Please Pass the Bread

1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 6:30-40

1 Corinthians 11:26  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

     We have been discussing how we need to pass on what God has done to be able to help the future generations worship.  Jesus set up such a celebration for us to keep remembering Him.  This meal that is being remembered today has had such an amazing heritage.  For around 2000 years this has been done in one form or another and it has been done for the purpose of remembering Christ and His sacrifice.

    He said that He was the bread of life.  Why was that significant?  The giving of bread from Heaven was a big deal in Jewish tradition because the stories of manna coming to their nation in the wilderness back in the years following the exodus from Egypt.  They were hungry and living in a barren wilderness and God sent them manna, a flake-like morsel that could be ground up and made into various meals.  They had found nourishment and were able to do what God was wanting them to do.  Those morsels gave them the energy needed to build the tabernacle.  Some of those pieces of the Tabernacle were heavy and every time they moved they had to be carried to the next place.

    Bread is considered a staple of life.  Every culture has their version of it.  Even fast food restaurants use various kinds of bread on their menus.  Jesus even mentioned it in the Lord’s Prayer instructing His disciples to ask for their daily bread.  It was a term that meant asking for their daily needs as bread seemed like the most basic of human needs.  It is this very reason that Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life.  He is the greatest necessity that we have.  Yes, we have physical needs but none of them are greater than our spiritual need of Christ and the sacrifice of His life.

    In the instituting of the Lord’s Supper Jesus said He was breaking His body for them, and us.  His giving up of His life is not for just one person, He was broken for all of us.  He was giving us what we needed.  Bread is a sustainer of life.  Jesus is our sustainer of life.

Making It Personal

    What does it mean to you that Jesus is the bread of life?  He says that any who takes the bread He offers won’t hunger again, do you find that true?  How does Jesus satisfy your needs?

Making It Personal Kids

    Do you like bread?  Does it fill you up if you eat a lot of it?  Why do you think Jesus called Himself the bread of life?

Closing Prayer

    Father, thank You for supplying all our needs.  You provide all our needs including our greatest need of Salvation.  You alone are worthy of our worship.  In Jesus’ name, amen.