Wonder Bread

Luke 24:13-35

As many of you know, I have spent a large amount of time over the last month and a half or so, sitting with my mom as she recovers from her recent surgery.  And as you might imagine, during this time we have spent countless hours, first in a hospital room, and now her room at the convalescent center watching television.  A few weeks ago, while channel surfing in the hospital, I ran across a show called “Bizarre Foods.”  How many of you have seen it?  It airs weekly on the Travel Channel.  And is, as advertized, a show where it’s host Andrew Zimmern travels around the world eating bizarre foods.  Among the things that he has eaten on the show are water crickets, mangrove worms, cow heart, stuffed pancreas, poached calf’s brain, guinea pig, cow heel soup, grasshopper pizza, mosquito eggs and jellied moose nose.  And that’s not even taking into account all of the stuff that I won’t bother to mention in polite company.  There’s no doubt that people eat some weird stuff.

It’s odd when you think about it how one person’s delicacy, like fried bees or jellyfish salad could be so revolting to someone on the other side of he world that they would almost be unable to go out to lunch after Sunday worship.  Almost.  Be that as it may, despite all of the differences in taste and diet around the world, there seems to be one thing that people of all cuisines and cultures hold in common when it comes to mealtime.  That common element is bread.  Be it pita, tortilla, rye, pumpernickel or sourdough, the one thing that is shared by people all around the world is the taste and the need for bread.  Bread is important, even necessary for human life. 

Our recognition of this truth is played out each week when we pray together on Sunday morning asking God to “give us this day our daily bread.”  When we pray this prayer, we are acknowledging not only our need for physical nourishment, but also the equally necessary requirement for spiritual nourishment that is symbolized by bread in the scriptures.  When the angels visited Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18, they gave them veal, cheese, and bread.  When God’s people were starving in the wilderness, God sent them manna, the bread of heaven.  And in this mornings’ scripture lesson, we read where 2 of Jesus followers, who were mourning his loss as they walked the lonely road between Jerusalem and Emmaus, eventually recognized that Jesus had been walking with them all along when they stopped to eat, and he blessed and broke the bread.

Of course, this isn’t the only story from Jesus’ life and ministry where bread plays a major role.  In Luke’s gospel alone, there are 3 stories in particular that illustrate the way in which Jesus equated the human need for the physical nourishment provided by bread with the equally important necessity of the spiritual nourishment provided by Jesus’ divine presence in our lives.

The feeding of the 5,000, the Last Supper, and this morning’s story about Jesus being revealed to his friends gathered around a loaf of bread in Emmaus each have something specific to teach us about the way in which God provides both the physical and spiritual daily bread that we require in the person and the presence of Jesus.

First in the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 we learn that Jesus promises to provide for our physical needs.  Out on that lonely Galilean hillside the people where hungry and Jesus gave them food.  In the same way, for you and me today, God promises to provide for our most basic human needs.  Nancy and I were taught this lesson when we went to Philadelphia in 1986 when I enrolled in the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Young, and naïve, we went to Philadelphia with little more than a few pieces of furniture donated by our parents, a $500 check from our home church in West Virginia, and the absolute faith that this was what God wanted us to do. 

That first morning in Philadelphia I went to the Bursar’s office where I received a bill for $1,500.  I stood in the hall that morning and I wondered how in the world we were going to pay that bill in this big, strange city when neither of us had a job.  I then went down the hall to the Registrar’s office to pick up my class list.  As I was leaving, the gal behind the desk told me that I should probably check my mailbox because she thought that I might have some mail that I would find interesting.  So back down the hall I went to the mailroom where I opened our box to discover an envelope from the Abingdon Baptist Church.  Upon opening the envelope I discovered a letter informing me that I had received an academic scholarship, and a check in the amount of $1,000. 

With a smile on my face, I went back down the hall to the Bursar’s office with that bill for $1,500 in one hand and checks for $1,000 and $500 in the other and never again have I doubted that God would give me this day my daily bread.  And from that day 22 years ago until this morning God has never failed to provide for me or my family. The bread that Jesus blessed, broke, and shared with the crowd that day on the Galilean hillside is a promise to us all that if we are faithful to God, God will provide our daily bread.

Then there is the bread blessed, broken, and shared at the Last Supper that Jesus celebrated with his apostles during his last night on earth.  When Jesus told his disciples that this bread symbolized his body broken for them, it served as a lesson to us all that God promises to provide us with not only the bread that nourishes our body, but also the sacrificial love and grace that heals our soul as well.

In his book “Letters to a Young Evangelical”, Tony Campolo shares a story from his youth about taking Communion:  “Sitting with my parents at a Communion service when I was very young, perhaps six or seven years old, I became aware of a young woman in the pew in front of us who was sobbing and shaking. The minister had just finished reading the passage of Scripture written by Paul that says, "Whosoever shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:27). As the Communion plate with its small pieces of bread was passed to the crying woman before me, she waved it away and then lowered her head in despair. It was then that my Sicilian father leaned over her shoulder and, in his broken English, said sternly, "Take it, girl! It was meant for you. Do you hear me?"
She raised her head and nodded—and then she took the bread and ate it. I knew that at that moment some kind of heavy burden was lifted from her heart and mind. Since then, I have always known that a church that could offer Communion to hurting people was a special gift from God.”
In the same manner, when we take up those tiny little pieces of bread in our hands in a few minutes, we will also receive the fulfillment of God’s promise to give us the special gift of God’s healing Grace and our soul will find nourishment.

And that leaves us with the bread blessed, broken, and shared around that table on Easter night in Emmaus.  This bread offered by Jesus to his two heartbroken friends promises us that God will add companionship and comfort to the physical needs and spiritual grace given us in the bread of Christ. 
This story of these two friends walking to Emmaus and sitting at the table with Jesus by their side, even when they failed to recognize him, reminds us all of the truth of Jesus’ words when he told his disciples, “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”Like the travelers on the road to Emmaus that day 2,000 years ago, we walk along the road of life experiencing and discussing the joy and the suffering of our existence,and then suddenly Jesus is thereamong us.In the bread of Emmaus we are reminded that every road that we walk is special because Jesus walks it with us, and every meal is a sacred meal because Jesus is there as well.  Even when we don’t realize that he’s there.

In John 6:35 Jesus said to his disciples, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger.” As I said before, there are lots of different kinds of breads in the world, but Jesus Christ is the one true wonder bread that can provide for all the physical and spiritual hunger in your life.  Walk with Jesus and you’ll never be hungry again.
Amen.