The Israelites were slaves in Egypt for generations, for about 400 years. Not only are they oppressed during this time, but at the end of this period, Pharaoh seeks to destroy them altogether by having all newborn males be killed. However, in this dark moment, God intervenes and raises up Moses and Aaron to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
After a series of powerful signs and a spectacular showdown with Pharaoh's army, God leads the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt. He initially leads them into the desert. He does so in order to teach them to rely on him in all things completely.
However, the Israelites are so bound by their prior experience of slavery in Egypt, that they refuse to trust in God fully. They are scared by the change in their situation. Even though they had just witnessed spectacular miracles performed by God, they do not yet believe that God can help them through the challenges of the transition from their old bondage to the abundant blessings of their new life.
Instead, they start to idealize their old life and desire to return to the terrible conditions that they know, rather than to strike out toward something new that can bring them healing. As a result, God has them wander in the desert for 40 years in order to teach them full dependence on him. A whole generation passes and a new one rises up before the Israelites learn to truly trust God.
The bondage and deliverance of the Israelites has various layers of meaning. One of those layers is that the journey of the Israelites is our own spiritual journey writ large, a depiction of our struggle with the bondage of sin. True, the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt is not a moral failing; however, their liberation from slavery is often used in the Bible as a metaphor for our liberation from sin.
When we are not close to God, we get mired in the bondage of sin and get into a self-destructive rut. Although sin has an initial lure, once we are caught in the trap of habitual sin, the fleeting, superficial enjoyment we first had dissipates. Instead, the sin becomes a hateful torment in itself, making us feel awful and disgusted. But because we have formed an unwholesome attachment to the sin, we are not able to break free.
Instead, we try to convince ourselves that the situation is not that bad, that we are enjoying the sin, that we are happy. We idealize our own self-destructive state, doubling down and often increasing the degree of the sin, hoping that plunging into it even more can give us the fleeting sense of enjoyment we had at first.
Only the grace of God can help us out of our bondage. We must repent and rely on God's help to lift us out of our slavery to sin. As we do, our fallen human nature will resist. When we experience the slightest setback or obstacle, we will feel the pull to turn back. Breaking free from sin is hard, because we have to uproot old habits and establish new ones. Moreover, the Enemy, the evil spirits who seek to separate us from God, will try to twist all of our experiences to discourage us and to get us to give up on God's grace.
In the midst of our struggle, we must remember the reality of what we are trying to leave behind. We must resist the urge to idealize the past and remember how miserable and hateful our sinful situation was before. Instead, we must focus on the blessings that God seeks to fill our lives with. God is offering us complete fulfillment, eternal life, endless joy, infinite peace.
As we see in the Gospel reading for this Sunday, to receive God's grace, we must accept his profound gift of self-giving to us through the Eucharist. When we receive Communion at Mass, we receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Risen Lord. Only when we commune with Christ through the Eucharist do we receive the true Divine Life that he is offering us. As we repent of our sins and leave our self-destructive ruts behind through God's grace in baptism and Confession, let us turn with our whole being to Christ, accepting his infinite love for us through his self-giving in the Eucharist.
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The readings for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B are:
Ex 16:2-4, 12-15
Ps 78:3-4, 23-24, 25, 54
Eph 4:17, 20-24
Jn 6:24-35
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci from Wikipedia Commons.
