Bread and Butter

Dinner tonight, was my first experience in the discipline of conscience denial of bread and butter in observance of LENT. (Read first post "Reading the Gospels 4 LENT")

I don't want you to think I'm a bread hog, but as my son-in-law, Michael, says, "Carmen's a pusher." He doesn't mean the '70's definition. He means, I like to push my food with my bread.

Dewayne and I had a lovely dinner tonight. Salad with red onion and grape tomatoes. The vegetables, here in Japan, taste as if they were just harvested. I grilled wild salmon fillets and served them with wild rice and slices of papaya for garnish. It was quite lovely as you can see....

Well, I was humming along just fine, buzzing around in my motor home sized kitchen and dinning room, until suddenly I wanted a piece of bread. Oh, my heart leapt! The thing I most like, even over dessert, was missing from my table. Now, being Cuban, you know that is almost akin to sacrilege. But since, I was purposely denying this delicacy as part of LENT observance, I figured the sacrilege could be overlooked.

But seriously, I missed the bread and butter. And don't just think I mean any old bread. No. I have available to me, freshly baked French bread loaves from the French bakery a block and a half from my house. I have the opportunity to purchase butter imported from France at the local grocery store. Mine is a serious affair to remember.

The leaping of my heart was a minor tinge really. It was not an ache like that which accompanies real tragedy. It was not a complaint of any great degree. It was just the realization that I was NOT going to have what I really wanted, so I used my knife to push instead. It worked.

Immediately, I thought of the bread as the broken body of Jesus, and His precious blood as the wine He shared with His disciples at the last supper. My experience instantly became a thankful moment, which occurred without acknowledgment, recognition or fuss by anyone else, and it was beautiful to me. It was also a drop in the ocean compared to the self-denial Jesus experienced during His 33 years of life on earth. And to think, he denied Himself, so that He could win me, and all who will believe in Him, for eternity. (See Hebrews 5:7-9/12:1-4)

Once, when the people wanted Jesus to give them a sign so that they would believe in Him, they pointed to the time when God gave their fathers manna in the wilderness. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead...As the Living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me." (See John 6:48-49,57).

Jesus is our bread (and butter). If we feed on Him, we will live because of Him. Begin feeding with me today.

Reading the Gospels 4 LENT:

Day 1: Matthew 1-3 /Genealogy of Jesus, His birth, Wise Men visit, Baptism by John the Baptist