It's just a piece of bread. A hunk. A dapple. A bit.
Torn from a loaf, a loaf baked with goodness by Eva Mae Deckwa for the church in Lacombe that is immediately frozen for later consumption. I pop it in the microwave on Sunday mornings for 25 seconds on once side, 25 on the other and 25 more on the first side for good measure. I place it under a J.C. Penney sold white cloth on a platen given to me nigh on 12 years ago by a dear friend named Cathy who has since departed. The cup that goes with it holds the juice that I guy by the half gallon from Lischman's in Lacombe.
It's just a piece of break. A hunk. A dapple. A bit.
But what it represents, what it incredibly, majestically changes into when it is torn from the whole and given to the body and ingested, then digested, then ... oh, that is life changing.
Isaiah, after telling anyone and everyone that the worst of all times were coming, breaks away in the 24th chapter of his prophecy to tell everyone of the absolute best of all times, a time when God steps forth and what the captives have been restless waiting for comes to fruition.
He wrote (in the NIV translation), "On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine — the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
One day, those persons who took of the bread and drank of the wine, in all their human concoctions and menial states, will take of the bread of God and the wine of heaven, a feast for all the people who heard the message of the gospel (in all its forms, since Jesus wasn't born at the writing of this prophecy) and believed. A feast of the finest, the finest foods, the finest wines, the finest desserts, and the absolute finest company.
The people will say, "This is our God."
I love the Message translation of the last portion of the last verse I used here. It says, "God's hand rests on this mountain."
When I'm alone at Lacombe, fixing the elements in preparation for communion, there more than most times I feel God's hand resting on me.
It's just bread. A loaf baked with love by Miss Eva Mae. But somehow, when I'm preparing it, looking at it's brown body, God's hand rests on me. When I'm giving it to someone who is perhaps taking it out of habit, as truthfully I might be preparing out of habit, I feel God's hand resting on me.
It's communion. But it points to a time when God will take care of the poor, take care of the troubled, take care of the cold by giving them warmth, take care of the warm by giving them a cool wind, take care of the oppressed and shelter the least of these.It points to a time when there will be no tears, and death has been banished. Isaiah puts voice to those lingering desires we all feel when things go wrong (call it an average Tuesday).
Just a bit of bread. That represents the body. That represents our Lord. That represents the future. That represents a hand that rests on the mountain, the mountain of God we call heaven.
It's still coming, friends. It's still coming.
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