I’ve always wanted to master breadmaking, but there’s something about it that intimidates me. Recently, my daughter, who is obsessed with bread, got a bread machine. Problem solved! The machine does all the work, and we get to enjoy the fresh, delicious bread. Is there anything better? 

I was thinking of this bread during a recent Sunday School class. We discussed the Last Supper and Jesus’s breaking of bread with the disciples. Matthew 26:26a says, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples …” (NIV). I had never made the connection before, but my handout informed me that this same pattern of verbs is used in the feeding of the 5,000. In Matthew 14, we find a multitude of people who had come to see Jesus. Toward the end of the day, everyone was hungry. Jesus told the disciples to feed them. This bewildered the disciples. There were only five loaves of bread and two fish. How is this supposed to feed thousands?! Bring them to me, Jesus says, and then, in verse 19b, “… Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples …” (NIV). 

Took the bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, gave it to the disciples. The same pattern exists in both stories. As someone who works with words, I thought, is there a purpose to the pattern? Word pattern aside, the actions of that night at the Last Supper would have recalled that miraculous feeding in the minds of His disciples.

Jesus fed the crowd to meet a physical need. They were hungry. But something bigger is happening. In John 6:35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again.” Here, at the Last Supper, hours before His death, Jesus is breaking physical bread, but pointing to this bigger story. The Bread of Life was broken to meet our need. Not just a physical need, but a spiritual need. Isaiah 53:5 tell us that He was “… wounded for our transgressions: he was broken for our iniquities” (GNV). Because He was broken, we are healed. We don’t ever have to be hungry again.

That fresh bread coming from the bread machine is a good reminder for me that  this bread will satisfy a temporary need, but there is One, the Bread of Life, who meets an even greater need. Is there anything better? 

Illustration by Lan Truong