Some days ago we were
in a happier place. The disciples understood all that Jesus was teaching them
(at least they thought they did) and the people in the desert took a break from
complaining in order to contemplate the simple wonder of God’s presence with
them.
Today we return to
what seems like the default position for the years of wandering in the
wilderness: the people lament what they have left behind in Egypt, Moses is exasperated,
God too complains (in the psalm) that He is not being listened to by the
people.
‘Am I their parent’ is
Moses’ question to God this time. They are driving him to suicidal thoughts –
‘do me the favour of killing me at once’ is his prayer. They have already
effectively killed God along the way, worshiping the Golden Calf, as if it were
that dead idol that had liberated them from Egypt.
But the Lord, the God
of Israel, is the Living God, and His great desire for His people is that they
too might come alive. It is the point of the covenant and its requirements –
that they might have life. Their deadweight is a heavy burden for whichever
human being the Lord chooses as their leader, in this case Moses. But you are
the one who conceived them, he says to God, and you are the one who led them
out of Egypt. All this is your idea. We can almost hear him thinking ‘come and
lead them (not just feed them) yourself and see what it is like’.
And this is precisely
what happened. ‘I myself will shepherd my people’, God says through Ezekiel.
Jesus is that presence of God among us to lead and guide and heal and feed. The
burden remains, and Jesus too needs to retreat to a place of quiet to process
how his mission is unfolding. Now that John the Baptist is dead, who will be
next?
But the burden of the
people follows him. Here they are, sick and hungry, and he is moved with
compassion for them. It seems as if only an infinite compassion can adequately
receive the desires and yearnings of human beings, their thirst for life and
truth and goodness, their complaints and laments when things are not going well.
For those yearnings themselves seem to be infinite, as if we already sense
within our desires the deeper yearning which will only be satisfied by God, by
sharing in God’s own life.
Following on from these
earlier moments in which God fed His people – the manna and quails in the
wilderness, the miraculous feedings in the gospel – and right down to our own
day, we have the ongoing nourishment of God’s people in the Eucharist. This
feeding on Jesus, the Bread of Life and the Living Bread, in turn anticipates
the Supper of the Lamb. That supper is the heavenly wedding banquet in which
all hunger, all thirst, all longing, all need, all wanting, and all yearning
will be satisfied.
We already participate
sacramentally in that food which contains every delight (omne delectamentum in se habentem) until the day when we enter into
full communion with the source of all good things, the One who carries the
people – and their unfortunate human leaders – through every difficulty. Then
we will listen perfectly to Him as He already listens perfectly to us.
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