For most Americans today, bread at meals is optional, an
enjoyable source of unneeded carbohydrates. In Jesus’ day, bread
was essential. At most meals, any other food was an accessory, even a
luxury.
The Hebrew word for bread,
lehem, comes from a root that means “to
make solid,” and indeed, in Biblical times most peasants in
Palestine could go for days without tasting any other solid food.
Keeping this distinction in mind helps us appreciate how Jesus’
first disciples would have heard his instruction that when they prayed
they were to ask their heavenly Father, “Give us this day our daily
bread.”
Our daily bread
Our last two studies considered the first part of this petition. We
learned that we pray “Give us” not because God is unaware of
our situation but because God wants us to ask him to supply all our
needs. We pray “this day” because we are asking God only for
enough to make it through the day, not for a stockpile that will last us
a lifetime.
In praying for “our daily bread” we learn that we are to ask
God for essentials, not accessories, and that we are to be concerned
about the needs of those around us, not merely for the fullness of our
own bellies.
As Patrick Henry Reardon helpfully reminds us, “No matter with how
much discipline and industry we labor for our family’s bread, the
bread itself is always God’s gift, a truth we acknowledge each day
when we pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’”
And while this petition is concerned first and foremost with the food
that sustains our physical lives, Christians throughout the centuries
have understood it to apply to our spiritual lives as well.
The Bread of Life
From the beginning of the Bible to the end, God is seen as the giver of
life. From the Old Testament we learn that life itself comes from God
(Gen. 1-2). God has life in himself and he is the Lord of life (Psalm
104:29-30). Human life does not depend on bread alone but on God’s
word (Deut. 8:3). Death brings human life to an end.
The restoration of life, particularly the reconciliation of the
life-giving relationship between humanity and God, is a central theme of
the New Testament, in which two Greek words,
bios and
zoe
are translated “life.”
Bios, the root of such English
words as biology and biography, refers to natural, physical life.
Zoe
describes the life God has in himself and gives to those he wills. After
he fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread, Jesus declared “I am
the bread of life (
zoe)” (John 6:35). Jesus does not say
that he
gives this life-giving gift but that he himself
is
the true bread from heaven, the food that is essential if God’s
people are to have spiritual life. Only Jesus can satisfy our deepest
hunger, which is not for physical food but for that which gives life to
and sustains the human spirit.
Growing in grace
John Calvin notes the connection between our need for physical bread and
our need for God’s grace in Jesus Christ: “When we eat bread
for the nourishment of the body, we see more clearly not only our own
weakness, but also the power of divine grace than if, without bread, God
were to impart a secret power to nourish the body itself.”
Without physical food our bodies will not grow. Without Jesus our souls
will perish. Through Jesus Christ (who was born in
Beth-lehem,
the “house of bread”) we receive the gift of life itself. And
while this gift is given to us once and for all, we must also receive
Jesus Christ again and again if we are to grow in the grace that he
offers us.
The souls of far too many Christians subsist on a self-imposed
starvation diet. Those who fail to come to Jesus through daily Bible
reading and prayer, through regular participation in Christian
fellowship and the sacraments, deprive themselves of a rich banquet.
Such self-inflicted deprivation results in spiritually malnourished
Christians and congregations.
Perhaps the most visible reminder of our ongoing need to feed on Christ
is the communion table. In the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, we
come together as those who have been given the gift of eternal life and
we are nourished for our daily life as the Church in the world. As we
come to the Lord’s table, Jesus Christ is truly present and we are
strengthened, body and soul.
Whether we celebrate the sacrament once a day, once a week, or once a
quarter, it is always our privilege and our duty to pray, “Give us
this day our daily bread.”
Additional
Resources
John Calvin, John (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994); Patrick
Henry Reardon, Christ in the Psalms (Ben Lomond, Calif.:
Conciliar Press, 2000) |