The Life-Giving Christmas Bread

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world (John 6:51).
Christmas cookies, Christmas candy, and lefse; I am sure we all have our favorite recipes for the Christmas season. The tastes and smells, together with the memories, linger in our minds. Next to the Christmas Eve service and the unwrapping of the gifts, my own particular memory is of all the different homemade Christmas candies. My mother spent the weeks before Christmas making fudge, divinity, Boston cream candy, and a variety of other kinds of candy. On Christmas Eve after the children’s Christmas service, we would eat every kind of candy and Christmas goodie imaginable. Christmas candies and cookies might make for wonderful memories, but they really have little to do with the true meaning of Christmas without the true Christmas bread.
There is a hunger for this bread that goes back a long time. As soon as Adam and Eve fell into sin by eating the forbidden fruit, a hunger and a gnawing began to grow in them. Isaiah speaks of this hunger when he writes, “Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isaiah 55:2). There is a hunger and a gnawing in each person’s heart to have union and fellowship with God, which humanity lost in the fall. Each individual is craving that communion with God, even if he doesn’t fully realize for what he is searching. He knows that something is missing in his life. He may try to satisfy himself with wealth. He buys himself and his loved ones everything imaginable, as we see all around us this Christmas season. He may spend his time pampering himself, gorging himself with Christmas goodies, and drinking to oblivion so that he gets the “real” feeling of the season. Still all these things will not satisfy, as Isaiah says, “Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy?”  (Isaiah 55:2). These things will not satisfy and they are not the reason for the season.
Yet, there is a bread that can satisfy our every longing and desire. That bread is Jesus Christ, the life-giving Christmas bread born at Bethlehem, which means “house of bread.” At the fullness of time, the living bread came down from heaven. Almighty God became a man to redeem those under the Law so that He could be for us the bread of life. Through His redemptive work, Jesus could indeed say, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51).
How then can we eat the Christmas bread prepared for us so long ago in Bethlehem, the house of bread? The Christ Child, the bread of life, is present for us this Christmas season in His life-giving Word and in the Holy Sacrament of His body and blood. Here He is present with all His blessings and is received by a simple trust in Him as the Savior, which is worked through those same means of grace.
By eating this bread, we will have true peace and joy this Christmas season, peace on earth, good will to men, as the angels sang. Because we are united to Jesus through Word and Sacrament as the branches are to the vine, we know that He is dwelling in us, never leaving us nor forsaking us (John l5:1–5). With Him on our side, we are assured that nothing can be against us (Romans 8:31). We will, indeed, be able to do all things through Him as we strive daily to live a more Christ-like life. Jesus is the true Christmas bread that strengthens us in all the struggles of life and gives us eternal life in heaven. Amen.
Prayer: O Father in heaven, we thank You that You have provided the true Christmas bread, Jesus Christ, at the house of bread, Bethlehem Ephrathah. May we each this Christmas season feed on that bread through the means of grace. Then this Christmas will indeed be joyful, for this is the bread of which a man may eat and not die. In the name of the bread of life we pray. Amen.
Gaylin Schmeling is president of Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary in Mankato, Minnesota.