Tasting the Bread of Life – December 24, 2000
Christmas is a season when our minds make a pilgrimage in time. We think about Bethlehem, which means “house of bread,” and wonder what it would have been like to watch Mary place Jesus, the Bread of Life, in a lowly manger. We imagine Mary gently arranging the straw to cradle His head, and find ourselves wishing we had been shepherds or wise men. We ponder on what we would have done if we were Galilean fishermen, and a carpenter walking the shore told us how to fish. We dream of what it would have been like to be a part of a multitude whose hunger is stayed by five loaves of bread and two fish. We desire to hear with our own ears the sound of His voice as He proclaims, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger.”1
But in the very moments of yearning to touch His hem, or feel the clasp of His hand, we somehow know it’s possible. The Bread of Life was born to nourish all who will partake. If we listen, if we look, if we reach out, we find Him. A mother was reminded of this by her normally restless young daughter, who had been staring for some time at a wooden nativity scene. As the mother started to ask the girl what she was doing, the girl put her fingers to her lips. “Shhh,” she whispered, without letting her eyes stray from the babe in the manger. “I think He’s trying to talk to me.”
In the very moments we long to have been in Bethlehem, we hear His voice quietly prompting us. We see His light, stretching before us to guide and direct our path. We feel His peace nestled deeply within our souls. To some, that seems a paradox, but it’s why wise men and women are still asking, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we . . . are come to worship him.”2
Program #3723
1. John 6:35.
2. Matthew 2:2.