The Bread of Life

Lately my wife has been baking bread. I love it when I catch her "loafing." (She abhors bad puns, but she makes really excellent bread.) Here in America, we have the luxury of eating bread for the pleasure of it, rather than as the basic necessity of life. But others are not so blessed. As a kid, I was puzzled by John 6:35. Here it is, quoted from The New International Version:

Then Jesus declared, "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..."

As an American, living fat and happy, that passage didn't resonate with me. But in Azerbaijan, it is totally different! When I was living there in 1995, I had two friends over for dinner, a local pastor and a Finnish expat. I fixed a big fancy meal, but didn't include bread. No big deal, right? FALSE. My Azeri friend Mushfig became agitated, excused himself, and walked down the road to buy bread. But why? The dinner was getting cold! He left the dinner-party to buy bread because bread was life. Every meal absolutely positively must include bread. No exceptions. On another occasion, this Azeri pastor was preaching a sermon at our church, and he gave an illustration:

"Every day on the bus ride, coming home from work, I look at everyone's faces. We are all thinking about one thing..."

In my head, I was coming up with multiple answers to this fill-in-the blank question. Dinner? A shower? A nap? Sex? (I was 26. Fight me.)

"Yes!" he continued, "We are all thinking about bread!"

His statement floored me. Because never in my life to that point had bread even crossed my mind. It just wasn't important to me. But in Azerbaijan, bread is life. Leftover bread can not be thrown away because it is sacred. It is holy. Instead, leftover bread is placed on top of a wall to feed the birds. In Russia, next-door, bread also represents life. I am told that any bread on the plate absolutely must be eaten before getting up from the table.

During the war, The Great Patriotic War (the rest of the world calls it World War II,) the Soviets had between 20 million and 27 million dead, depending on the statistics of which government you follow. (The Soviet government "minimized" the death count at 20 million. The modern Russian government estimates 27 million. Some Russian scholars say it was more like 40 million.) In comparison, the United States had a mere 400,000 service members killed. Some sources say over 97% of all Soviet males born in 1925 died in the war. This level of loss is absolutely unfathomable to a westerner. Every town and village in Russia and the former USSR has a WWII memorial with the names (and often the portraits!) of the war-dead. Many people subsisted on a few grams of bread a day. If bread was not synonymous with life before the Great Patriotic War, it certainly was for the survivors. During the Cold War, the Red Army generals used to brag that while the lazy over-fed Americans were chained to vulnerable supply lines, all the Russian conscripts needed was to be tossed a loaf of bread to fight over, and they were good to go. Bread was life.

So when Jesus says "I am the bread of life," a Russian or Azeri really pricks up their ears. That statement has MEANING for them. Later, at the Last Supper, Jesus picked up the bread and said "This is my body, broken for you." He was speaking of his suffering to come the very next day, when he would be tortured and die for the sins of the world.

In Exodus 16, the Hebrews were in the Wilderness of Sin and had no food. (The Wilderness of Sin is a place of hardship? Interesting!) Here is the passage, quoting from The Message:

On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left Egypt, the whole company of Israel moved on from Elim to the Wilderness of Sin which is between Elim and Sinai. The whole company of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron there in the wilderness. The Israelites said, "Why didn't GOD let us die in comfort in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat? You've brought us out into this wilderness to starve us to death, the whole company of Israel!"

GOD said to Moses, "I'm going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day's ration. I'm going to test them to see if they'll live according to my Teaching or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they have gathered, it will be twice as much as their daily ration..."

...

That evening, quail flew in and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew had lifted, there on the wilderness ground was a fine flaky something, fine as frost on the ground. The Israelites took one look and said to one another, 'man-hu' (What is it?). They had no idea what it was. So Moses told them, It's the bread GOD has given you to eat. And these are GOD's instructions: 'Gather enough for each person, about two quarts for every person; gather enough for everyone in your tent.' "

The People of Israel went to work and started gathering, some more, some less, but when they had measured out what they had gathered, those who gathered more had no extra and those who gathered less weren't short-- each person gathered as much as needed.

Moses said to them, "Don't leave any of it until morning." But they didn't listen to Moses. A few of the men kept back some of it until morning. It got wormy and smelled bad. And Moses lost his temper with them.

In scripture, bread represents life and sustenance, but it also represents God's word. In the John 6:35 passage we started out with, Jesus called himself "The Bread of Life." But in the very first verses of John, the writer also calls Jesus "The Word of God." God's message to us, in physical human form. I am going to start out in John 1-5, quoting from The New International Version. Then I am going to skip ahead to verse 14, which I will quote from The Message:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it...

The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

Jesus also talked about bread and God's word-- God's revelation-- at the very start of his ministry... by quoting Deuteronomy to the Devil. (Hat tip to Rich Mullins.) In Matthew 4:1-4, The Message tells us:

Next Jesus was taken into the wild by the Spirit for the Test. The Devil was ready to give it. Jesus prepared for the Test by fasting forty days and forty nights. That left him, of course, in a state of extreme hunger, which the Devil took advantage of in the first test: "Since you are God's Son, speak the word that will turn these stones into loaves of bread." Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: "It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God's mouth."

I find it fascinating that Jesus took what started as a discussion of bread and used it to discuss the importance of having a close enough relationship with God where He talks with us. He wasn't changing the subject. He was amplifying it. He was explaining deeper meaning beyond the mere physical. He was equating needing to eat bread for physical sustenance with needing to hear from God to receive spiritual sustenance. And we can hear from God. Both directly, and through His revealed written word, the Bible. The story of the manna in Exodus 16 offers many parallels and insights into this spiritual necessity of reading God's written word every day. Here are a few, in no particular order:

• They were in the Wilderness of Sin. Lack of staying in God's word and in fellowship with Him could leave you stranded in a wilderness where there is a lack of resources, but crying out to God in your distress can lead to His intervention in your circumstances.

• They were required to gather it every day except for the Sabbath, the day of rest. This must be a daily habit, because yesterday's bread is old. No preservatives! Yesterday's manna is not good enough. You need fresh bread-- every day. Likewise, you need to get alone with God and read his written word, heart open before him, every single day. See what He has to say!

• Each person gathered exactly the amount they needed. So many times, I will be needing an answer from God on something, or just need God in general. I will open my Bible, and my eyes fall on the exact verse that I needed in that moment. And sometimes (haha!) I will open one of my Bibles at random and be blown away by what I read. I will write that verse and my notes on it down in my journal. Then I will set that Bible aside and pick up the other one I habitually use in my quiet time with God. I will open it at random, and I find myself staring again at the same passage... (Like a good teacher, God sometimes uses repetition for emphasis.) I needed to read it again, so God arranged it...

• God told them to be Russian-- to clean their plates of the holy bread. To eat all of it. God doesn't want us to read just a single verse. (We can get verse memes on Instagram, and that's my vibe. But it's not the same.) God wants us to really get nourishment. Not just a single bite, a solitary verse, but a whole nourishing meal.

  
  

Jesus called himself The Bread of Life. "The One-You-Need-Every-Day" for sustainment of your spiritual life. You start that relationship by reading the Bible and asking God about what you just read. You strengthen your spiritual life by physically breaking bread-- fellowshipping with other believers and sharing your lives and journey with them.

So, have you had spiritual bread today? How about grab your Bible and read for a bit. Oh, and be like the Russians and clean your plate.

If you enjoyed this blog post, check out my book "101 God Thoughts: A Spiritual Journey from Covid to Cancer." It's on Amazon, in paperback, kindle, and audiobook editions.