God Still Provides

A Message from Pastor Shawn

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” So the place was called Gilgal, as it is today. The Israelites camped in Gilgal. They celebrated Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the plains of Jericho. On the very next day after Passover, they ate food produced in the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped on that next day, when they ate food produced in the land. There was no longer any manna for the Israelites. So that year they ate the crops of the land of Canaan.

Joshua 5:9-12 CEB

Two years ago the unimaginable happened. We had to make the decision that we would not celebrate Easter in-person in our sanctuary. As we approached Easter Sunday, Lent took on a whole new meaning as most of us were confined to our homes and all of us were worried about what devastation this Covid-19 pandemic would have on our lives and our world. We did the best we could, which was better than we ever dreamed. We discovered creativity and skills we never thought we had. We found new ways to communicate and “gather” that continue to enhance and expand our ministry in ways that we would never have imagined.

When I read this passage I try to imagine what it was like for the people of God to eat food produced in the land for the first time in 40 years. For 40 years in the wilderness they depended on the faithfulness of God to provide them food each day—manna. Think about it. There were many who had never tasted food that was produced on the land. Some of the oldtimers no doubt remembered when they themselves would grow food in the ground and on the land. Only, they probably did it for someone else, since they had been slaves in the land of Egypt. I can imagine that they reveled in the taste of the food that they had long forgotten. I wonder about some of the younger ones, who had only eaten manna. Did they like the new flavors? Was it something that they had to get

used to? And if they thought about it, would they worry that they were no longer going to have manna available to them each day? What would happen if their crops failed, or they had a drought, or they had health issues that prevented them from working in the fields? As boring as manna was, it was nice to know that it would always be there.

As we are experiencing this Lenten season and anticipating Holy Week and Easter, we are happy that we can be together, in-person, indoors and possibly without masks. We may think that after two years we are back to normal. But what is normal? Things have changed since the last time that we had Easter worship in our sanctuary. For all sorts of reasons, there are people missing from our Easter celebration AND there are people who were not around 3 years ago. Our younger ones may not remember waving palms in our sanctuary on Palm Sunday.

Let us take this opportunity to enter into Holy Week and Easter with a sense of expectation and wonder. Let us look at it as something new. Shouldn’t Resurrection be about something NEW? It is okay to enjoy what we have missed, but let us also enjoy what is new. We thank God for providing for us in the “wilderness.” Now we thank God, knowing that God will continue to be faithful to provide for us. Let us remember that not everything was perfect before Covid-19. God is leading us into a new land, with the tradition of the past and the experience of the wilderness, and the power of Resurrection! God still provides.

Grace and peace in Christ, Pastor Shawn