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Before I share this
recipe with you, please read these paraphrased words of Jesus from chapter 6 of
John’s Gospel:
I am the Bread of
LIFE. If you come to me and trust me you will never be hungry or thirsty again.
All whom my Father gives me will come to me and I will never reject anyone.
Trust me and you will possess the very LIFE of God. I am living bread come down
from heaven. If you eat this bread you will have God’s very own LIFE within
you. My body is bread given so that everyone everywhere and everywhen shall have
LIFE. You cannot have God’s LIFE unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood. When you eat my flesh and drink my blood you possess
God’s own LIFE and I will raise you up from among the dead on the last day. My
flesh is true and genuine flesh and my blood is true and genuine drink. When you
eat my flesh and drink my blood you dwell continually in me and I dwell in you.
Just as the living Father has sent me, and I live through the Father, even so
when you continue to feed on me--be nourished by me--you shall live in and
through me. This is the bread which came down from heaven. When you eat this
bread you have God’s LIFE within you.
Yes, Jesus is the bread
of LIFE. There can be no question of that--if we believe the Bible. But did you
also know that we--that you--are the bread of LIFE, too? In our unique
relationship with the living Lord Jesus Christ, we too become the bread of LIFE
for other people. Where do we read this in the Bible?
The cup of blessing
which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Jesus? The bread which
we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are
one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. (1
Corinthians 10: 16 and 17)
Jesus often spoke in
parables in order to use natural things to show spiritual truths or to use
ordinary things we know about in order to help us understand things that
otherwise might be difficult to readily understand. God’s bread recipe is my
parable to help you understand how we, too, are the bread of God for people who
are hungry for a vital and LIFE-giving relationship with the true and living
God.
I learned the basic
truths of this parable from watching my mother who for years--from my earliest
memories--always made homemade bread and rolls, especially for family
gatherings. Even as I write these words, in my mind I can see her at the old
round oak table in her dining area standing over the large stainless steel bowl
she used for years to make her bread and rolls. Around the table are scattered
all the ingredients, with perhaps a grandchild or great-grandchild “helping”
my mother make the bread or rolls. I can picture on the viewing screen of my
mind all the steps she took to make her bread. So…this is the Parable of the
Bread.
As you well know, bread,
properly made, is life-giving, tasty, nutritious, and satisfying. However, bread
made by someone who does not know how to make it, nor how to follow the recipe,
is often far from tasty and nutritious. Sometimes, in these instances, it can
even be hard or rubbery, or burned, or doughy. This will often occur because the
bread maker was either careless in following the recipe or was in a hurry. The
bread I describe in this parable is always perfect bread because the Breadmaker
is perfect and always follows a perfect recipe.
As you also know, bread
begins as wheat (or some other grain). In this recipe it is always the choicest
grain carefully chosen by the Breadmaker and harvested at the exact moment it is
perfectly ripe. It is never harvested too early in the season nor too late. The
grain is chosen just when the harvest field is at its ripest. Remember how happy
and excited you were when God first chose you--or when you first became aware of
his choosing? You were greatly excited and wanted to rush right out to feed the
hungry people among your circle of friends and acquaintances--and then go to the
entire world with the Good News.
But the Breadmaker knows
full well the complete bread making process, and he knows that when we are first
chosen by him--harvested by him-- most of us are seldom ready to go out and
feed--really feed--the hungry. First, the grain must be separated from the
chaff. That is the threshing process. The grain must be pounded and ground and
hammered in order to separate the chaff from the rich kernel of grain where all
the LIFE is. As newly harvested grain, we so often wonder about this threshing
process, and even get discouraged, but it is an essential part of the process.
After the threshing is complete, we then feel we are ready to feed the hungry.
But not yet! There are more steps in the recipe.
Parenthetically, you
have doubtless heard or read of the great temple built by the famed King
Solomon. It was one of the most magnificent buildings upon the earth to that
point in time. That splendid temple was built upon the site of a former grain
threshing floor Solomon’s father, King David, had purchased years earlier. The
greater Son of David, King Jesus, is building another temple in the earth today:
a temple far surpassing the splendor of Solomon’s temple. It is the temple
made of living building materials--us! And that temple is being built upon a
foundation of threshing: a threshing floor purchased with the blood of King
Jesus. You can read about that temple throughout the New Testament.
Let’s return to the
next step in the breadmaking process. Next, we have to be sifted and re-sifted
in order to remove all that’s hard, crusty, and gritty in our lives. I believe
those things having to be sifted out are those areas of our lives we do not wish
to willingly surrender to God, so they have to go through the sifting process in
order for us to willingly release them to him. The Breadmaker is determined his
bread will be the best.
Having been sifted, we
are now so smooth, and so soft, and so fine. Surely, we think, we must now be
ready to feed the hungry. But not yet! Have you ever tried to eat plain flour?
We must now be mixed with other ingredients. First, yeast is needed. Yeast works
in the flour by actually causing some of its elements to decay and die so that
the nutritious parts can rise and become part of the bread. This symbolizes the
work of God’s Spirit in us, causing our old life to die so that Jesus’ new,
eternal LIFE might come forth in its place. Yes, the yeast is a symbol of death
and decay so that Jesus’ rich, nourishing LIFE can rise within us.
The next ingredient is
salt. Do you remember Jesus said we are the salt of the earth? Salt is a
preservative, and is another symbol of God’s Spirit who preserves us until our
resurrection out from among the dead when we die. Tasty, nourishing bread also
needs a sweetener. The best sweetener to use in bread is honey. God’s Word,
the Bible, is honey to our lives. We need generous portions of it in order that
God’s bread may be sweet to the taste of those who eat it.
Next, shortening is
needed. Shortening (or oil) often symbolizes God’s Spirit at work in the lives
of God’s children. The final ingredient essential to the bread-making process
is water. Water symbolizes the Holy Spirit poured out in our lives. Do you
remember the Bible says God will pour out his Spirit upon all people? It is the
LIFE-giving rain of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, eternally quenching the
thirst of all who drink of it.
All the ingredients must
be mixed thoroughly with the flour by stirring, blending, beating, whipping and
pounding. Isn’t our Breadmaker thorough? At first, the mixing together is
easy, but soon the dough is too solid for the mixing spoon, so we are taken up
in the Breadmaker’s hands and in loving, personal attention, he begins to
knead, mash, pound, and smooth us. And we begin to feel after this part of the
process is finished we are finally ready to feed the hungry. But not yet!
Now we are carefully
placed in a deep pan or dish, often covered over, and then placed on a high
shelf where it is warm--not hot or cold--and there we are left seemingly all
alone, neglected, and forgotten by the Breadmaker. Have you had times like this
in various areas of your life and service to God? A time and place of dullness?
Dreariness? A time and place where you feel all alone and abandoned by God? A
place where it is neither hot nor cold? A place of semidarkness? It’s a good
thing the Breadmaker first oiled us generously with oil, or we’d become dry,
hard, and crusty while we wait there on the shelf in the semidarkness. We feel
we are left there for s-o-o-o-o long. It’s like an eternity, and we feel
utterly useless and worthless, discouraged and abandoned. But inside, the yeast
is at work silently, relentlessly decaying the old life, seething, bubbling,
bringing forth the new LIFE of God within us. Finally, we have risen to the top
of the pan and we think we are ready at last. But not yet! The Breadmaker comes
to the shelf and the same process is repeated. He mashes us down once again and
back we go to the shelf, to that gloomy semidarkness, seemingly forgotten and
abandoned once again.
But the yeast within us
will not give up. The new LIFE begins to rise again. And again the Breadmaker
comes and mashes us down. More oil is added and again we are returned to the
shelf. But that vibrant new LIFE within us continues to rise and we begin to
look very pretty and fluffy. Once again we think we are finally ready to feed
the hungry. But not yet! The Breadmaker knows how tasteless and non-nourishing
we would be in that state, so we are now prepared for the most important part of
the bread-making process.
We are now placed in an
oven that has been pre-heated to just the exact temperature. Why did we ever
struggle and question so much while we were on that nice lukewarm shelf? It was
nothing like this terrible heat! We beg for the Breakmaker to lower the
temperature. But he will not, for if he did the bread would flatten. We then beg
him to turn up the heat in order to be baked as quickly as possible. But he will
not do that either, for if he did we would be burned black on the outside and be
doughy and untasty on the inside. He will not remove us from the oven too soon.
The only possible comfort we can feel at this stage of the process is to know
the Breadmaker can be trusted to remove us from the oven at precisely the
correct moment. Our experience in the oven is designed to burn out all the dross
remaining in our lives from the previous stages of the process. Those areas of
our lives God wants to cleanse sometimes have to be cleansed by burning.
The momentous time for
which we have waited so long finally arrives. We are removed from the oven. We
feel we are now ready to be used to feed the hungry. But not yet! There is one
more step to the process. Hot bread eaten immediately after it is removed from
the oven is not healthy, and is soggy. There must be a period of cooling. So
again we wait. But this time the waiting is different, for a delicious fragrance
is being wafted through the air. People around us know that fresh bread is about
to be served.
The Breadmaker takes us
up in his hands once again. We remember the threshing, the sifting, the
blending, the kneading, the rising, the waiting, the heat of the oven, the
hungry who await nourishment. Lovingly, the Breadmaker now breaks us in his
hands and we finally understand his wisdom and compassion in the long
bread-making process. At last, we have become nourishing, LIFE-giving bread for
the hungry.
The Breadmaker had done
all things well! It has been worth it all! What a privilege to be bread broken
for those around us who are hungry for the true Bread of LIFE. What a privilege
to be a little like him who is that true Bread from heaven: The Living Lord
Jesus Christ. And as we continually feed upon Him who is the true Bread of LIFE,
his LIFE flows through us in the bread-making process, and we are broken and
consumed in being bread of LIFE to others. We become one bread with all our
brothers and sisters in Christ, knit together in love as living stones in the
temple of God, a part of the vital, LIFE-giving Body of Christ, the Bread of
God, to our hungry world!
And so ends God’s
Bread recipe, the Parable of the Bread.
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