Bread for Christmas . . . and Always

Do you like bread? Most of us do — wheat bread, oat bread, cornbread, rye bread, biscuit, yeast bread, sourdough, flatbread, soda bread, Panera Bread. Oops! Panera Bread is a restaurant. 
 
Panera is a Spanish word meaning granary or breadbasket.
 
“Bread is prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients,” according to Wikipedia.
 
Bread doughs are usually baked and may be leavened or unleavened. The Passover meal features unleavened bread. Leaven is a substance — such as yeast —  that makes bread rise when cooked. (Baking soda is a chemical leavening.)
 
Bread is often called the Staff of Life. It’s a basic food and has come to indicate food in general. We say we’re breaking bread together to mean we’re sharing a meal.
 
“Whether made from wheat, rye, barley, millet, rice or even potato flour, it [bread] has been the basic diet of common people,” says Don Mears. “Bread has been synonymous with food for ordinary working people of many cultures. As the common food of the average Israelite, it featured frequently in the spiritual consciousness and the ceremonial and sacrificial worship of ancient Israel.”
 
Bethlehem, a small town in Israel, became Jesus’ birthplace. In the Hebrew language, Bethlehem means house of bread.
 
Micah said prophetically, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among thousands in Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2).
God caused Joseph and Mary to journey to Bethlehem. 
 
We read in Luke 2:1-7: “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
 
“And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem: (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.”
 
The couple traveled 90 miles to the city of Joseph’s ancestors. The journey might have taken seven days — going south and then west over hills around Jerusalem and on into Bethlehem.
 
While they stayed in Bethlehem in a stable, because there was no room for them in an inn, Mary’s baby was delivered.

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.”
 
The Bread of Life was born in a stable in a small town whose name means house of bread.
 
Jesus later fed a large crowd with five loaves and two fish (John 6). Many from that crowd found him the next day, and he told them that they were seeking him because they ate the loaves “and were filled.” He said they weren’t looking for him because of the miracles he had done.
 
“They saw this miracle and they fixated on the product of the miracle, not the person of the miracle,” says John Piper, a Bible scholar. “Jesus did not come into the world mainly to give bread, but to be bread.” 
 
They replied that they wanted a sign from Jesus in order to believe in him. They said their ancestors ate manna (bread from heaven) given by God to them in the desert as they fled Egypt.
 
Jesus told them that his Father was giving them true bread from heaven — bread that gives life to the world. He said that their fathers ate manna but are dead. “Whoever eats this bread will live forever,” Jesus said. 
 
That group of Jews desired earthly provisions, but Jesus wanted to give them bread from heaven. He tried to move their thinking away from physical things and focus their minds on the spiritual realm.
 
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life: he who comes to me shall never hunger; and he who believes on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
 
At The Last Supper, Jesus handed bread to his disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
 
Today, Jesus wants us to know that he is the spiritual bread that brings eternal life.