I have continued to read the 40 days of Lent passages. This one is one that always takes my breath away for many reasons. Most do not say, "Suffering? Sign me up!". Yet, Jesus was not unaware of the price he would pay. He knew the scriptures. He knew the cost of obedience. He chose the nails.
"But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed." -Isaiah 53:5
Love kept him on the cross. Not nails. Mama Ina Mae used to love the song, "He Could Have Called Ten Thousand Angels" because of the deep truth. He could have, but He didn't.
With Mama on my mind, the words in the scripture caught my eye. Did the recipe for our salvation carry the echoes of a basic bread recipe.
Then, I consulted Goggle for a basic bread recipe. Here is the answer:
To create a delicious loaf of bread, follow these essential steps:
Whip: Combine warm water, yeast, and sugar; let it sit until frothy.
Beat: Mix in flour and salt, then beat the dough until smooth.
Crush: Knead the dough on a floured surface until elastic and smooth.
Pierce: Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and pierce to release air.
Rise: Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
Shape: Punch down the dough, shape it into a loaf, and place it in a pan.
Second Rise: Allow the shaped dough to rise again until puffy.
Bake: Preheat the oven and bake until golden brown and hollow-sounding.
Cool: Remove from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack before slicing.
Enjoy: Slice and enjoy your freshly baked bread!
How do we make bread? Before grocery stores, wheat had to be CRUSHED into flour. We WHIP the warm water, yeast, and sugar until light and fluffy and WAIT. We MIX the ingredients. We BEAT the dough. We can CRUSH nuts or seeds to add more texture or flavor. We let is RISE. We PIERCE the dough to release air when rising. PUNCH DOWN and SHAPE and let it RISE again in the pan. PIERCE before baking to let the steam escape. We bake it until it sounds HOLLOW... or we could use the word EMPTY. Most bread recipes are clear about waiting to slice the bread. DO NOT TOUCH it with a knife until it has cooled.
And... at the Passover, the instruction for the people was to NOT use the yeast. There was no time to waste when leaving Egypt with Moses. That bread didn't rise. Later, manna from God's hand sustained them in the desert. It arrived ready. But, the Bread of Life would rise again.
Jesus was the lamb and the Bread of Life who would be beaten, whipped, crushed, pierced, and his torn dead body was wrapped in grave linens. There was the silence, the wait, and then he would rise again. Pierced, but perfect.
Today, I am grateful for the Bread of Life.
2-21-26
From Google:
To create a delicious loaf of bread, follow these essential steps:
Whip: Combine warm water, yeast, and sugar; let it sit until frothy.
Beat: Mix in flour and salt, then beat the dough until smooth.
Crush: Knead the dough on a floured surface until elastic and smooth.
Pierce: Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and pierce to release air.
Rise: Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
Shape: Punch down the dough, shape it into a loaf, and place it in a pan.
Second Rise: Allow the shaped dough to rise again until puffy.
Bake: Preheat the oven and bake until golden brown and hollow-sounding.
Cool: Remove from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack before slicing.
Enjoy: Slice and enjoy your freshly baked bread!
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I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . . . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. (CS Lewis) Mere Christianity, 55-56)
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