Putting the Day Together

Exodus 15:22–16:5 NIV

Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?” Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink. There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water. The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 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.” 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.”

Rhythm makes life easier. On the occasions when I have the opportunity to join and play in the band on Sunday morning, I appreciate that we have an awesome drummer like Scott to help keep us all together. Setting a good established rhythm helps to keep the band together; it makes things easier. Distance runners know how important is to establish a pace. When you run a marathon, you cannot sprint right off of the starting line. Runners set a rhythm to their pace so that the marathon is more easily attainable. Those of you who have ever had to work third shift overnight know how hard it can be on your body if you have to keep going back and forth between nights and days. You prefer to establish a rhythm for sleeping patterns because it makes things easier than flopping back and forth. Those of you who have ever struggled with heart arrhythmia know how draining it is on your energy when your heart has trouble staying in rhythm with its heartbeats. Rhythm makes it easier.

In fact, it seems like all creation operates within rhythms. There are seasons of the year that run course in their established times. This is because God has set our planet on a revolving axis around the star that is our sun. And the earth rotates as it revolves so that we maintain a constant rhythm of day and night. All creation points to a creating God who established a precise order as part of his creation—a rhythm that is built-in and exists within all of us.

God even echoes and maintains this rhythm through the ways in which he interacts with his chosen people. We see an example of that rhythm in this story today. We wrap up this series on worship by considering the ways in which God uses regular rhythms to point us into worship.

Catching a Glimpse Behind

Let’s pick up the story as Moses leads the Israelite slaves out of Egypt and into the desert. Many of us likely know the story of the plagues in Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea so that all the people in the nation of Israel pass through on dry ground. And then the waters of the Red Sea come back together and destroy the soldiers of Egypt who had pursued the Israelites. We remember that story. What we pick up today is three days later. This is only the third day of freedom from Egyptian captivity these people have known. On the one hand, I would imagine that the people would still be sharing stories of the absolutely surreal events from which they just came. But on the other hand, this new freedom thing comes with some challenges. These are people who have never had the freedom to fend for themselves before. Prior to this week, these people had lived under the oppressive hand of Egypt.

It seems only natural that so many of their thoughts might be wandering back to the only past experiences they had ever known. And it is in this moment that God sets a rhythm in front of his people to remind them of his direct involvement in these events of their lives. The reminder of this rhythm comes in the form of water.

After three days of traveling in the desert away from the Red Sea, the people are needing something to drink. And they finally come to a place of a desert oasis where there is water. But to their extreme dismay, the water is not healthy; they cannot drink it. In the words of the Biblical writer, the water is marah (a Hebrew word that literally means “bitter”). I suppose for them this more than a minor disappointment. Three days with nothing to drink is starting to border on pretty extreme desperation.

This is where God actively enters back into the story. He shows Moses a branch which Moses takes and throws into the water. And miraculously the water that was bitter and undrinkable suddenly becomes safe for everyone to quench their thirst and regain their strength. Maybe some people wonder what kind of wood this branch happened to be that it possibly contained chemical properties that killed off whatever algae or bacteria infected this oasis of water at Marah. But that misses the point of what is happening here.

What God does at Marah is providing his people with a glimpse behind to remind them of the rhythm of his protective activity which has unfolded over the past weeks while they were still transitioning out of Egypt. To be more precise, there were two previous incidents in the not-so-distant past which also involved water and a branch of wood. This whole showdown between the LORD and Pharaoh began with a plague in which Moses stretched out his wooden staff over the Nile river. And when he did, the water of the Nile changed from healthy and drinkable into water that was bitter and undrinkable—the exact opposite of what has just happened here at the waters of Marah!

And the other bookend to God’s miraculous activity in Egypt was the event of Moses again reaching his wooden staff over the waters of the Red Sea to part the water; and again to bring the sea back together covering the armies of Egypt. God began his exodus activity in Egypt with a piece of wood and some water. God ended his exodus activity in Egypt with a piece of wood and some water. And here now three days later in the desert God brings back the rhythm of his activity among his people with a piece of wood and some water. It is a rhythm which calls to mind a glimpse back to the past. It is a rhythm which clearly brings back into focus all that God had previously done in the lives of his people. It is a rhythm which helps his people remember. It is a rhythm which grounds them again in a foundation of worship to the God who has so powerfully provided for their needs in days gone by.

The water at Marah is about more than a drink for thirsty people. The water at Marah is rhythm giving a glimpse behind. This was an important reminder at an important time in which the people needed to focus back again on the God who provides for them. It is a rhythm which only gives a glimpse back at those events. A glimpse was all they needed. A rhythm keeps that glimpse active.

Now look how God uses the moment here with water to establish a rhythm. There is an instruction which follows the event at Marah. God says, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” Do you see it? A pattern; a rhythm; a glimpse of God showing up. And it is a rhythm which directs the attention of God’s people into lives of obedient worship.

Catching a Glimpse Ahead

Now let’s keep moving forward in the story, because water is only one part of the sustenance Humans need to survive. Immediately the passage brings us from Marah to an oasis called Elim. There is enough provision of water and rest at Elim for the Israelites to be refreshed for six weeks. After six weeks they head out again into the desert. And even though they have had plenty of water, now we appear to reach a point in the story where the food starts running out.

This is where God steps in with yet another rhythm to establish among his people. This is a rhythm which repeats a daily provision of food for God’s people. It is a rhythm that will repeat every day for the next forty years. Okay, technically it does not repeat every day, because every seventh day is an off day for the manna; and this is part of the rhythm as well.

Manna is God’s way of placing a rhythm to his daily provision. It is an intentional activity which reinforces the bigger truth that God provides enough for his people one day at a time. Every single day in which the people of Israel walk outside the camp and gather up enough manna to eat for one day is an activity which affirms the source of all daily provisions.

Pause here are remember the timing of where manna enters the story. The people of Israel have not yet reached mount Sinai. Moses has not yet received the ten commandments. There is no reason to believe yet at this point in the story that anyone in Israel knows what sabbath even means. The instruction of the law for observing sabbath rest has not yet been given. In fact, I imagine that it would have been completely possible for the people to scratch their heads and wonder why this whole seventh day skip for the manna even happens.

Look at what God is doing here. The rhythm of manna is giving a glimpse ahead towards the rhythm of sabbath rest which God will give as part of his covenant law to the people of Old Testament Israel. So, by the time Moses comes down the mountain with the tablet of the law which include instructions for sabbath, something of that rhythm is already built in for the people to observe. The manna gives them a glimpse ahead to see what God is doing.

When the people first go out to find manna here in Exodus 16, they discover that it tastes like honey. It is no accident that the promised land of Canaan is always referred to as a land flowing with milk and honey, and here in the desert is a daily rhythm of God’s provision which reminds people of honey. The manna is a glimpse ahead towards the milk and honey which describes the abundance of Canaan. How quickly the next generation of Israelites in Canaan will forget about the rhythm of manna which was supposed to remind them that all the provisions they receive from the land are actually from the hand of God who daily tends to the needs of his people.

And looking even further ahead to the gospels, we see Jesus taking the bread of the Passover celebration and establishing it as a rhythm for us yet today here in the church as a reminder that Jesus himself is our bread of life. We participate in this rhythm of manna every time we gather at the table of communion and celebrate the Lord’s Supper—which we will do here in this church next week Sunday. It is a rhythm which is meant to give us a glimpse ahead. When we receive and are nourished by the bread of communion, we are reminded of the continual daily spiritual nourishment we receive from the grace of God.

A Rhythm for Catching Glimpses

Rhythms make life easier. Having rhythms gives us a structure and orientation for moving through our world. Rhythms are built into us by God as a way to help us see glimpses of his activity in our lives.

Let’s be honest. Quite often we find ourselves living out-of-rhythm with God. The brokenness of this world and the sin of our own lives has a way of doing that, of breaking us from the rhythm of worship which daily points us to God. Oh, we still catch glimpses of God and his activity in our lives and in this world. Maybe we sometimes refer to those moments as ‘God sightings.’ But for many of us, the God sighting moments we encounter are random and scattered. We see glimpses of God that occasionally pop up on our spiritual radars seemingly out of nowhere. Perhaps it may even look accidental; we unknowingly bump into God moments without even looking for it.

All-Day-Worship is about embracing a rhythm of living in which we intentionally focus and see the activity of God showing up every day. We find these rhythms so that our encounters with the activity of God will not be merely occasional or random or accidental. We find these rhythms so that our glimpses into the activity of God in our lives and in our world will become evident every day.

Take a step in that direction today. Whether it is a daily devotional which begins your day, a time of prayer around your daily mealtime, a moment in scripture every afternoon or evening. If you do not have some kind of rhythm built into our day now which opens a glimpse of God into your life, start some kind of rhythm this week. God’s grace for you is not random, his love is not occasional, his forgiveness is not accidental. God intentionally provides these for you every day. Let the rhythm of your day see it. And let all of your days be a day of worship.