Bread for the Journey

48 Hours of Hunger

As a teen, I remember doing a 48 hour famine event. It’s an event where you eat nothing or very little for, you guessed it, 48 hours. It’s a way for youth especially to begin to have some idea of what it is to live in a country where food is not plentiful. It raises awareness to issues of hunger and malnutrition faced by millions across the world. In fact, did you know that according to the United Nations, 690 million people go to bed hungry every night? And not just because they choose to… but because the food isn’t available.

Well, again, I remember doing a 48 hour famine as a teen. And I remember being pretty confident that it would be an easy thing for me to do. Forgo food for two days? Simple. But after making it all the way through the first… oh… three hours… I started getting hungry. I wanted a snack. I wanted food. I wanted something. I started planning what I would eat when I finally got done with the 48 hours. After standing in solidarity with the hungry throughout the world for 2 whole days, I said to myself, I’d treat myself to a big meal of spaghetti and meatballs or pancakes with maple syrup or lasagna if I could convince my mom to make it for me. After 48 hours, I would deserve a special meal after all for all of my sacrifice to experience what someone on the other side of the world knew every day.

As the hours ticked on and my hunger grew, I started caring less about what meal I might get at the end of that 48 hours… and I started caring more about simply getting a bite to eat when the time came. The hunger grew. It hurt. I wasn’t used to hurting from hunger… I had never experienced that… at least not for more than a few minutes. My body was screaming for calories… for carbohydrates… for some nourishment to keep going.

And as the 48 hours came to a close, I grabbed the closest thing available. And I still remember it… a single slice of whole-grain wheat bread. No butter. No jelly. Just bread. And when I bit into it… it tasted so sweet… so good. I didn’t cram the bread down my throat… no. I savored it. Each bite of that store-bought bread tasted like a gift. Like manna in my wilderness. And it had been just 48 hours.

Bread for Judaism

2,000 years ago, bread was one of the primary staples of life. But to really understand just how important bread was, we’re going to do a brief hebrew lesson together. Are you ready?

I’m going to teach you the Hebrew word for bread. “Lechem” (La-chem).

Ok, let’s practice that a couple times. “Lechem” “Lechem” “Lechem”

Now I’m going to teach you the Hebrew word for food. Just… food in general. Here we go. Repeat after me one more time: “Lechem”

You notice something about those two words? They’re the same. Bread and food were interchangeable. Did they have other foods beside bread? Sure! But bread was so important to their diet that its very name meant food.

For the people of Christ’s time, the specific word for bread meant the same thing as their general word for food. One might even go so far as to say that bread meant life.

And when you encounter hunger, REAL hunger… you realize just how important those bites of life are. No longer food about just satisfying some craving for a Snicker’s bar or crunchy Cheetos (not the puffy ones) or maybe a ripe peach that is just drips with juice when you bite into it or whatever might strike your fancy… when you face real hunger, you realize that the food you are eating literally permits you to continue living. Food means life. Bread means life.

Jesus Bread

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise then that these last several weeks we keep hearing Jesus talk about bread over and over again. Unlike me as a teenager, the people understood what real hunger was like. They understood what it was to go to bed hungry night after night. They understood what it was to worry about going without food… without bread.

And so Jesus provides them food. He gives them lechem (la-chem). He provides for thousands. But he sought to not only feed their bodies… but their souls. He sought to not only satiate the hunger of the body… but to calm the worry by feeding the soul.

Worries of Today

In the last few weeks, I have sensed that worries have been on the rise for many of us. We don’t all share the same worries. But there is anxiousness about what the next day will bring, regardless.

For some, there is an anxiousness about medical mandates. Companies making vaccines mandatory when not all of their employees trust that the vaccine won’t do more harm than the virus. What does this mean for our jobs? Our paychecks? There’s a fear, will mask mandates once again be on the rise? What will this do to our children if they have to mask up again or be forced to learn online again? What does this mean for our freedom?

For others, there is an anxiousness about Covid-19’s numbers jumping up again. Who will get sick next? How badly will they be affected? I hope it isn’t someone that I love. What will this do to our children if they get sick… and perhaps badly sick? What will the future look like if we don’t get control of this now?

And there are still other worries. I’ve had a number of my more evangelical friends suggest that this is the beginning of the end times. Likewise, I’ve heard those on the other side of the aisle say… this might be the beginning of the end times! It seems like one disaster after another has been in the news.

When the news broke yesterday of the 7.2 earthquake in Haiti… I almost wanted to cover my ears rather than hear of one more story of something bad happening.

It’s can almost feel like we’ve been on a 48 hour famine for the last many months, filled not with a hunger for food but a hunger for an end to bad news.

As a people, we’re worn out. Stress levels are high. We’re ready to just be DONE with all of the bad stuff that’s happening. We are hungry for some good news that will stick in our bellies. But across the board the good news keeps coming up short. It isn’t fulfilling. It doesn’t stick. It doesn’t last. We keep hungering for something that we can rely on.

Jesus Says

And Jesus says, “I am the living bread that comes down from heaven.” And Jesus offers not some token food that will only sustain for a time… but he offers himself.

In the midst of the hunger for Good News that will last, in the midst of concern and worry, in the midst of fear for the future… Jesus, the Son of God, offers himself his disciples, to us and to the world, “Take and eat, this is my body.”

And so he gives himself as a meal for God’s children. That we might find ourselves sustained by faith that comes not from our own efforts but from the body and blood of Christ -given- for us.

In our hungering for justice, mercy, relief, stability, hope, forgiveness, and grace… God feeds to us the true lachem of life, the stuff of life, the food of life, the bread of life.

When we come to the table to receive the bread and the wine, we taste this lachem of life for the world.

Today, I invite you to lay your troubles at the feet of the one who died for us all. Take what vexes you, what causes you stress and anxiety… what worries you… take that which burdens you… and set it at the foot of the cross.

And then eat heartily and drink deeply of the bread of life given to us through Christ. Be filled, dear church. Be filled for the journey.