"Jesus took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to His disciples and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body'" (Matthew 26:26).
The loaf of bread on my kitchen counter isn't one I baked. I bought it from Costco and placed it in my bread pan. Baked like that, it's the closest thing to home-made without being the real deal. So there's my short-cut! It works for me in a pinch. It also reminds me that there is no short-cut to becoming the kind of bread that will be broken-will yield to the breaking.
I tear chunks from the loaf and confess, "Jesus, You are the Bread of life-of my life."
I rip the loaf to pieces. "You blessed the bread before You broke it."
"I was blessed to be broken and given." My hands pause over the cutting board. "When I came into the world," He clarifies by His own word what He just said, "I said to our Father, 'sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.'"
I know the verse. It's in Hebrews chapter ten. "Then You said," I know His response by heart, "Behold, I have come-in the volume of the book it is written of Me-to do Your will, O God.'"
We fall quiet at the cutting board, He and I, and all I can think is that there was no short-cut for Him. He came to do God's will; and while He was preparing to be the sacrifice, He was learning to be obedient in His flesh.
I find the verse. It's in Hebrews chapter five, half-way to chapter ten. I read of Him, that in the days of His flesh, though He was a Son, "yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him..."(Hebrews 5:5-9).
The bread is torn to shreds and scattered over the wooden cutting board, and I think of the Bread, torn to shreds-flogged-and displayed on another wooden board.
There is no short-cut to learning this kind of obedience, but there is blessing for it.
"Thank You, God, for taking me and blessing me." Really, I'm thanking Him for preparing a body for His Son; and likewise, for preparing a body for me. I'm fully blessed in Christ, and I'm part of His body.
There isn't a short-cut to forgiving, either. No short-cut to joy in the midst of mayhem, or to praise in the midst of pain, or to the kind of tender mercy given as equally as Jesus gave His bread to both disciples and to betrayer-but there is blessing for it all.
"You blessed the bread before You broke it. Bless me like that, today, Jesus." I bow over the bread on the cutting board, asking to be given this day the daily Bread and to become bread today, blessed to be broken and given.
"I have blessed you. Receive My blessing."
Ah, that's the hard part. It's hard to receive this blessing which equips me to be broken and given-even given to those who will hurt me; betray me. It's hard to receive this blessing which is established through the learning of obedience by the things which are suffered in the flesh. Yet, this blessing may be received in power, for the power that it is. It may be received as intended, and for its intended daily purpose.
I'm bread with a small "b."
If I wonder what my purpose is today-just today-I need only to know what Jesus' purpose is. Whatever it is for Him, that's what it is for me.
I think I hear Him whisper into my thoughts, "My tender mercies are over all My works, and all My works praise My name."
"Then," I venture brave, "thank You for this lil' bit of bread that I am, for I will break today and be given." Sometimes I say what is in my heart to say to Him without knowing how to count the cost. I can't possibly know the extent of the cost of a crumb of a blessing. As the song goes, "I'll never know how much it cost, to see my sin upon the cross," so goes my heart's beat, "Here I bow, give all to You; Lord, I want to be like You."
The cost? Jesus paid it all, and all to Him I owe.
The act of giving torn bread is, to me right now, what tender mercy must look like.
I venture further, "You gave the bread, Your body, to not only Your disciples but," my breath feels tight in my chest, "but also to Judas."
Sometimes I feel betrayed by those I give myself to. I'm feeling it right now, and just between Him and me and the cutting board I confess it. Then I realize that Judas played a major part in God's plan, and that was what I call a real big blessing in a real ugly disguise-and I realize that Jesus was okay with that. He was!
He didn't tell Judas not to do what he was about to do.
He didn't deny Judas a serving of His body.
I'm not okay with betrayal; though in this moment with this bread half-way between whole and broken, half-way between the cutting board and the serving plate-in this moment I am beginning to understand something beyond betrayal.
Maybe Jesus looked at Judas and silently thanked God for providing His betrayer who would, unwittingly, begin the chain of happy, though excruciating, events which would bring about the finished work of salvation, the last prayer Jesus would pray in the flesh till He returns, "Father, forgive them," the last words, "It is finished," and His return to His heavenly home.
Maybe He looked at Judas and was filled with the anticipation of going home, and with the joy of preparing a place for those who are, as his disciples were-bread, with a small "b."
Maybe.
Yeah, I'm as bread, with a small "b," and I'm also Blessed by the Bread. Two big "B's."
written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig
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