About the Hymn
About a month after the Exodus, God strengthened his people, body and soul, by sending a mysterious bread to them in the mornings. It looked like fine flakes of frost and tasted like wafers made with honey (Exodus 16). The Hebrews called it “manna”—literally, “What is it?”
At God’s command, they gathered only what they needed for each day. On Fridays, they were to gather twice as much because the bread would not appear the following day, the Sabbath.
For just under 40 years, the manna appeared six days a week. It nourished and sustained them all the way to the Promised Land. The day they came to Canaan, after they’d had their first taste of that region’s produce, the manna stopped. Its cessation was just as sudden as its start two generations before.
John (chapter 6) records Christ comparing himself to manna as he preached in Capernaum. His words are difficult. His flesh is bread? And we’re supposed to eat it? Many of his hearers turned away from him at that point.
The Church still debates what the Lord meant by calling himself manna, bread from heaven, which he gives us to eat. Some see a literal reference to the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and others assert that since our sacramental eating and drinking is spiritual, not physical, Christ was speaking figuratively. (Cf. Capernaitic eating)
This hymn text does not struggle to parse the Savior’s teaching. It merely takes him at his word, accepting that his teaching about manna may be as mysterious as the appearance of the food itself on the sand thousands of years earlier.
Not unlike the Hebrews, all of us are hungry. We’re hungry for love and acceptance, for purpose and place. Christ is the only food that fills the emptiness. He and his Word—his presence and his promises—are truly manna in the morning, the nourishment we need for every day of this journey.
The hymn should be performed at a smooth♩= ca. 66.
Text
1. The Hebrews hunger in the wilderness:
“Our children have no bread!”
The Father sees their emptiness is deep:
Their faith is what he feeds.
God rains down manna, bread from heav’n above,
a miracle of love.
Manna in the morning makes them whole—
bread to feed their bodies and their souls.
2. At dawn the bread appears—a mystery!
They gather all they need.
The manna feeds them forty desert years
through sand and stone and tears.
It carries them to what they cannot see:
a land, a destiny.
Manna in the morning makes them whole—
manna for the body and the soul.
3. We hunger too—for meaning in our lives,
a reason to arise.
We hunger for a journey that makes sense,
an end to emptiness.
For hungers of the heart so wide and deep,
the Word is what we need.
Manna in the morning makes us whole—
Scripture is the bread that feeds the soul.
4. The Word is truth and strength and promises.
It fills our emptiness.
It tells us we are loved and named and known;
we have a place, a home.
This love gives us a reason to go on,
to gladly greet the dawn.
Manna in the morning makes us whole—
Scripture is the bread that feeds the soul.
5. The manna holds a deeper secret yet:
Christ calls himself this bread!
His flesh, once sacrificed for all, he gives
as bread that we may live.
Our Savior bids us come and eat this bread:
receive, believe, be fed.
“Christ, the Bread from Heaven, feed our souls!
Manna in the Morning, make us whole!”
© 2017 Laurie F. Gauger
Lectionary Reading
Year A, Proper 20 (25): Exodus 16:2–15
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 testthem 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.”
So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”
Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”
While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.
The Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”
That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.
Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.”
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
