I Am the Bread of Life

Christmas is upon us. What a joyous time! Today’s blog may seem a round about way to a wonderful Christmas thought, but stay with me.

One of the seven I am statements by Jesus was “I am the bread of life.” To give us background, we will go all the way back to Moses in 1446 B.C. He told the Egyptian Pharaoh to set free the Hebrew slaves. Ten plagues later, the Pharaoh finally relented. The slaves, their wives and children, (about 2,000,000 in all) plus their animals and carts headed out to freedom.

After the Red Sea miracle, they wandered in the dry, sandy desert and got hungry.  If they brought snacks, they wouldn’t last long. Once again God rescued them. In Exodus 16:4-5, the Lord told Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for the day. In this way, I will test them and see if they will follow my instructions.”

The Hebrew word for bread is “lehem”, but this bread-like food was called “manna,” the sweet grain of heaven. Each day they collected a fresh batch of manna for forty years. The history of this miraculous bread was retold through all the generations.

Now let’s skip to the first cetury A.D. Jesus, now in his thirties, had been ministering to the people around Capernaum. While he taught, a man asked, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesuus answered, “The work of God is this; to believe in the one he has sent.” Of course he was talking about himself. So they asked, “What miraculous sign will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written; “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”

Amazingly, this question came just a day or so after he had fed 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. Apparently that wasn’t enough evidence for them!

Jesus said, “I tell you, it is not Moses that has given you bread from heaven, but it is the Father who has given you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who has come down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

One of them said, “Sir, from now on, give us this bread.”

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to his son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”

Before our final thought, we need a quick lesson about words. The word “beth” means “house of.” So Beth-haron means house of the mountaineer. Beth-eden means house of a garden place. Bethel means house of God. We have learned that lehem means bread. How fitting that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, house of bread! Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from the Father.

So we celebrate the birth of him who loves us and nourishes us like living bread.

~ Joyce ~

 

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