Bread of Life

Wine of Spirit

The season of Lent has concluded, so I think it’s time to revisit the concept of Bread.

That’s capital B, Bread.

There’s bread, and there’s Bread.

Lowercase, bread, speaks of the instance of a thing. The capitalized Bread, talks of the formal identity of a thing. I use this in my speech patterns to recognize the immortal essence of any such thing in reverence of the One who crated them.

God, the Father, is the Creator, Master, Maker, Designer, Craftsman and Originator of all things, be they ideas or physical manifestations derived from those ideas. Ideas, thoughts, and intent are immortal and timeless things, preexisting our physical reality and consciousness itself. All ideas existed before any beast or man had thought of them.

So, too, is it such with the concept of Bread.

Bread represents not just a daily portion of life-sustaining caloric intake, more easily preserved as a raw, dried flower base, but the basis for which civilization at large can take hold. Without Bread, including the idea of it, we don’t have society. We are beasts like any other unable to acquire technological prowess and subdue our lesser instincts in favor of a Higher Purpose.

How is this so?

Because God saw fit to introduce the concept of Entanglement into the world. It’s the ability for metaphor, parable, analogy, poetry, and exaggeration to take hold and bear with it some modicum of immutable Truth. This Entanglement has been around since God first bore himself through thought, but it wasn’t until one very particular event that solidified it as an absolute feature of our corporeal world.

This event was, of course, the Last Supper.

What is Bread?

Bread is a process. THE process. It’s the First among all of chemistry. To take things from nature and to isolate, purify, congeal, cure, and distribute, among many other things. Consider the entire process from beginning to end, and the cycle that takes hold in the life of Bread:

• Find the wheat in its native habitat.

• Cut it down and harvest it into bushels.

• Take the bushels and thresh them, releasing the kernel from the stems.

• Take the kernel and separate wheat from the chaff by rolling it between one’s palms.

• Gather the grain that falls away from the chaff into sacks, and let them dry for a time.

• They are weighed, examined for blemish, sorted from seed, and auctioned off.

• The grain is then milled, and pounded into a fine powder called flour.

• Flour is then sifted, given water and leavened with yeast, and then kneaded into dough.

• Once dough is formed, it is further kneaded under a dowel of wood, and given moments of reprieve to rise and fall several times as the yeast produces the gas that gives it volume and levity.

• Occasionally, the dough will sweat and require a blotting with a thin cloth to remove excess moisture.

• When the bread is appropriately given to leaven, it is then stripped from cloth, wrestled and contorted into a proportioned shape, and then left to rise one last time in preparation for the bake.

• Before being sent to the oven, it is scored to both release excess moisture from the bread as it bakes as well as brand it with the mark of the baker.

• The dough is then sent into the oven, the door closed, and all wait with anticipation for the coming of the Bread.

Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will have noticed that I not only have described the process of baking bread from wheat plant to its release from the oven, but I have also described the nature of the Passion of our Lord, the Bread-Giver, Jesus Christ.

The nature of his life and death perfectly emulate the process of Bread-making…

It is by these means that all Prophets were privy to the coming of the Christos and the nature of his birth and resurrection from the dead. All such Prophets of old could look into Nature, and the doings of Man, and see where it is their Savior will find his place among us. Everything, including his birth, life, ministry, passion, and resurrection all perfectly reflect the course through life a grain of wheat may take. Everything from germination to being carried off through the wilderness on the wings of a dove.

As it is written, so shall it be.

The Word Made Flesh

How might word be given flesh?

How might the capital B, Bread be instantiated such that we might have it in hand, before us?

Symbols.

Symbols are the portals by which the Word of God enters into the World.

When we name these symbols, we open our spirit up to them and the ways they might alter our understanding of the world and what is possible in it.

So it is, that any act of God may be denoted by a symbol for which we might remember His direct influence in the world. From the Rainbow chasing the Ark of Noah to the Crown of Thorns, we are given symbols to commemorate those moments in time when God spoke to us through Nature directly, clearly, and with a bounty of unfathomable Mercy.

As would Rainbow might represent God’s promise, and the Crown of Thorns might represent the torment in being a true King, a Servant of All — Bread represents the lofty concept of Everlasting Life.

Determination, willpower, sustenance, hope…

Perseverance in the face of Adversity.

These are all approximations of a much grander notion. The concept of living another day for the sake of others. Immortality is a gift and a curse, only truly given to those who demonstrate their dedication to the preservation of life. How could it be any different? For one to acquire Everlasting Life, one must be a Patron of Everlasting Life. A Servant to All. Minister to those who are hopeless and without the means to better themselves in the present.

To acquire Immortality, you must be willing to die so that others might live. Only those who do not care for the pleasures of Everlasting Life are worthy of it. Only those who see it as a burden and a heavy yoke not to be desired are free from the temptation to use that Authority against the Will of God.

This is the nature of Sacrifice, and what separates Savior from mere Hero.

A Hero saves people from disaster and villain. A Savior saves people from their Self. The greatest enemy is that which strikes from within one’s own heart.

“They know not what they do!”

What did they do?

They made bread, of course.

Yet, those who sacrificed our Lord were not privy to this knowledge. Neither was the Satan which sent them forth to harvest it as the Reaper.

Examine the process, once more:

• Jesus was taken from among the people. Plucked from a garden by the Thief in the Night, and sold for thirty pieces of silver. Betrayed by a kiss.

• He was scourged at the pillar, the very same emotive act as a bushel being threshed.

  

• His blood was rent from him, and he dried as he awaited the next morning.

• He was questioned and ground down in the court system; Sanhedrin, King Herod, and Governor Pilate, all which found him without blemish, the latter then washing his hands after evaluating the flour.

• He was put up to auction against the revolutionary Barabbas. Which would be used for grain and which would be used for seed? They chose Barabbas for the next season’s planting seed, and Jesus for this season’s bread.

• He was put under a great wooden beam, and rolled, stamped, and beaten throughout the streets of Jerusalem.

• He fell and rose three times.

• His face was blotted by Veronica, who used her veil to soak up the sweat from his brow.

• He was pinned into shape, and raised up to be presented to all.

• He was scarred at his side, and clear water left his body.

• His Spirit left him, his bones intact, and his vestments given to lots.

• He was placed in the Tomb, a veritable oven, and baked until the Third Day.

• Upon that Third Day, he rose again, and his new life was to grant sustenance to all in Holy Communion.

When Jesus said “This is my body” he wasn’t just speaking metaphorically. He wasn’t just waxing poetically. He meant it, well and truly.

No truer words have ever been spoken…

Jesus IS the Eucharist. Not just metaphor. Not just analogy. Not just exaggeration. Not just figurative.

He is LITERALLY claiming the Bread as his Symbol.

Do you not see the beaten, whipped, scarred, and mangled Body of Christ in the above? What was done to him is perfectly reflected in the imagery he chose to represent his Sacrifice — the very nature of his death down to every minute detail. The two bound together to become indistinguishable from one another.

When he said those words at the Table, he was denoting the very essence of his life force in the grand scheme of Creation. He was revealing to those with eyes to see and ears to hear that HE was the Bread of Life. Eternally bound to the nature of Bread in all its manifestations.

One cannot think of bread, whether wheat, potato, rice, or otherwise, without acknowledging the Life, Death, and Resurrection of the Christos.

Jesus, by this act, forever etched himself into the very fabric of reality, both forwards and back. Neither Time nor Space could dismiss his Preeminent Domain over the essential truths found in Breadmaking. The only way for the Evil ones to rid themselves of Jesus’ memory would be to completely remove Bread from the lexicon of human thought. Doing so, obviously, would result in a perpetual state of pre-historic hunter-gatherer men, unable to utilize technology or preservation for any ends other than beating animals to death with wooden clubs.

Bread = Jesus. Jesus = Bread. The two, inextricably linked both forwards and backwards in time. To remove one would remove the other. Their fates entwined, true to the nature of Binding and Loosing.

“Do this in memory of me…”

The Last Supper was an Entanglement Ceremony.

So long as there is but one soul privy to the words spoken that night, there is no way to excise Jesus from the Bread. Given his Divine Authority granted him by God as the most Beloved of his creations, Jesus cast a spell on all of the World.

The Greatest Story Ever Told.

In doing so, he bound Word to Flesh, and gave the Symbol of Bread unto the One True God. All who eat of it must first bend the knee.

His enemies, then, took his flesh and fulfilled the act unwittingly. They, by their actions fueled by hate and mockery, emulated the bread-making process and by their own hands proved the Divinity of Christ. Those who hated God the most were the ones to Deliver Him unto his Throne.

Such is the Nature of God to turn His enemy’s plans against them.

Just as the Hypocrite will go on to prove the case against their claims, so too did they prove that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, of whom the Prophets had spoken, having heard it first-hand from the Mouth of God in the beating Heart of the Earth. God used their own hypocrisy against them and settled the matter before the Court. Their claims did not hold up to scrutiny, and the Truth was found after generations upon generations of lies, deceit, slander, and misappropriated authority — The Messiah bore the name Yeshua, God Saves.

What’s more is that he also taught us to do the same.

He gave us all the same Authority to Bind and to Loose. As the Judge of All and Son of Man, it was his alone to dispense, reclaimed from the Thief in the Garden, having once been given to Adam who squandered it; who used it to bind that which shall not be bound.

To form metaphorical knots, and entangle the fates of two things together. One part comes from the World of God, the other from the World of Man. Marriage vows. “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder”

Just as Bread is bound to Jesus and the concepts of Everlasting Life, so too do we have the ability to bind Word to Flesh. Just as we have the Authority to join two souls together in Holy Matrimony, we can give things Names which give them a Symbolic power over the fate of those things. Just as Adam named the animals in the Garden, we have been given the Authority to name that which God has made and given to us out of his Infinite Mercy.

All sorts of discoveries, inventions, innovations, and mysteries…

It is the indignant cause of the Adversary to have us forget this power we have; to obscure it, withhold it, and reserve it for themselves. To use us as batteries to generate volatile energy that they then hoard away from us and to put to use against the Will of God.

This is why they hate Marriage. This is why they hate Jesus. This is why they hate Man. This is why they hate Woman. This is why they seek to humiliate us before God at every turn.

They hate that which they cannot have, and spurn it in their obsession.

Those Fallen Angels are not afforded this particular Authority to Bind and to Loose. The bodiless cannot enact change. Evil cannot create. Only those Children of God can do so. It is through lies and deceit that these Demons tempt us to misuse our Authority and bind together the fates of things which cannot be entwined, as proven by the Natural Order, which is the Word of God.

Man cannot marry man. Woman cannot marry woman. Such things plainly, objectively, lead to ruin. Life cannot result from such unions, and so it is a Life-Ending process; anti-thesis to Everlasting Life. Nature has proven it. History has proven it. Reason has proven it. You cannot put cart before the horse. You cannot grow without seed. You cannot till barren soil fertile. You cannot make bread without grain.

Only God can do such things. Man might only hope to do so with God’s permission; with God’s Mercy.

Words reference things that are pre-existent. When we bind a Word and Symbol to something, we then have access to the power over that thing. How else might we have the ability to use tools if we cannot reference the tools which we have discovered? If you cannot acknowledge something, then you have no means with which to utilize its properties. It will be as foreign to you as fire to an ant; as only something to be feared.

Know this: The Word, the Way Things Are, cannot be circumvented without permission from the Father.

^“27 He it is that cometh after me, which was before me, whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose.” - John 1:27

Though we may have the Authority to Bind and Loose, some things simply cannot be bound together and provide competent function. The more our enemies try to entangle things which are not appropriate to be married, under God, the more the side of fabric the World of Man is stitched upon starts to break down. Man is not sheep, no matter how much they treat us so… Certain shoes are tailored to the individual.

The World of God, as always, remains intact, yet our understanding of it as a reflection of the Genuine Article becomes obscured, tattered, and soiled.

Therefore, Jesus sought also to give us a means by which to repair the cloth for ourselves. In his Blood, the Blood of Martyrs, might the Fabric of Reality be washed and purified, mended and made whole.

For, on that night, not only did Jesus bind his Flesh to the Bread of Eternal Life, but he also bound his Blood to the Spirit of Renewal.

Wine of Spirit

While his Flesh underwent The Test, so too did his Spirit.

When he dashed himself upon the rock in the Garden of Gethsemane, like grape when pressed, thus began the Entanglement of his Blood to Wine.

^“44 But being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was like drops of blood, trickling down to the ground.” - Luke 22:44

Not only is he bound Flesh to Bread, but Blood to Wine.

This has proven an insurmountable wall for the Agents of Evil.

This Binding, these Entanglements, when brought together form the tightest of knots cannot be undone by any other than the one who tied them.

Not only, then, is the Flesh made Immortal, but the Blood is given the properties of Regeneration.

Imagine a fabric torn by the knife. The fabric, like bread, might be rent in twain over and over again, unto the tiniest of fragments. Can it then not be forgotten about?

Perhaps, if not for the healing waters also being there to bring together the wounds and reform the fabric into its original, unblemished state. Regeneration.

Resurrection.

A body that does not age, and blood which heals any damage it might sustain… Such is Eternal Life, essentially.

Just as our blood can re-stitch flesh back together, so does this miraculous water manage to rejoin the knots and stitches held upon the Fabric of Reality. It can therefore be said, that “his coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.”

I urge you to do as I have done with the Flesh and Bread, with the Wine and Blood. Put yourself in the shoes of Jesus on that day. Examine how your spirit might stir in unison with the act of crushing grapes to make wine. His soul, his spirit, was crushed and squeezed all throughout that night. His closest friends on the vine abandoned him to his fate, they could not stay awake. He was denied three times by his Rock. The people he had healed and given hope turned against him amidst the pressure of peers and thirst for blood to be spilled at the behest of those drunk with power, the Pharisees.

The Grapes of Wrath were challenged by the fervent, zealous mob. They sought to put the Lord to The Test. One final Temptation.

“Crucify him! Crucify him!” they chanted.

Imagine how that must have felt, to be there upon the balcony of Pontius Pilate, stripped bare, bloodied and beaten, draped in mockery with a scarlet cape and crown of thorns which spitefully Coronated him as the “King of the Jews.”

Humiliation.

Would you not then grow in your heart a desire to see your enemies brought down and humbled before you? Would you not be tempted to bring death and decay upon them who would challenge your birthright as the Beloved of God?

Such is the explosive, fermentative power of Wrath in the face of adversity.

Hatred of your enemies, in retaliation for the hate they have for you.

An eye for an eye…

It is in these moments that many a hero fall to find themselves in the role of villain. Hate of humanity, for having forsaken your Self. Tempted to vow to Satan that all those enemies seen before you will fall under the weight of the sword, if he but grant you the means to do so. If you but bow down and worship the Den of Vipers who speak with forked tongues.

Yet, instead of hate; instead of spite; instead of revenge…

He spoke the words on the cross “Forgive them, Father… For they know not what they do…”

It is then that his Spirit took unto itself the nature of sweet Wine, not of vengeful Vinegar. The stress of the winepress, the anxiety of the fermentation process. Boiling anger at all those who abandoned him. All such feelings were present there as he looked upon the crowd with a torrent of emotions.

Yet…

The temperate Love persevered, resisting the urge for the still to burst from the fiery pressures of Righteous Indignation.

Instead of wishing to perpetuate the Cycle of Vengeance, the Spirit of our Lord chose the Path of the True Sovereign — to lay down one’s own life for the sake of the Kingdom.

Mercy.

When Flesh and Blood are given unto one another in Holy Matrimony…

When Bread and Wine are broken and poured out at the supper table…

When Word and its Meaning are understood in the mind of a babbling child…

When Man and God are bound together in covenant…

There we have Communion. There we have Family.

Only through Mercy, not Revenge, might Love and Justice enjoin themselves to form the Better Path.

Justice demands Retribution.

Love demands Sacrifice.

The two espoused together birthe Mercy, which is necessary for Eternal Life. The three together form the Family Unit, the Trinity, upon which all other things may bear great fruit.

The Father is Justice.

The Spirit is Love.

The Incarnation is Mercy.

Together they form the Will of God, found there in the Last Supper. Found always “in memory of me.”

Rejoice, for He has Risen!