in the desert for those wandering 1 million Hebrews!
The next day the people found Jesus again and Jesus said to them: “I tell you the truth, you are looking for Me not because of the miracles I have performed but because you ate your fill of fish and loaves. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man gives you. For on Him, God the Father has placed His seal of approval.” (John 6:26) It’s true for all humanity in every generation, in every part of the world, isn’t it? We so easily find our attention and our appetites turned away from the really important things of life, the eternally significant things, to such simple, short lived satisfactions as food or toys or entertainment or the accumulation of things which we’ll end up leaving here when we die.
Remember Paul wrote to Timothy: “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” (1 Tim. 6:6,7) So, what is the track record of your life my friends? What are the attractions, the pursuits which easily distract you from the really important questions, the important life and death issues of the human life journey? Are you settling for pursuit of things that have no eternal significance or value?
The people with Jesus that day made a profound statement to Him as they tried to understand WHO He really was and WHAT was the true significance of His teachings: “What sign will you give us that we may see it and believe in you? Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness…” Oh they had heard the famous stories, but over the years they had forgotten the meaning, the significance of that daily bread delivery from God! So, Christmas Jesus responded with this shocking statement: “It was not Moses who gave your ancestors bread from heaven, but it is My Father who now gives you true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the entire world… I am the bread of life! Whoever comes to Me will never go hungry…” (John 6:30-35) Look around the crowd my friends… their mouths are hanging open in disbelief of what Jesus just said! Jesus just claimed Almighty God in heaven is HIS Father! Jesus claimed HE had been sent by Almighty God from heaven where He had been with God, to earth. Jesus claimed HE was God’s provision for the entire world to survive starving to death in our world filled with evil and wickedness. Jesus was claiming HE not only could give people the nourishment needed to live a life worth living here on earth, but He could provide them the food they needed to gain eternal life, forever with God in heaven! THAT was the ultimate purpose for CHRISTMAS!
Now, do you understand what Jesus was saying, my friends? Do you understand how the daily, survival, heaven sent bread delivery in the desert is a forward pointing picture to God sending the LIVING Bread, Jesus, to earth to feed us God’s truth, to show us God’s way to live a God honoring life here and now, and most of all, to show us God’s ONLY provided way for our deliverance from our sin bondage and an eternity with God in His heaven?
May I ask… is Jesus your BREAD of Life? Is Jesus sustaining your life every day? Are you confident your trust in Jesus will bring you to heaven for eternity? Let’s worship together with another wonderful song right now and thank Jesus for being the Bread of Life!
Today’s Scripture is Exodus 16.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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