Into the Wilderness – Exodus 16-17, Numbers 14

Uh today we'll be in Exodus 16

in our Lenton series. But before we read

our text for today,

are you familiar with uh the Disney

movies Frozen? And I promise I promise

that like I won't uh often share

illustrations, sermon illustrations from

Disney movies, but but really Disney

movies are great and I think there's a

lot of profound imagery and illustration

that happens there. But in uh

particularly in Frozen, in Frozen 2,

we're introduced or we see again this

character Olaf. He's a whimsical,

enchanted snowman, and he enters his

teenage years in Frozen 2.

And as he enters his teenage years, he's

pained with a flood of everinccreasing

thoughts of maturation and a broadening

sense of the world and everything around

him. His

character serves, I think, one as like a

light-hearted comedic relief throughout

these movies, but it's also juxtaposed

against um some like deep existential

insight.

Olaf is constantly, audibly pondering

his inner turmoil out loud, saying

things like, "Do you ever wonder about

the notion that nothing is permanent?"

or the advancing technologies we have

will both be our savior and our doom

or also

how do you guys cope with the

everinccreasing complexity of thought

that comes with maturity. So he's just

like spouting off these like different

deep kind of ideas as he's uh waiting

through his teenage years in Frozen 2.

But perhaps I think one of my favorite

quotes from Olaf comes when he says uh

his like cadre of characters that he's

going along with uh they are chased to

the edge of this mysterious wood by a

haunted song.

And as it leads them to the edge of this

wood and they suspensefully enter this

forest, Olaf breaks the silence by

foreshadowing what is about to happen.

He says, "Did you know that an enchanted

forest is actually a place of deep

transformation?"

Kind of insinuating what's about to

happen in the movie.

As we're in our Lenton series, we are

exploring the wilderness. And the

wilderness that's portrayed in the Bible

is a place of great influence in the

biblical narrative. It's a place in

which we see John the Baptist doing his

ministry, baptizing people, proclaiming

the arriving Messiah.

We see Jesus in the wilderness,

spending 40 days fasting, being met with

the devil in temptation, but also in

preparation for his ministry.

We see Jesus often retreat to desolate

wilderness places in order to get away

from the crowds that hem him in in order

to reconnect with the father.

In our story today, in the text that

we're going to look at, we see a

recently freed people who are sojouring

between the place that they were

enslaved in in Egypt to this place in

which God promised them that they were

going to inhabit, the promised land.

The wilderness is a place of contrast

and distinction from society. It

symbolizes a place of preparation and

solitude. And not unlike an enchanted

forest, the wilderness in our text today

symbolizes what Olaf aptly names as

transformation.

The wilderness as transformation.

Hear the word of the Lord from Exodus

16:es 1-3.

says, 'The whole Israelite community set

out from Elim to come to the desert of

Si which is between Elim and Sai on the

15th day of the second month after they

have 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 you've

brought us out into this desert to

starve this entirely entire assembly to

death.

This is the word of our Lord. Thanks be

to God. Join me in prayer.

God, would the words of my mouth in the

meditation of all of our hearts be

acceptable and pleasing in your sight?

our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Amen. So, a little backstory on these

people who are wandering in the

wilderness. If we remember from the

biblical narrative, the Hebrews, this

people who now find themselves in this

wilderness place, they were formerly

enslaved in Egypt.

The text says that they were many in

number and their women especially were

cut from a different cloth. Like they

would have a baby, put the baby on their

back and return right to work.

As the number of Hebrews grew in Egypt,

Pharaoh became concerned that they would

revolt against the nation.

So Pharaoh increased the demands of the

enslaved people.

And under those harsh demands, a leader

rose up from the midst of the people and

with a divine commission ordered Pharaoh

that Pharaoh would let his people go.

Moses, this character, led the Hebrews

from enslavement in Egypt into the

desert to travel to the land that God

had promised to their ancestors.

And this is the tricky thing.

The journey from Egypt to the promised

land was a journey that should have

taken somewhere between 7 and 11 days.

Yet from the biblical narrative or the

biblical story, we see this journey take

how long?

40 years.

40 years for a 10day trip. I know my

kids would be complaining in the back

seat if it took us that long.

This 40-year journey is something

special.

It's special because we've heard it said

that it took one day

took one day for the Hebrews to leave

Egypt.

Yet, it took 40 years for Egypt

here. Let me start that again. It took

one day to get the Hebrews out of Egypt.

And it took 40 years to get Egypt out of

the Hebrews.

40 years to get Egypt out of the

Hebrews. The Hebrews, as we read, were

plagued with a chronic lack of trust,

like we hear today, doubting those who

would lead them. This was a lack of

trust that God would fulfill what God

had promised them, that God would

deliver them to a land that was

metaphorically flowing with milk and

honey.

We see time and time again that the

Hebrews were grumbling in the wilderness

against Moses and the other leaders and

ultimately against God who was leading

them to freedom.

when they weren't sure whether God was

truly leading them. And while Moses was

away one day,

they had fashioned for themselves a

golden calf that they were to worship

and pray to for deliverance from their

wilderness time.

We see also in the wilderness that they

had received these ten commandments by

the hand of Moses. And one of these many

commandments or one of these ten

commandments was a prohibition to work

on the Sabbath day.

Now I think this is a brilliant thing.

What does God command of a a recently

freed people, a people who was who were

enslaved in Egypt? What commands would

God have for these people?

Rest. God would command them to rest. So

as they're traveling through this

wilderness time,

God would provide for these Hebrew

people. He rained down bread from

heaven, also called mana. And they were

to collect it five days a week, and on

the sixth day, they'd collect a double

portion, so that they wouldn't have to

collect it on the seventh day. God was

providing for them. Yet daily, they

would have to go and collect this mana,

this bread from heaven, and it wouldn't

last more than that day's provision. So

if they were to keep it an extra day,

then it would spoil. And the text tells

us that worms would overcome it.

This was also a time like the golden

calf that they were being transformed.

These are the many events that happened

throughout their wilderness journey in

which God is removing the Egypt from the

Hebrew people, transforming this newly

freed people into God's chosen people.

So through each of these trials they

faced while they were in the wilderness

incrementally and slowly and painfully

the identity of the Hebrews was being

transformed

from a group that was enslaved and

dominated by an oppressive regime

to a people that were freed to live as

God's people in a land of abundance.

The wilderness. The wilderness is no

easy place. And this transformation that

we talk about that happens in the

wilderness is no easy task. One's

character does not grow and change and

adapt and become who we're meant to be

when it is not challenged.

When we meet with intensity and

adversity, it is in this place when

these pressing in forces around us. It

is in this place

the transformation happens.

Yet when the pressure is in around us,

it's not something that we always take

so graciously.

We typically when we feel threatened or

when we feel pressure to change or we

feel this transformation happening, we

often want to put up walls of

preservation. We want to hold on to what

we think is the best version of who we

are instead of who God wants us to be.

The Hebrews did just that.

They put up walls of preservation. They

bristled at the idea of of

transformation. We see in this

particular text that when they were

challenged to be transformed, they

resorted to like a myopic nostalgia.

A myopic nostalgia. They recall they

said, "If only we were back in Egypt

where the pots of meat, where we had

pots of meat and there was all we wanted

to eat.

If only we were back in that place

again, we would have all of the desires

that we could ever want. We could have

all that we need. Yet, we're in this

wilderness place."

They remember to this idealized version

of the past. They remember how good it

was back in Egypt. They remember the

good old days.

But but was this true? Was it really

good?

Was their time back in Egypt all that

fruitful and all that free?

No. We don't get that from the text. We

understand that the Bible tells us that

the Hebrews in Egypt were dehumanized.

They were enslaved. Their value was

measured by the value that they could

provide to the shareholders.

That was all their worth.

They were not able to worship the god of

their ancestors. And when they became so

numerous that they became a supposed

threat to the throne,

their sons were ordered to be killed.

See, the version of the past the Hebrews

recall

is far from an accurate account of their

experience in Egypt.

But the nostalgia that they give into

this too is no foreign concept to us

today. In fact, when we're faced with

times of transformation or

transformative events in our life, we're

told by experts that nostalgia is

actually a very powerful psychological

coping mechanism.

Remembering the good old days is a way

for us to comfort ourselves when we are

in that transformative space.

Thinking back to the good old days can

be a comforting sensation.

But when we're faced with newfound

challenges

like bringing up a new family, we have

kids and there's added stress in our

life and there's this transformation

process that we're going through as as

new parents. Maybe we're challenged to

think of like, "Oh man, remember those

college days when I only had myself to

take care of and I was so free."

We remember this kind of myopic

nostalgia. We totally forget about

eating pizza for a week long and getting

so sick of that or the terrible, you

know, furniture arrangement that was in

our living room or the dishes piled high

or how people commented on the smell of

the house that we lived in.

We remember these versions of the past

that were

that were idealized.

Or perhaps we're newly into retirement

and there's this unforeseen confusion

about what we're to do with our days now

that we don't have a 9-to-five schedule

to order them. And we remember this

idealized version of the past of like,

man, it was it was just great to, you

know, punch in and put in a good day's

work. you know, we we liked the the

structure to our days and, you know,

gathering around the the the coffee uh

the coffee pot with our co-workers,

commiserating about this or that. But we

forget about the pressing deadlines and

the extra hours worked and the promised

promotions that never were quite

realized.

When we undergo

times of upheaval, times of

transformation,

we like the Egyptians want to return to

an idealized past,

believing that it is better than our

current situation. It is better than

what it God is up to in our lives.

But I don't want to say only bad things

about what the Hebrews are doing in this

particular circumstance. I will give

them credit that

they're not altogether wrong about their

present circumstances.

They're not in denial that traveling

through the wilderness to a land that

God has promised them, they're not in

denial that it's an easy feat.

They ask themselves questions like,

"What will we eat?

How do we know where we are going? What

if we get attacked? How do we know where

we're going to is going to be a safe

place?

And questions like these are not

inherently bad to ask.

Questions like these are not inherently

bad to ask. We want to know whether the

road is safe to travel. We want to know

if the the path is clear of obstacles.

We want to know whether we'll emerge on

the other side of this transformation

unscathed.

And the clear and sure answer is no, we

won't. The path is dangerous at times.

No diamond is formed without intense

pressure. No Olympian stands on the

podium without getting there first by

day in and day out effort and grind and

persistence.

No village

is healed from its nefarious history

without first chasing the haunting song

into the enchanted forest.

Transformation

occurs in the wilderness.

And that's both good news and bad news

for us.

The good news is that transformation can

take place. That God is at work in our

lives. That God intends us and creates

us further and further into the version

for which God intends us to be. The

version of ourselves that is most alive

and most present and most woken up to

God's call in our life.

But it's frightful

at the same time that transformation

does not take place on the sandy shores

of a beachside resort.

Transformation takes place in the

wilderness.

And that place often is desolate.

That place is often where water is

scarce and shade is hard to come by.

We know this wilderness place often by

another name by that liinal space. Some

of us have heard of this liinal space.

Li uh liinal coming from the Latin word

limon or threshold. These in between

spaces these threshold spaces.

These threshold spaces are times like

the Hebrews where we are in coming from

this time of Egypt and traveling to the

promised land. Perhaps that to us is

like a a time in which we are in a

threshold space, a time of

deconstructing perhaps the religion of

our childhood or a time perhaps of a a

new divorce, a place that we're in

between the space,

an in between space perhaps like

awaiting that treatment or waiting for

the test results or launching our last

kid into college and we're newfound uh

empty nesters. These in between spaces

All of these examples

are times

when we are in that wilderness space and

it hurts sometimes and the pain is real.

It is challenging.

But here is the good news

that while we are in this wilderness

space, while we are in this time of

transformation, while we are in the

liinal space, the threshold, the in

between,

God promises

that God is with us.

God promises that God is with us.

God sees us through the time of

transformation.

God is with us in the heat of the

wilderness.

And here's what's funny.

I mean, I'm not all that old, but I've

worked in ministry pretty much all of my

adult life, and I've gone to Bible

college, and I'm in seminary, and I've

sat with people in some of the darkest

nights of their soul. And I don't know

that I could neatly describe or explain

exactly how it is that God is with us in

this wilderness space.

I have no clear-cut answers. There's,

you know, nothing that you get in

pastoral ministry that gives you this

magical explanation for how it is that

God is with us in this place. But I know

for the Hebrews in the biblical text

that God was with them in ways that

looked like raining down mana from

heaven in the morning and providing

quail in the evening.

God was with them in the water that

flowed from the rock that was struck by

Moses. God was with them as a cloud or a

pillar by day and a pillar of fire by

night.

for us.

I believe that God is with us in that

wilderness transformation,

through the phone call of a friend,

through the smile of our partner,

through the bird song coming through the

window, through the spring sun shining

softly down upon us, through the

promises delivered to us by people of

faith who've come before us, who promise

us just that, that God is with us

through the time of transformation.

God does not deliver us from the

wilderness.

God does not transport us from Egypt

directly into the promised land.

But here it is again the good news

that God is with us in the time of

transformation.

Amen.