Blessed Bread

Hello everyone. Welcome to “Notes From the Presence.” This past Sunday, some friends and I were getting ready to take communion and we were reading out of Matthew’s gospel:

Matthew 26:26 (NASB) Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take eat; this is my body.”

So there we were, right in the middle of the Lord’s supper, tearing small pieces of bread off a loaf, when it occurred to me that the first thing Jesus did with the bread was to bless it. Isn’t it funny how you can do the same thing for years, but in a moment, receive a lifetime of revelation on what you have been doing. I had never before noticed that the bread of communion was first embedded with a blessingby Jesus, before being broken, and distributed. 

This is significant because the first thing that God did with His new creation (humankind) in the garden of Eden was to bless them:

Genesis 1:27-28 (NASB) God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them.

To Bless(Hebrew – Barak): to give an inheritance (house, family, land, or other natural resources of value), favor showed by YAH in giving an inheritance of His earth and granting the opportunity to reproduce, thrive, and represent Him as His creation.

Think for a moment of the blessing of Eden and what it meant for Adam and Eve. It was an empowerment for them to succeed – the ability to thrive, to receive the earth as an inheritance, to have resources to do every task they were given, to represent God as an ambassador of heaven, and to live in full health and strength. Then, sadly, through sin, a curse was released on the entire world, wreaking havoc of untold magnitude, and cancelling out the blessing. From that moment on, blessing was only available under the context being God’s chosen people, and keeping the Law of Moses. 

However, the good news for today is that what was lost in the garden, Jesus came to restore. Our access to the blessing and the tree of life (something we could eat) might have been lost, but thankfully, Jesus has offered them back to us through His body. Now, anyone who eats the bread of communion is eating blessed bread, counteracting the curse that was unleashed upon the world through sin. For this reason, there is healing, wholeness, prosperity, relief from burdens, inheritance, and a world of freedom in the eating of the bread, the body of Jesus. My thought – do it often, and receive it boldly. I’m so stoked to take communion with my brothers and sisters this coming Sunday again – a true gift and a meal of grace!!

Thanks for reading. 

Cheers, Dean