Bread unites people, intimately around a table or on a large scale as a country. It is a staple of the human diet across all cultures. Sharing of bread emotes feelings of hospitality, belonging, and satiated contentment.
There’s a specific overpass in an older section of my current town, Waco, where on approach I used to always roll down my car window in anticipation for a gulp of yeast air. Is there anything better than smelling freshly baked bread?!?! I get hungry now thinking about inhaling all that yumminess. I could never survive on a low carb diet if it means living without bread! What a sad day it was for Waco when Mrs. Baird’s closed her factory.
As a child growing up in Lebanon, a vivid olfactory scenario took place five days a week at 7:30 in the morning in the diesel fogged horn honking Beirut traffic. The local neighborhood bakery was busy routinely delivering hot, puffy pita bread atop long planks of board precariously balanced on a deliverer’s shoulder. When I saw these planks of delicious goodness weaving in and out of traffic, passing right by my school bus window, I was sorely tempted to snatch a loaf and bury my face in its billowy scrumptiousness. I never did, but I sure wanted to!
The nutritious satisfaction of bread in our daily lives perfectly metaphors what Jesus taught us about daily eating what He has to offer. We are stomach grumbling hungry but get confused as to what is satisfying in this crazy mixed up world. His words are straightforward even though allegorical.
How will you satisfy your hunger today?
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall never be hungry, and whoever believes in me shall never be thirsty.