No More Manna

In Joshua chapter five, God has just taken the Israelites across the Jordan River. The people build a memorial with stones and Joshua says to the people, “In the future your children will ask. ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across... He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that Lord’s hand is powerful...”

The people of the other kingdoms had heard of these miracles and were terrified of the Israelites because God had given them their land. Once the entire population was across the river, God told Joshua to circumcise all of the men. “Joshua had to circumcise them because all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died in the wilderness. Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those born after the Exodus had been circumcised. The Israelites had traveled in the wilderness for forty years until all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died. For they had disobeyed the Lord, and the lord vowed he would not let them enter the land he had sworn to give us - a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Once all of the men had been circumcised, the Lord said to Joshua, “‘Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt’... While the Israelites were camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they celebrated Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month. The very next day they began to eat unleavened bread and roasted grain harvested from the land. No manna appeared on the day that they first ate the crops from the land, and it was never seen again. So from that time on the Israelites ate from the crops of Canaan.”

Ok, so stay with me... I was really moved by this passage. God rescues the people from slavery in Egypt. He takes them across the Red Sea in a miraculous event and provides manna for them to eat so that they may survive. He tries to give them the Promised Land, but then they had to wander the wilderness for forty years because when God tried to give them the Promised Land, they did not trust him. They were afraid. As a consequence, the men that were meant to fight and conquer the land would all die in the wilderness, never able to see what God had promised to them. But God’s covenant with the people still remains. Once they were gone, God takes the people across the Jordan River just as he did with the previous generation at the Red Sea. Once they have all crossed and the men are circumcised, God declares that he has formally removed their shame. It is then that they celebrate Passover (which celebrates God’s rescue of the people from Egypt).

I think that it is so incredible how God had a specific plan for the Israelites and even the people’s refusal to participate in it could not thwart the will of God. I love that it is in the fulfillment of His promise that their shame is removed and once it is removed, the land that God gave them is what provides their sustenance; the manna is no longer needed. He recreates the “crossing” for the new generation because it is a supernatural and symbolic act that “circumcises” the people from the previous generation so that they can move into God’s promise for them.

I feel like I am crossing the Jordan, entering the Promised Land of my own life. I am in this place where I am realizing God’s intention toward me and his will for my life and that it is up to me to trust Him and cross the Jordan. Once I do, it is me, through God’s kindness, who conquers the land lives off of it. I am not visiting the Promised Land, I live here. This is my home.