Tuesday, February 6, 2018
He took some bread and gave thanks to
God for it. Then he broke it in pieces
and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for
you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19(NLT)
Do you have a life’s question? It’s a kind of question that pushes you to explore
the why
of your life, and thereby uncover the nuts and bolts of how to live your
life with meaning and purpose. At this
past Sunday’s worship another piece of the tapestry that forms answers to my life’s
question, how, then, shall I live, revealed itself in the bread of the Lord’s
Table.
There is something about the bread that has
always fascinated me. I was raised in church,
so I’ve been around the table a lot. In communion
I’ve been offered, and I have also served all different kinds of bread – Hawaiian,
Sourdough, Wonderbread™, and those tasteless little pasty-wafers. The strangest bread I ever served was
cinnamon-raisin bread brought with me on a mission trip from North Carolina to
Zimbabwe, Africa. There was no other
bread available, so, like the boy who offered his lunch of loaves and fishes to
Jesus, my sandwich became sacrament.
When there are moments of quiet in a
communion service I usually focus my attention on the flame of the altar
candles, or the cup, or the bread. I want
to use this time to honor God for His loving me enough to die for me at
Calvary.
On Sunday I was meeting people as they came
forward to receive the body and blood of our LORD. Each set of eyes seemed to welcome the words
as I lifted bread and offered, the Body of Christ, given for you. Over and again I tore the pieces from one
common loaf. And then I noticed…I never
tear just the inside part of the loaf; I always get a little crust to go with
the sweet inside. And it dawned on me…I do that all the time. So, the question begged: why do I do that?
Some people might chalk it up to obsessive-compulsive
disorder, autistic tendencies, or just plain quirky habit; not me. I may be guilty of some OCD or other
weirdness, but this was not that. Something
inside me smiled, and the meaning became very clear; so clear I shared it with
the church body as we ended our service.
What I saw in that simple act was how the crust belongs with the
sweet inner, soft, “meat” of the bread.
They go together like a hand in glove; the crust is necessary!
The next question is why – why is crust
necessary? Some people don’t like crust. They cut off the crust of their sandwiches,
and even throw-out the end pieces. I prefer
the end pieces. When Elizabeth and I eat
lunch at Panera Bread, my soup (the broccoli and cheese, thank you) is always
in a bread-bowl. Every piece of crust
will be consumed!
The crust, for me at least, symbolizes the
difficult, commitment part of communion in the Body of Christ. For all of the good, sweet, inner-meat of the
loaf which is belonging, salvation, redemption, sanctification, and eventual
glorification, there is that initial and daily, continual surrendering of our
personal will to the will of God. We
lose our life in order to find it.
The loaf without crust is not one loaf – it is
only part of a loaf, just like Christianity without commitment is shallow, and
dishonors the Bread of Life.
For You Today
If handed a piece of bread at the sacrament with mostly
crust, would you just eat the inner sweetness, and discard the crust? Would that really be in
remembrance of HIM?
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a
blessed day!
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