SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be leading us into communion today.
SPEAKER_00: And the topic of what I want to talk about is Jesus, the bread of life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus refers to himself as the bread of life that comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: In John 6, from verse 31 onwards, Jesus spoke about how our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
SPEAKER_00: The meaning of manna is what is it?
SPEAKER_00: As the Israelites at that point wanted to know what this was.
SPEAKER_00: And similarly, we see the Pharisees, they frequently expressed an outrage at Jesus and his disciples asking different variations of what is this.
SPEAKER_00: In verses 33 to 35, it says, For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
SPEAKER_00: It goes on to say.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
SPEAKER_00: But there is in verse 50 it says, But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.
SPEAKER_00: I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
SPEAKER_00: This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus also teaching us how to pray in Matthew 6 11 says, He instructs us to say, Give us this day our daily bread, thus teaching us to hunger for Him every day.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was mulling over the concept of bread, I was struck by a few parallels between bread as expressed in the Bible and the physical bread that we eat.
SPEAKER_00: The process of baking bread, um it has a few parallels that I would like to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: Around COVID time, when all places went into lockdown, I, like a lot of others, started baking bread.
SPEAKER_00: And these are the things that I remember I still bake, I do.
SPEAKER_00: So the process of creating a very beautiful golden brown, crusty, puffy loaf, as we know and like, is not really the prettiest, the most gentle or glamorous thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: The grain of wheat itself gets crushed, it's ground between two very abrasive surfaces under pressure into a fine powder.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it reminds me of what Paul in Corinthians 11, verse 24 says.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take eat.
SPEAKER_00: This is my body which is broken for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: And when we make the dough, it is pounded, it is kneaded, it is repeatedly picked up, slapped down on the ground, on the work surface, and it is stretched, folded upon itself.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of things happen to it, it goes through a lot of pressure, and then it forms that bread.
SPEAKER_00: There is actually a technique called the slap and fold technique, where the dough is picked up repeatedly, slapped down on the work surface, folded upon itself, and then done the whole thing is repeated over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: That is to develop the gluten network, which helps the the door to trap air and the bread to expand.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't do that, it doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: The bread doesn't expand, you have a frisbee.
SPEAKER_00: And just before, just before the dough is placed in the oven, bakers actually score it.
SPEAKER_00: A cut is made in the bread, and there are decorative cuts that they make to imitate ears of wheat and stuff, and it also helps the bread to expand in a fashion where it looks good.
SPEAKER_00: And I am reminded of Isaiah 53, 5, where it says, But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
SPEAKER_00: So as we partake of Holy Communion this morning, may we be reminded of Jesus, the bread of life, the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world and to us, of whom we eat and derive eternal life from.
SPEAKER_00: As it says in John 6 54, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
SPEAKER_00: Shall we pray?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus, for your sacrifice on the cross that gives us forgiveness from our sins and healing for our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: We remember how you were bruised and broken, and your blood was poured out for our sake.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that when we feed on you, we will not hunger, but we will have eternal life in you.
SPEAKER_00: And you will raise us up on the last day.
SPEAKER_00: We bless you.
SPEAKER_00: We bless your name, Jesus.