Not A Matter of Talk

By Amy Hartmann

July 15, 2013

The month was September – early fall –  but in northeast Florida, that meant it was still very hot outside.  The year was 2009 and the day was Friday, the 18^th.  Rosh Hashanah was beginning at sundown and I was hurrying to get many tasks done for the afternoon.  One key task was to make fresh challah bread for the 24 hour prayer gathering commencing at our church that evening.  The idea of making fresh bread had been on my mind for several weeks and I pondered the timing amid all of my responsibilities.  My kids had doctor’s appointments that week; my daughter had art class and everyone was busy with school and work.  I had already planned to join the service around midnight but I knew the bread needed to be there before the service began.

The average bread cycle time is almost 4 hours from start to finish.  Finding such a block of time on a busy Friday was my chief concern as I started my task.  The bread had to be ready and cool enough to handle.  The drive from my house to church could take 20 or 30 minutes depending upon traffic.  I still had other chores to do once it was finished and delivered.

My mother-in-law taught me how to make fresh bread many years earlier.  Her breads were always eagerly received where ever she shared them.  After I finally mastered all the intricacies of bread production, I began to share bread when the opportunity arose.

Grasping the nature of rising dough took me quite a while to work through, since there is no such thing as a fixed recipe.  Flour seems to disappear endlessly in the mixing mass until the dough ball reaches a certain shape and consistency.  Recognizing that moment in preparation is crucial.  Bread dough then takes on a life of its own as it sits and rises.  So many factors influence whether it does so successfully or whether it turns out sticky in the middle and not so appetizing.  Thunderstorms gather quickly in Northeast Florida and such a change in atmospheric pressure has a great effect on successfully rising bread.  I learned that lesson the hard way – numerous times – as I started bread for some event only to see it fall flat.

I am not Jewish by birth; however, I do accept that I am grafted into the cultivated olive tree scripture metaphorically refers to as Israel and the Hebrew people.  My place, in Christ makes me joint heir with Him and all that His personal sacrifice ensured.  He is Jewish and I am adopted into His family by God.  Scripture describes my origins as ‘a wild olive shoot’ and in some respects that was an apt description of my life during my college years.[1]

The concept of bringing fresh bread before God as an act of worship goes back to the Old Testament book of Exodus.  When the Israelites came out of their Egyptian bondage and met with God at Mt. Sinai,  Moses received the downloads that enabled him to layout the design for a portable Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting which was to be erected in the center of the camp of the Israelites.  This special grouping of tents and hanging tapestries was to stay in the center of the camp as the Israelites journeyed through the wilderness on their way to the land God had promised to give Abraham, their forefather.  Mount Sinai (located today in the south central part of a peninsula in the north-western end of Arabia) carries the name, Jebel Musa (the mount of Moses).[2]

The apostle Paul explains:  “A tabernacle was set up.  In its first room were the lamp stand, the table and the consecrated bread…”[3]  The Holman Bible Dictionary has two interesting references to the holy bread:

“BREAD OF THE PRESENCE (bread of the faces) – In Exodus 25:30, the Lord’s instructions concerning the paraphernalia of worship include a provision that bread be kept always on a table set before the Holy of Holies.  This bread was called the bread of presence or shewbread.  The literal meaning of the Hebrew expression is “bread of the faces”.  It consisted of twelve loaves of presumably unleavened bread and it was replaced each Sabbath…”[4]

“SHEWBREAD – a sacred loaf made probably of barley or wheat which was set before the Lord as a continual sacrifice (Exodus 25:30).  The old bread was then eaten by the priests (Leviticus 24:5-9).”[5]

The first reference to bread in scripture is found in Genesis.  God tells Adam and Eve (because of their sin of disobedience in eating from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), as He casts them out of the Garden of Eden, where all their needs were continually provided for, “…in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return.[6]”

Here, bread represented the work Adam and the rest of mankind would have to take up in order to have food, but especially bread, since God calls it by name.  Other scriptural symbolic uses of bread:

• Hospitality – Genesis 19:3
• The manifest presence of God – His face – Exodus 25:30
• A grain offering – Leviticus 2:4-10
• A lasting covenant reminder – Leviticus 24:1-9
• Bread for the priests – Leviticus 24:9
• An enemy to be consumed – Numbers 14:9
• Unity of a group – I Kings 18:19
• Wickedness – Proverbs 4:17
• Wisdom – Proverbs 9:5
• Idleness – Proverbs 31:27
• Adversity – Isaiah 30:20

In the New Testament, Jesus took all of these understandings into account when He begins to share His perspective on bread.  Teaching by the Sea of Galilee, He looks up and sees a huge multitude of people coming to hear His words.  He asks His disciples a very pointed question:  “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”[7]

One of His disciples brings the lunch of a small boy…five small barley loaves and two small fish, “…but how far will they go among so many?” Andrew asks.

Jesus takes the loaves and the fish, and giving thanks to God for them, He begins to break them into pieces, so much that the text records 5,000 men had plenty to eat.  The next day crowds again search out this miracle man, intending to make Him king by force.  Jesus tells them, “You are looking for me because you ate your fill…don’t work for food that spoils…but for food that endures eternally.”

The crowd challenged Him with the concept of God providing the manna for the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness thousands of years earlier.  Jesus then makes one of His most controversial declarations, “I AM the bread of life.  Your forefathers ate the manna [angel bread] in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the Bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.  This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world….He who comes to Me will never go hungry…”[8]

The crowds, especially the Jews, began to argue sharply.  “This is a difficult statement:  who can listen to it?”  Many turned away and no longer followed Him.[9]

Just before His betrayal and arrest, Jesus shares His unique perspective on bread one more time – this time during the Feast of Unleavened Bread when the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.  At this feast table He answers the controversial questions posed by the earlier crowd by modeling the first communion service.  He takes the feast bread, He breaks it into pieces and shares it with His disciples, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”[10]

The rest of my story is hard to explain.  I finished making the challah bread.  Fortunately the weather cooperated and the bread baked up beautifully.  The afternoon was gone and rush hour traffic was fully underway.  I had to take the bread to the church chapel and then I had to go to the grocery story; hurry back home and make dinner.  My oldest son was still in his learner’s permit driving stage and he eagerly accepted any driving assignments I offered, so I let him drive me to the church.  I held the warm bread in my lap the entire trip, smelling its sweet aroma.  The car was filled with the smell and our stomachs growled in appreciation.

We parked and hurried to the chapel.  No one was there yet, the lights were out and the room was cool.  Everything was set up for the service, with several tables positioned up front and these were covered with white table cloths.  We hurried up to the front and I stood for several seconds, pondering the right place to leave the bread.  Tired and distracted as I was in that moment, it never occurred to me the holiness of my act.  God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts not ours, Isaiah tells us in his writings.

“Seek the Lord while He may be found.  Call upon Him while He is near…For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.[11]

At the moment I finally set the bread on the table, something very strange happened.  My son was at my side as my hands left the edges of the bread pan.  Suddenly a burst of energy –  like an explosion off a small firecracker – cracked upon my hands and just above the bread – it felt like a miniature lightening bolt going off right in front of our faces.  It scared both of us so much we jumped back and we both yelped with fear.

“What was that?” my son cried out.

By that time I was trembling and weeping and still very frightened.  I had never imagined that God – Himself – would really appreciate my labor of love.  I heard in my heart at that exact moment these words:  “No one has made Me fresh bread in a long time.”

Unsettled, we both hurried to get out of the chapel.  I was too shaken to drive.  We still had to go to the grocery store and I had to continue to wipe away tears as we did our shopping.  Even now, as I write these words, that same trembling comes back over me and I am weeping.  Someone who survives being struck by lightening never forgets the energy and raw power behind their experience.  Neither will I.