Casper ten Boom had been repeatedly warned not to engage the dangerous ministry of hiding Jews under the very eye of the Gestapo. His answer was plain enough, “I am too old for prison, but if that should happen, then it would be for me, an honor to give my life for God’s ancient people, the Jews.” That evening, he prepared those seated around his dining room table for the dark and tremulous days ahead. He asked his son Willem to read Psalm 91. Afterwards, father prayed. Father was eighty-four. The family resided in Haarlem, Netherlands.
The next day, Casper, along with thirty-five family members and friends, were all marched into the police station’s gymnasium. The crime was simple enough. These Dutch Christians hid Jews in their homes in an effort to safeguard them from capture and banishment to concentration camps.
His daughter Corrie was sent to Scheveningen prison, where she was held in solitary confinement for several months. She was often lonely and afraid, as any of us would be. She wrote in her book Prison Letters, “In such moments I recalled the last night with my elderly father, sharing Psalm 91 and praying. I could remember some of those verses, especially that, ‘He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.’ I would close my eyes and visualize that kind of protection. ‘He shall cover thee with his feathers,’ and with that thought in mind, I would fall asleep.”
Corrie ten Boom continued to share in her memoir that in the midst of her suffering she received spiritual nourishment, as if she was kneeling at the altar of her church receiving the bread and wine of the Eucharist, by reflecting on the Scriptures, engaging in prayer, and the remembrance of family and friends who shared her convictions. This would not end her loneliness and despair and certainly it would not cause the Gestapo to abandon its cruelty. What it did do was enrich her faith enough to give her the hope and stamina to continue to the day next.
With the mention of bread, Jews would immediately turn their thoughts to manna, the bread of the wilderness. Starvation and despair befell them in their forty-year sojourn through the desert, causing them to question the sovereignty of God. Desperate to alleviate their suffering, Moses pleaded with God. The next morning the ground was covered with a strange food, which was called “manna.” It derived its name from the Israelite exclamation upon seeing it Man hu, which is translated “What is this?” Manna has always been associated as a life sustaining sustenance.
Nehemiah qualified the definition of manna when he declared it to be “bread,” that solely came down from heaven. Nehemiah professed, “For their hunger you gave them bread from heaven.” (9:15). It was the belief of the rabbis that as manna is the bread of life, the coming Messiah will be the new bread of life.
One can only imagine how aghast the Jewish officials were when Jesus, after feeding the five-thousand, declared, “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Jn 6: 48-51)
Claiming the role of the new Moses, Jesus is making a public declaration that he is the Messiah. Jesus, invoking that he is the bread of heaven, and substantiates he is the fulfillment of Nehemiah’s foretelling. The populace received this pronouncement with joy while the Jewish officials once more hardened their hearts against this seeming apostasy.
The ultimate expression of this belief came on the eve of his death as Jesus gathered the twelve about him in the Upper Room. There he took the loaf of bread, saying, “Take, this is my body.” (Mk 14:22) He followed this by taking the cup of wine and repeating, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” (14:24) Reenacting this ritual today, in partaking of the bread, we receive Christ himself.
Jesus as the Bread of Life becomes our nourishment for daily living. Jesus as our Bread of Life sustains us through difficult times. It permits us to be perceptive of our blessings and most importantly it prepares us for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We can receive the blessing directly by participating in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and indirectly through private meditation, worship, and Christian fellowship.
Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan (374-397), is one of our most prominent church fathers. He is known for his writings, especially his homilies and commentaries on the books of the Bible. Ambrose observation of the healing power of the Eucharist as displayed by Jesus, the Great Physician, is recorded in his commentary Exposition of the Gospel of Luke. Ambrose renders this perception, “That Physician has many remedies with which he is accustomed to cure. His speech is a remedy. One of his sayings binds up wounds, another treats with oil, another pours in wine. He binds wounds with a stricter rule. He treats with the forgiveness of sins. He stings with the rebuke of judgment as if with wine.”
Let each of us, in our own individual way, using our unique spiritual gifts, nurture the lives of others by offering them the Bread of Life.