bread of life

I love bread in a serious, undying sort of way. If you were to offer me the world's best chocolate bar or a loaf of freshly baked bread, the bread would win, no contest.

(Actually, I would probably take both and make some kind of chocolate croissant thing. Ohhhh.)

Bread is the first thing I think of when I'm hungry and trying to think of what to eat. Bread is a ubiquitous staple in my diet; I have bread at pretty much every meal. And about the only bread I don't like is my the kind my mom eats, the kind that has nuts in it, though I've been known to eat that if it's all we have around the house. Bread is usually the only thing I will eat in the morning, since it's the only food that my sensitive morning stomach can handle. My favorite scent, aside from my son's head, is baking bread. There's a bakery just a couple blocks upwind of the hospital where I work, and in the mornings, it's all you can smell throughout the entire campus: fresh bread.

And today, when I found myself starving at 2pm without a single meal in me for the day, the first thing I thought of was freshly baked bread. I ended up at one of my favorite local markets with a bag of six sourdough rolls, along with some Greek yogurt and strawberries. The bread was heavenly.

There's a part from one of my favorite childhood books, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, where Sarah, the favored child-turned-scullery-maid, is walking down the streets, destitute, remembering her privileged days with her beloved daddy and desperately trying to ease her hunger. She walks by a bakery, the street filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread, and she is overcome by weakness in her need for this bread. She's starving, she's weak and tired, and right then in that moment, a little slice of heaven looks like a bag of 6 rolls, which she eventually eats with wolf-like ferocity a few minutes later, thanks to the kindness of a stranger.

It's no surprise to me, then, when Jesus refers to himself as "the bread of life":

For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world... 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. John 6:33, 35

Have you ever had REAL bread? I'm not talking slices of white Wonder Bread; I mean some real, from-scratch bread. The kind that you can't roll into a ball but instead crumbles when you break it. The kind that has every kind of seed and nut in it, brown, earthy, complex and full of texture and taste. It's not the kind of bread most of us eat every day, but it is the kind of bread I imagine being around in Jesus' time, the kind of bread the Jews are demanding Jesus provide them just after the above verses in the Book of John. It is hearty, substantial, and provides the body the kind of energy you would need if you were a first-century Hebrew, doing manual labor, farming.

Even this bread, Jesus said, was not true bread; He is the bread sent from heaven, not the stuff Moses and his flock ate during their 40 years in the desert.

I'm not a huge fan of white bread. It's not very filling, and it's kind of bland. Even worse is the "diet" bread I see on the shelves, the reduced-calorie bread that promises to be all fiber and less calories. That stuff tastes like crap - it's totally gross. It screws with my blood sugar, does nothing to fill my stomach, and it makes me grouchy, even. And it still leaves me completely unsatisfied, in many cases even hungrier than I was before I ate. Everything good and lasting has been processed right out, and it's basically just fluffy cardboard.

And yet, I so often settle for filling my hunger for the Bread of Life with all sorts of meaningless filler: things that promise to satisfy me and yet leave me hungering for Him even more than before. There is so much out there in the world that promises to satisfy me, whether it's a crusty sourdough roll, the latest technology, a bigger house, more money. It smells good, looks tasty, and some of it even makes me salivate (um, hello, iPhone), but in the end, I'm still left wanting more. Sometimes it doesn't even taste all that good, and still I continue to fill myself with it. Even some of the "heartier" stuff will not satisfy my true hunger: I can listen to all the amazing worship songs in the world, listen to the best sermons every Sunday, fill my life with some of the most inspiring Christian friends I've ever had... and all of it, though good and sent from God, is not a replacement for Him. It's not a replacement for the true, soul-filling Word. It will never satisfy the true hunger in me. Only He can do that.

This past New Year's Day, as I pondered what I could commit to doing to improve my life, I realized that if I wanted to know true satisfaction, true intimacy, true love in 2009, I needed to starting filling myself with Him. Not because I should, like trying to eat that Ezekiel bread I mentioned above, or because someone told me to, or because I feel guilty that I've totally been neglecting my time with God... but because I hunger for Him. And white-bread, filler stuff in my life just ain't gonna cut it anymore. I need the real stuff.

Just like the dirty, hungry little princess standing outside the bakery, dying for just one hot roll of bread, so I hope to lay myself at his feet, begging for the manna that truly satisfies my hunger. There, I find peace.

Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever. John 6:57-58