Bread

I was able to go to the last Quizzing practice here in town before Christmas break and the chapter they were studying this week was Matthew 15.

The person who was giving the devotional spent a little bit of time on the beginning stories but focused on the feeding of the 4,000.

And he asked a question that I had never really stopped to think about. Why did the disciples gather up the leftover food?

Suggestions were tossed around as we all contemplated the question. Maybe to show how big the miracle really was, or because the disciples were taught well by their moms never to waste food, or...

The lesson moved on as he talked about Jesus commanding them to pick up the food when He fed the 5,000  just a chapter earlier, although His command is only recorded in John's version.

He brought our attention to the bread mentioned earlier in Matthew 15, when the Canaanite woman pleads for Him to heal her daughter from demon-possession because "even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table."

Broadening the horizons, he talked about the Jesus connecting the feeding of the crowds to the giving of the manna in the desert. Every day for 40 years, they were sustained because of this miraculous bread that fell from the heavens.

They had left Egypt and had turned to one of their favourite habits, complaining. Among those complaints was the food and in response, God gave them manna and quail.

He satisfied their hunger and their doubt in Him.

And the leader drew the discussion back to the point where Jesus declares, "I am the Bread of Life." I honestly don't know where he went with it after this, but I remember the one thing that struck me about all of the situations that were strung together and the picture that I saw in all of them: His sufficiency.

He provided manna in the desert to a people just recently rescued and yet still crying out to be fed.

He provided Himself to a people to whom the Law was given but who could not be saved by following it, and they too were crying out to be fed.

And God answered their cry. Out of His infinite love and incredible mercy, He fed. He fed these hungry people with the true Bread. The Bread of Life that was broken for all mankind. His Son.

This season celebrates Jesus' birth, yes. It celebrates His life and His eventual journey to the cross and His resurrection, yes. But it also celebrates who He is today, the true Bread, the only One who can truly fill each and every human and to fully satisfy the craving for wholeness that sin causes.

He is our only remedy. He is our only true satisfaction.

He is the Bread of Life.

And I have to wonder whether another reason that Jesus commanded His disciples to gather up the leftover bread and fish was to show them that very same thing. That in everything, He is all-sufficient. We have nothing to worry when the One who can multiply fish and bread is on our side.

Not only do we not have to worry about our physical needs, but we can know that our spiritual needs are met to the full. Not only to the full, but overflowing, as His disciples found out.

Nothing in the world can satisfy, nothing can fill us to the full, nothing can bring us ultimate satisfaction, except one thing:

Jesus, the true Bread of Life.