Give Us Our Daily Bread

This post is from Alison Hendley, a pastor at San Rafael First UMC:

Satan says, “Turn this stone into bread…. what harm can it do?  You have fasted for 40 days, just a little bread to give you strength, to nourish you, to fill you.  It’s an easy thing to do.”

Yet Jesus returns to God, to scripture, to the word of the one who calls him “Beloved”. Where it says, “One cannot live by bread alone.”

In the Bible bread is used again and again as a teaching:  the loaves multiplied, the disciples were told to take no bread when they went out, manna was provided in the desert to the Israelites, the bread of the Pharaoh’s dream that Joseph interpreted, the unleavened bread that those escaping from Egypt took with them, give us this day our daily bread… and on and on.  This simple form of substance becomes almost a mantra of giving life.

And then Jesus himself says, “I am the Bread of Life.”  One cannot live by bread alone….. but one can live by Bread.

The Disciple’s prayer, “Give us this day” a constant reminder that each morning as we pray the Bread of Life is giving himself to us, all we have to do is ask.  “Please, dear God, give us enough Bread, enough Life, enough Hope, enough of You for this day.  And tomorrow I will humble myself to ask once again.

Jesus knew that he could easily turn this stone to bread, but that to do so for the wrong reason would to turn away from God, from his true self, from the very Bread that he was becoming.  He knew this stone was not the one he needed to transform, but that he had to search out any hardness within himself so that he could fully be the nourishing Bread for us.

This Lenten season we too are asked to search out any hardness in ourselves, so that we may be nourished fully AND so we may be the daily bread for others.  We are commanded to humble ourselves enough to ask each morning to be fed by the Bread.  And we are reminded day after day that the Bread is real…. even as we walk to the suffering of the cross, even as we journey though our own life, even as we try to deny the pain and grief…. the Bread is here, abundant, and enough.

O God, give us each day our daily Bread!