Bread of Life
Bread is such a staple of our lives that the stories about bread that Jesus used in his teaching remain relevant to us today. We understand the metaphors about shepherds and sheep but they are not as much a part of our daily life as bread. So, when Jesus takes five loaves and two fish and feeds the crowd of 5000+ gathered on the hillside, we can imagine ourselves having sent a child off with a packed lunch consisting of sandwiches. And when Jesus talks of being the Bread of Life, we know how essential that is, when we consider how much poorer our lives would be if we didn’t have bread in all its’ forms.
One of the most meaningful liturgies to me is a marking of the Passover meal that the Israelites ate before they escaped from slavery in Egypt. One of the key moments in a Seder meal is when various food items are passed around and everyone has a taste as we recall the story of the people getting ready to leave. One of those items is the unleavened bread, made so because they did not have time to make a loaf that required the dough to be allowed to rise before baking. That unleavened bread really was the Bread of Life for the Israelites; it nourished them for their journey and was part of the reason (along with the blood of the lamb daubed on their doorposts) that they were able to be freed from slavery and head for the Promised Land.
And we are given a taste of the Bread of Life each week when we share the bread and wine of communion together, as we remember the Last Supper and Jesus’ giving of himself to enable us to be freed from worldly slavery and to head for the Promised Land. The Bread of Life indeed!
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