02 - Jesus, The Bread Of Life By Pastor Jeff Wickwire Notes

He is doing it on the annual observance of the Jewish Passover....commemorating the solemn night that the children of Israel placed the blood of a lamb on the doorposts and on the panel above the door...

This assured that when the death Angel of God's judgment on Egypt approached, he would "pass over" their home when he saw the blood...

This way the Children of Israel were protected from judgment...

Of course, all of this pointed to the day when God's sacrifice Lamb, Jesus Christ, would shed His blood for all the world...

From that point forward, anyone placing their faith in Him would essentially be applying His blood to the doorposts of their own heart, thus escaping the judgment of God for sin that is coming upon the whole world!

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Jesus is clearly illustrating for His disciples the fact that His blood was about to be shed, and that His blood was THE blood of the New Covenant...

Hebrews says that Jesus is, "...the Mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel" (Heb. 12:24).

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Now, we notice that Jesus did four things with the bread of the Passover....

He "TOOK it, BLESSED it, BROKE it, and GAVE it."

And this is also what He did the two times He fed the multitudes with the loaves of bread---the Bible says He "took it, blessed it, broke it, then gave it away..."

Now, when the Bible says that He "BROKE" the bread, it is a type of his own body being broken, literally "shattered" by a violent death.

Was He thinking of this when he took, blessed, broke, and gave bread to the multitudes? I think so...

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These four words present a powerful truth for us today concerning Jesus Christ and His death on our behalf....

So let's take them one at a time...

I. He TOOK the bread

We see that each time Jesus TOOK the bread, it was after it had first been OFFERED to Him...

The little boy with the fishes and loaves "Offered" his bread to Jesus and Jesus received or TOOK it...

The disciples OFFERED the bread to Him at the table and He TOOK it, He RECEIVED it...

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One of the incredible facts surrounding God becoming a man in the Person of Christ is that THE DECISION was made before the world began....

1 Peter 1: 20 tells us, "He (Jesus) was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake."

Here's the awesome mind-blower....

Long before God ever uttered the words, "Let there be light" Jesus offered Himself to the Father to be our Sacrificed Lamb, to die in our stead, to redeem us from the curse of sin...

And when Jesus offered Himself, God TOOK Him, God received His offer just like Jesus received the bread offered to Him.

So PICTURE IT: Just as Jesus TOOK into His sacred hands the bread offered by the little boy, and TOOK the bread from the disciples on the Passover, God TOOK Jesus as the Bread that would become life for us, RECEIVING His offer to die in our stead.

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Then next, we're told that Jesus...

II. Blessed the bread

The word BLESSED is a powerful, wonderful word.

And it is a CHRISTIAN word...It is a SPIRITUAL word...It is a BIBLICAL word.

People may talk about "blessings" in their lives, but the non-Christian has no idea what a real blessing is...

Because only the born again child of God truly knows what it is to be blessed, for true blessing comes from God alone through His Son, Christ Jesus.

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Jesus is the source and fount of all true blessing!

He began His famous Sermon on the Mount with eight ways for people to be blessed.

He began and concluded His earthly ministry blessing people.

The Greek word "BLESS" means, "to cause to prosper, to make happy, to bestow blessings on, to show favor to."

But it also means, "to consecrate something with solemn prayers, to ask God's blessing on a thing."

This is what Jesus was doing with the bread--He was consecrating it, setting it aside for a special use.

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And once again, this perfectly illustrates what we see in Jesus' own life.

He was not just blessed to prosper, blessed with God's favor...(Jesus "grew in wisdom and maturity, and in FAVOR with God and man") Luke 2:52.

But He was also consecrated, set aside for a VERY SPECIAL PURPOSE---to die on the Cross for us as God's sacrifice Lamb...

God TOOK Jesus, the bread of life, and God BLESSED Jesus by consecrating Him as our Sacrifice Lamb!

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Jesus knew this better than anyone alive....He told His disciples,

"For even I, the Messiah, did not come to be served, but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

So He "TOOK" the bread, and "BLESSED" the bread, and then THIRD....

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III. He broke the bread

Each and every time, the "taking" and the "blessing" came before the "breaking."

When facing the hungry crowds, Jesus TOOK the bread, BLESSED the bread, and then BROKE the bread...

And this again precisely describes the pattern His own life took...

Having been TAKEN by the Father in eternity past as our Sacrifice Lamb...

And having been BLESSED as the One consecrated for the Father's divine purpose of dying for our sins....

Jesus was BROKEN for you and me!

Isaiah the Prophet predicted the BREAKING Jesus must endure...

He wrote, "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (53:3-6).

As the grape must first be crushed before the fruit of the vine can be enjoyed...

So our Savior had first to be BROKEN before God's rich salvation could be experienced....

He TOOK the bread, He BLESSED the bread, He BROKE the bread, and then...

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IV. He GAVE the bread

The distribution of the bread always followed the taking, blessing, and breaking....

And likewise, Jesus GAVE Himself away in sacrificial love...

But not just on the Cross, throughout His entire sacrificial life we see Jesus giving Himself for us....

He gave Himself away in His TEACHING....He said in John's gospel, "I have given to them the words which You have given Me..." (John 17:8)

He gave Himself away in His PRAYERS for us: "I pray for them...that you would keep them from evil...." (vs. 11)

He gave Himself away by living a SANCTIFIED LIFE for us: "And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth" (vs. 19)

And then of course, He gave Himself away by going all the way to the Cross for our salvation...."He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the Cross" (Philippians 2:8).

As Jesus TOOK the bread, BLESSED the bread, and GAVE the bread...

God likewise TOOK Jesus, BLESSED Jesus, allowed Him to be BROKEN, and GAVE Jesus that starving humanity might partake of the bread of life!