Years ago, I fasted for 10 days drinking water only. I was very sensitive to smelling and tasting. I stopped feeding, nourishing, and sustaining my body. After two days, it was so painful with hunger, torturing the body by not providing what I needed. My body began to use fat and to burn my muscle tissue for energy. I was starved, eating my body itself. I felt helplessness, no desire to do anything, and extremely fatigue. It continued 10 days. One thing that was so good was that my mind was clear and really well focused, and the time was given to me a lot due to not eating. I was in the midst of death literally. Hunger was great enough to forget everything except only eating.
The bread in real sense was my life. Jesus said “I am the bread of life.” What does it mean? “My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.” Like us the Jews asked: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” What does it mean to eat his flesh and drink his blood?
Hunger, thirsty, and emptiness! In the midst of hunger, thirsty and emptiness in my life there are people who loved me, taught me, cared for me, encouraged me that I have been fed and nourished. Just being in his or her presence is itself bread for me. They offered me wisdom, guidance, listened to me and spoke a word of hope and encouragement that nourished and sustained my life. Our lives are nourished and fed in many ways.
We see Jesus in the Bible feeding, nourishing, healing, and freeing people. This is the bread that feeds the soul. Who would that person be for you? What’s her or his name? What did he or she do or say that fed your life? And now we ask ourselves. When have I been bread in someone else’s life? When have I fed and nourished them? That is why we pray in our communion: “ Make them (bread and wine) be for us the body and blood of Christ, that
we may be for the world the body of Christ
.”
What kind of bread are we eating today? Does it fill and nourish us? Or does it leave you hungry and malnourished? What’s my hunger? Do you need a change in diet, to choose a different bread? If we want life then we need to be eating the bread of life. If we want to bring life to another then we need to be the bread of life. Jesus is the bread of life. Come and eat. And we will have life, life fully.
Reflection:
What really feeds you? What do you live on? What is your deepest hunger, your deepest longing? What satisfies your hunger? How do you fill your void? What kind of bread will you eat today? What kind of bread will you be for another this week?
Pastor Seok-Hwan
