Bread

Raise your hand if you love fresh-baked homemade bread from scratch crafted by a starter of yeast, flour, sugar and a bit of water with loving hands? Yum!

Raise your hand if you liked the musical group “Bread”?  They sang huge hits like: “Guitar Man”, “I Want To Make It With You”, “It Don’t matter To Me”, “If”, “Diary”, “Aubrey”, and many others.  Great “Soft Rock” sounds of the 1970’s.

Raise your hand if you remember who said:

• “If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens”.
• “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread”.
• "Where there’s no law, there’s no bread”.
• “The sky is the daily bread of the eyes”.
• “Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king.  

Robert Browning, Mahatama Gandhi, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson.     

Bread is a provision, it is a blessing, and it is strength.  It is the product of dominion, cooperation between Gods’s blessing of the crops and man’s labor in the fields, the mill, the bakery, the grocery store, the meal table.  Every loaf of bread is God’s kindness, a demonstration of the image of God, of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, and when we eat this blessing (bread) we garner strength.  Remember Jesus’ prayer: “Our Father which are in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…” Matthew 6:9  Jesus prayed for daily bread.  When we pray for our daily bread we are acknowledging that God is our sustainer and provider.  It is a misconception to think that we provide for our needs ourselves.  We cannot!  We must trust God to provide what he knows we need.

Jesus spent 40 days and nights in the wilderness with his people living literally off His Father’s words. He was tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread.  Jesus replied “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’”. Matthew 4:4 It is vital to remember that this area was the most desolate place on earth! Where no wheat could grow!  No flour to be found! No bread could be made!   Still, Jesus was sustained by the true Bread of Life, His Father’s Word. Let’s learn to receive this Bread of Life from Jesus Christ who lives within in the realm of the Spirit.  As we receive Him and become a part of his body we must also be reminded that by breaking bread Jesus asks us to share it with others. “I tell you the truth; he who believes has everlasting life.  I am the bread of life.  Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world’.  John 6:47-51 When Jesus starts out with “I tell you the truth…” he is explaining a physical truth.  Jesus asks us to share this bread (referring to him as spiritual food) with others.  We need to follow Jesus for a relationship, not because of a meal.  Doing this is a true test of whether we are walking in the Kingdom of God.       

From all the symbolic designations of Christ, probably none is expressive as bread.  From the imagery of the Feast of the Passover to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, bread has served a prominent role in the life of Israel.   From Jesus feeding the hungry multitude with bread to the manna provided by God in the wilderness, bread is the staff of life.  From the bread earned by the sweat of Adam’s brow, to the bread brought by Melchizedek to Abraham, the Scripture foreshadows the “Bread of Life”.  From the unleavened shew-bread symbolizing the One who would stand before God, and meet all their needs—in Him.   Remember the manna that fell from heaven?  It was known as angel food. “Men ate the bread of angels: he sent them all the food they could eat”. Psalms 78:25 This bread sustained life, His life, in us as the Israelites walked in the wilderness.  From heaven came manna; from heaven came Jesus.  “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty”. John 6:35  Got a better offer yet?