Thursday, March 5
Read: Psalm 95; Exodus 16:1-8; Colossians 1:15-23
“Sweet the rain’s new fall sunlit from heaven, like the first dewfall on the first grass. Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, sprung in completeness where God’s feet pass.” These words come from the second stanza of “Morning Has Broken” written by Eleanor Farjeon in 1931. Eleanor was known in England for her whimsical nursery rhymes. The stories she crafted were simple, but they captivated young minds. This is because her work compels readers to employ their imagination in a way that makes them feel a part of her stories.
I invite you to employ your imagination in such a manner that you find yourself in the story of the Israelites. Can you feel the excitement that flooded through the community as they experienced deliverance from Egypt? Can you also feel the fear and confusion that comes along with leaving behind everything you have ever known to follow the God of your ancestors? Can you feel their weariness as they travel indefinitely with no food? Their bodies were depleted of energy as they were desperate for sustenance. Their spirits all the more drained as they searched for meaning in following this God they barely knew into the desert.
Just as they are ready to abandon YHWH and turn back towards Egypt God provides them with the sustenance they were searching for, spiritual and physical. God’s providential act declares to the Israelites that the God who delivered them from Egypt is the God who will sustain them. God gives the Israelites the peace of knowing God’s sustenance is not just to sustain them in the desert, but that it is an everlasting sustenance. Through Christ, the everlasting sustenance of God is fully realized. By looking to the one all the fullness of God dwells in we can clearly see how the places that God’s presence passes over all spring to completeness.
Prayer:
Lord, when our hearts are ready to forsake you lift our eyes to see the budding of the flower bushes which you are bringing to completion all around us.
Mrs. Savannah Smith Edmonds ’25 is a Master of Divinity student at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey.
