Eating Rocks

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Holy Scriptures were written for your learning, that you may come to know the things of God and His plan of salvation for you. Therefore, St. Paul writes, both to the Corinthians and to you, that he does not wish you to be ignorant.

“Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.” All were under the cloud; that is, they were under the presence of God. The Lord God was present with His people under the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. In this pillar, He led His people through the wilderness of Sinai for forty years, from the time He brought them out of Egypt until He delivered them into the Promised Land.

The children of Israel were under the cloud, which is to say that they were under God. They were under the covenant which the Lord had sworn to their fathers generations ago. He had sworn to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He had sworn to make them into a mighty and innumerable nation. He had sworn to give them a land flowing with milk and honey. And so the people traveled under the cloud. They dwelt under the hand of God. And while they did, no evil befell them, nor did their garments or provisions give out.

And they all passed through the sea. As the people traveled under the cloud, they passed through the waters of the Red Sea on dry ground, and not one of the children of Israel was lost. However, the whole host of Egypt was drowned and died. The people of God were delivered from the hands of the enemy by the same God who dwelt with them and overshadowed them.

“And all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” Some allege that this is merely a metaphor, another way of speaking about the passage of the Israelites through the sea under the leadership of Moses. However, this is more than simply repetition. When St. Paul says that the Israelites were baptized into Moses, he is speaking metaphorically not about the passage through the Sea, but their entrance into the covenant.

The children of Israel were baptized into Moses, that is, they were brought into the covenant which was given through Moses. They were circumcised, redeemed before God, and kept within the confines of the Torah. The Law was binding on them, and so they were bound up in the Word of the Lord which came through Moses.

“And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.” In the wilderness the children of Israel ate spiritual food, because their food was provided them by God immediately out of His bounty. He provided for them manna in the mornings and quail in the evenings. Even when they grumbled against Him, the Lord never allowed His children to starve.

Nevertheless, the children of Israel grumbled. They grumbled against God. They grumbled against Moses and Aaron. They grumbled against manna – “What is it?”, they called it. They grumbled against anything they could find to grumble against. God provided for them graciously, and their answer? “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” (Numbers 21:5). They could not even see the bounty that God was giving them, because their sinful hearts wanted something else.

This is not a dysfunction peculiar to the children of Israel or confined to a time long ago. For no heart of man wants the things of God. The sinful eye is always looking over the fence, around the corner, anywhere but where God has placed His gifts for you.

This begins with the desire to be god unto yourself. You do not wish God to be Lord of the universe, or at least certainly not the boss of you. Therefore, neither do you want to accept the things He gives, because that would entail acknowledging Him as the giver of all good gifts.

Since you do not want His gifts, neither do you want to hallow His Name, or keep the Lord's Day. You would rather refresh yourself how you see fit, whether that is under the covers, in the woods, or wherever else you might find today's happiness.

And, since you are always looking around for newer and better than what God has given you, you find it very difficult, yea impossible to keep your eyes from adultery, your hands from violence, murder, and stealing, and your heart from deceit and coveting.

Even when God gives His most precious and perfect gifts – His holy Word and Sacraments – you are not pleased with those either. The Word of God says that you may not do just as you please, and so you despise preaching and His Word.

The Holy Supper of the Lord is given to you to be a blessed feast, a joyous banquet come down from heaven. But it is also given to be your daily bread. It is your spiritual food and drink which will sustain you through all your days in the wilderness of this body and life. This is the daily bread for which you pray in the Our Father.

And yet, you look elsewhere for these benefits. How often does your soul loathe “this worthless food”? You look at this measly bread and wine and think: “What is it?” You look for the forgiveness of sins not where God has promised to give it, but within the rumblings of your own heart and mind – which, by the way, are incapable of finding it.

“All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” They ate the spiritual food and drank the spiritual drink, which you also eat and drink, which is Christ.

They drank from the Rock, to which God directed them. They came to the rock, and Moses smote the rock, and from it poured life-giving water for the Israelites in the desert. By the smiting of the rock, the people lived.

The spiritual Rock from which they, and also you, drank is Christ. To Him also the Lord directs His people, that you may drink His living waters. And the smiting of Moses was laid on Him. That is, the condemnation which comes through the Law. The punishment and wrath which the Law threatens against all who break the Commandments was bound up and smote this spiritual Rock, and out poured water, blood, and Spirit – poured out for the life of all men.

The people of Israel were under the cloud, baptized into Moses, and ate and drank spiritual things, but “Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” God was not pleased with them because of their sin. He was not pleased because the people were hard-hearted and stiff-necked. He was not pleased because they grumbled against His prophets and against His gifts. And so those who had come out through the sea were put to death in the desert.

With the children of men God is not well pleased. However, there is one with whom the Lord has declared Himself to be well-pleased. And that is our spiritual Rock, which is Jesus Christ. The Father is indeed well-pleased with Jesus, because He has obeyed the Father's will. He has fulfilled the demands of the Law, and has handed Himself over into death in the wilderness, that you might live to see the Promised Land. He has been struck, that from Him flows the water, blood, and Spirit which bring you forgiveness, life, and salvation.

You are baptized, not into Moses and the Law, but into Christ. Your covenant is not one of flesh, but of the Spirit. Your covenant does not end in death, but is begun in death and continues into eternal life. Because you are in Christ, therefore with you God is well pleased.

And so, being baptized into Christ, being a well-pleasing child of God, you now eat and drink of the same spiritual food as Moses and the Israelites. You eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ. But you have no need to ask “What is it?”, because you know what this food is. Our Lord Jesus Christ has told you: “This is My Body, given for you; This is My Blood, shed for you, for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Likewise, you join in the same worship of the same God. For the saints of old are now gone before you into the heavenly realms, where they now worship around the throne of God. There, they eat and drink of the Lord's banquet at the Lord's table. And here, in this place, on this altar, that banquet comes to you. Here, in this holy liturgy, the heavenly worship comes to earth, and you join your hearts and hands and voices with the patriarchs and prophets, with the wanderers and wise men, with the angels and archangels, and with the whole company of heaven. You partake of the same food of heaven. For you have the same Lord who serves you with the same gifts for the same forgiveness of your sins.

Praise the Father, who from heaven

To His own this food has given,

Who, to mend what we have done,

Gave into death His only Son (LSB 627.4).

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.