Matthew 26:26

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.'”

Our minds go back to Jesus’ words in John 6, “I am the bread of life…I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

These words lay heavily on the mind of the disciples – for three long years.  Who can deny the mystery behind these words? Is Jesus to be eaten?  Horrors!  Jesus was no doubt many things but bread to be eaten?  Come, now. Can we begin to comprehend at least a bit of what he is firmly declaring, “I am the bread that gives the eater life.”  Or, we may translate, “I am the bread that gives the eater life.”  Both are hard to get our minds and hearts around.

Is it because the most common food is bread of some kind?  In East Africa it is a corn meal, in West Africa mashed bananas. It is the “staff of life” of a culture – commonly consumed and commonly appreciated.

Jesus is that spiritual “staff of life, “the bread of life.”  It is at hand to provide nourishment and as the base of all healthy meals. Eat it with thanksgiving!

But what is this bread?  Jesus explained it the best he could, he “took the bread…and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.'”  v 25

In a few short hours that body will be hanging on a merciless Roman cross on which the unwanted of society are done away with.  The bread that has come down from heaven to feed mankind is absolutely “broken.”

Can there be  a mystery as profound yet so utterly real and true!  Jesus is available bread, broken to sustain others. It is grace upon grace. A lifetime of pondering only confirms its mystery.