Fresh Bread

A beautiful woman I know shared a special gift with me.  It was one I was hesitant to accept because of the responsibility that came with it to faithfully tend it.  I was not at all sure I could handle the weekly responsibility.  I was in unknown territory, but I took a chance and believed I could do what it required, because she believed I could do it.

I became the proud parent of a sour dough starter.  I call it ‘the baby’ because it needs regular care.  I can’t forget about ‘the baby’ because it has to be fed within a certain period of time each week.  And, I also have to make loaves of fresh bread every week, and we continually enjoy the aroma which permeates the atmosphere of our home. 

There has been a steep learning curve.  I was a bread newbie.  I have produced numerous loaves that were of insufficient height, which is being kind.  I have radically under baked loaves.  But, I have been faithful and tenacious to try new things each week that have the potential to produce bread that actually looked like a loaf of bread.  There has been rejoicing at our house when, with my husband’s help, I learned how to coax it to rise and overfill the loaf pans, and bake it until it was golden brown! We both reaped the reward.

One tremendous blessing that I had not fully anticipated was how that little starter baby would impact my life.  Each week I go through the multiple day process of feeding, creating the dough, allowing it to rise, punching it down, working the dough into loaves (my favorite part), allowing them to rise, and then finally actually baking the final product.  Each step gave me an increased desire to taste the baked bread, but I had to wait until the process was complete. I yearned to eat the bread, literally.  But, I learned that the bread was definitely worth waiting for. Every time I bake it, the aroma of the baking bread changes the atmosphere of our home.  Every, single time. It never, ever gets old. Each week, I tell my husband the same thing: “We live in the house of bread!”  Even though we live in the city of a different name, once a week we reside in Bethlehem, the house of Bread.  To say I love the process of making bread is putting it mildly, but that is not the end of the story, but the beginning.

My thoughts during this weekly multifaceted process are continually redirected from my kitchen to the Bread that was in the Tabernacle and the Temple in the Old Testament on a beautiful table of gold.  This freshly baked bread was called “the Bread of His Presence”.  Every week the priests would go through the process of making bread.  (I can relate to that now!) Each week the atmosphere around them would be filled with the smell of fresh bread- not only as the bread was being baked- but also as they placed the twelve loaves on “the gold table that stands before the LORD” in the Inner Court.  They put it on the table in front of Him! I don’t believe we can overstate how amazing it must have been to have freshly baked bread in the Temple! Everyone that entered must have been arrested by it. The aroma was not a distraction, but an invitation. It surely must have awakened hunger in those who came near. A hunger for Bread!

I think God must love bread.  He must love the smell of fresh bread.  Apparently, He wanted to enjoy the aroma weekly.  He chose it as a memorial, a symbol of an everlasting covenant that He made with His people and commanded it to be baked every single week and placed in that Tent of Meeting/Temple in a strategic place (The Holy Place), for a very important reason.  It was prepared, baked, placed and eaten by His priests, an honor reserved only for those who had been sanctified for His purposes and had dedicated their lives to ministering to Him. Bread was (and, is) a continual reminder of the covenant between Him and His people.  Was He saying, “This is how much I love you!  It is so important to Me that I want you to be reminded by weekly enjoying the sweet aroma, and delighting in the heavenly taste of bread!  We can love it together!” God calls those who belong to Him a kingdom of priests. Priests tend (and eat) the Bread!

Beautiful loaves of fresh baked bread adorned- not only the Tabernacle and Temple- but also graced the Passover Table, as well as the Table where Jesus shared a very important last meal with His disciples before His death.  He chose it as the symbol of His Body, broken and offered for the sin of millions and millions of people who have lived, and will ever live.  Have we all been starving for Him and we don’t even realize it?  (Is anybody else hungry right now?)  Truly, Jesus is the Bread of Life (as He referred to Himself), and whoever partakes of Him will never be hungry, but will be filled (permeated?) with everlasting life.

Jesus began His journey on earth in the House of Bread (Bethlehem), because after all, where else would the Bread of Life be born?  I am sure bread held a special place in His appetite and heart for His whole life.  He didn’t just enjoy bread, He became Bread! So He is present, with His Presence, deep inside the very Temple of our hearts, filling our entire beings with heavenly aroma, and providing a never ending supply of Himself to taste, to eat, to love and to enjoy, and to share Him with anyone else who is hungry.

Jesus modeled the perfect prayer in Matthew 6.  In verse 11, He gave expression to the wordless prayer of our hearts: “Give us this day, our Daily Bread!  Give us Yourself as our Chief Staple, and the Sustenance of our life!  Let every bit of the life we have now, be superseded as we digest and assimilate the Life that is only found in You. Bread of Heaven! Feed us with Yourself, until all of us, is You.”