The Bread of Life

A representative for Coca-Cola approached the Vatican. He offered 100,000 Dollars for the “Our Father” to be changed. It should, in future, be as follows: “As of today, give us our daily Coca-Cola!” The secretary categorically rejected the offer. Even after offering 200,000 and 500,000, the representative was unsuccessful. After calling his company, he offers 10 million dollars. The secretary hesitated, grabbed the internal telephone and called the pope: “Boss, how long does the contract with the Bakers still run?”

I couldn't help but think of this anecdote when I read today's scripture. Jesus, as the Bread of Life. Not only in this scripture and in the Our Father, we find the reason for the bread, also at the last supper Jesus spoke about bread as His body which He gave for us.

Can we then still think that this concerns satisfying a rumbling stomach, when we see from other scriptures that the bread here is given as a symbol. It is not only with regard to satisfying our stomachs, it concerns so much more.

The bread is His body, He Himself is the Bread of Life. But, we are misunderstanding the communion if we think that, through some kind of magic, the bread will suddenly become a piece of meat. God is Omnipresent, He is everywhere simultaneously – and this applies also to the Bread, He Himself is the Bread that we share at communion. It is not just an image that we partake of as the Bread, no, we truly receive God within us.

When we thus ask God, with the Our Father, for our daily bread, we are in fact asking to receive Him within us. That this does not merely concern a satisfying of our bodily needs, is obvious. It concerns that which we need for our daily lives:

- Jesus, as the One, who fulfils our lives
- Jesus, as the One, who gives us purpose and a goal
- Jesus, as the One, who shows us the way
- Jesus, as the One, who fills our hearts with His love
- Jesus, as the One, who gave His life for us, to enable us to come to the Father.

Jesus is the Bread of Life. Through Him the hunger of our souls are stilled, for what does it help to have a full stomach, if our souls are starving?

What is the bread for which you are praying today?
What can still your hunger today?

I wish you a blessed day, in which you are saturated in all things.

Rainer Gigerich