Without bread no one would have survived for long in Jesus’ time. So it seems entirely reasonable for Jesus, in what has become known as the Lord’s Prayer, to instruct his disciples to pray for their daily bread. Yet the Lord also challenged his followers not to work for food that spoils, announcing himself as the only food that would enable them to live forever. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means “house of bread.” After feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, he shocked his listeners by declaring:
I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” John 6:48-51
