| Guest Post by Brad Cathey |
And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “Take eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” 1 Corinthians 11:24
Last week we left our hero, bread, on the altar of communion with the question, “Why would Jesus choose something so simple as bread for a symbol of his body?” After all, bread is the most primal of foods: flour, water, salt and yeast, and you don’t even need the last two (of course without salt your bread will taste bland and without adding yeast directly you’ll have a long wait).
However, its simplicity is deceiving. Scientists have found the chemical makeup of kneaded dough to be almost “undiagrammable” in its complexity. And the versatility found in the use of those four basic ingredients is almost infinite—just slight variations in proportion and method can render great variety in form, texture and taste. Remember a loaf of sandwich bread and a French baguette have the same exact ingredients.
But Jesus didn’t stop at just bread. For what is bread without wine? I can be so happy with only a loaf of crusty bread and a glass of good wine. So Jesus certainly made the analogy much more meaningful by adding wine, “And He took bread…and likewise the cup… .” (Luke 22 19–20) But why not water? After all, water is a common symbol in scripture: one example being new birth. Well, for starters, wine is a much more convincing symbol for blood. Wine also has that same outward simplicity as bread but masking its great complexity—the same ingredients providing so much variety in the resulting bottle. On the lighter side Jesus had a reputation for turning water into wine (I calculated he made about 63 cases of wine that day in Cana).
As a serious home baker, one of the things I have found fascinating is the link between bread and wine, without which you couldn’t have either one. Can you guess what it is? Yes, yeast. A dormant microscopic organism awakened by moisture, warmth, and food (starch in flour or sugar in grapes). Whether it is from the little packet from the grocery store, or cultivated naturally as a starter, yeast produces two essential by-products: ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. It’s easy to see the important role both play in these two elements found in the Eucharist.
In his book, “Brother Juniper’s Bread Book,” Peter Rhinehart, writing from a monastical perspective, points out that for dough to become bread it must be baked, during which the heat of the oven kills the yeast. In the same way, for Jesus’s sacrifice to be complete he also had to die, and his blood spilt. As we receive communion at the altar rail, it is administered with these words “my body given for you” and “his blood shed for you.” The same bread and wine we might have enjoyed with friends around our dinner table the night before, are the same elements that we consume with our brothers and sisters the next morning around the altar rail. Jesus took the very simple, the very common, as profound symbols of his Life and death, and his sacrifice for us.
Bread of Life
Common. Complex. Communion.
How do I respond to this communion Jesus freely offers?