What Is It?

“they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was.” Exodus 16:15

“What is it?”¹
The name manna was born from confusion. It had never been seen before. It didn’t rise from the ground like wheat. Or fall with weight like hail. It appeared, mysteriously, when the dew lifted.

It was food they could not identify, though it tasted sweet. Bread from heaven, yes, but still strange. In their ignorance, manna was its name. “What is it?” That’s what they ate for forty years. That’s is what fed their children.

It’s no accident that the bread of life came with a question. God often feeds His people with mysteries. Not because He wants them confused, but because He wants them dependent. To teach them that understanding is not the root of nourishment. Trust is. Tasting is. Grace does not come with labels. It’s dropped in our wildernesses like manna.

Yes, we want theology to be clear. We want providence to be legible. We want God’s dealings with our children to be scheduled, linear, domesticated. But what God often gives instead is a provision that cannot be traced, a mercy that cannot be managed, a gift that defies the categories we hold.

Manna lies on the ground of our days more often than we see. And it always asks us to stoop. No one receives manna standing upright. I must kneel. I must gather. I must trust that what I do not recognize is exactly what I need. It’s Jesus. My sweetest Mystery.

Even His disciples asked, “What manner of man is this?”
They didn’t know what He was.
They only knew that when He spoke, they lived.
When He broke the bread, they saw.
When He called their name, they wept.

Christ is the better manna. Bread that saves.

What is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat?
You do not need to name it. You need to eat it.

Feed on Him. Even when mystified.
Feed on Him, when your children ask questions you cannot answer.
Feed on Him, when your wilderness does not end.
Feed on Him, when the table seems empty, and the dew is slow to rise.

Christ is there. Hidden, perhaps. Unnamed, perhaps. But there.

Lat us all eat and live today.

1. Baptism meditation.