You are the Bread

“And you shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord.” (Lev. 23:17)

You may know that just before Passover, the Israelites kept the Feast of Unleavened bread, and they spent a week getting rid of all the old leaven in their homes. This was an annual reminder that just as they had left the life and culture of Egypt behind and started over again with Yahweh, so too they needed to continually leave the pagan world behind and start fresh with God.

But the Feast of Pentecost is a Feast of Leavened Bread. After starting fresh with God, Israel was not supposed to keep tossing out the leaven, they were supposed to start a new leaven lump. Leaven is the portion of the bread that is saved each day where the natural yeast is growing and fermenting. It’s what gives bread a rich, complex flavor and what causes the bread to rise when it is baked.

It’s no accident that the Spirit was poured out on Pentecost, the Feast of Leavened Bread, the feast of rich flavored bread, the feast of risen bread. But the bread is people. The people of God are the bread of God, and the Spirit is poured out to be the leaven, and of course the Spirit comes as fire.

In this sense, every week is a Pentecost. This is a Pentecostal meal. The Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, but when we gather here, Jesus promises to meet us again, to mix the leaven of His life into our lives, and to pour His Spirit out like fire, to bake us into loaves for His pleasure and for the life of the world. Because Jesus is the bread of life, you are being turned into bread of life. You are bread to be broken for your children, bread to be broken for your spouse, bread to be broken for your neighbor, bread to be broken for your roommate, your boss, your parents, your siblings.

It’s Pentecost, and you are the bread to be offered.