Baking Bread: The Harvest
Fall is in the air! It’s the end of September, the air’s getting crisp, and Starbucks has brought out their Pumpkin Spice Lattes. It’s glorious! Fall is my favorite season of all -- as the weather starts to get cooler, it feels like the whole world is starting to settle down from the hustle and bustle of summer.
I grew up in Florida, so for me fall was just the time when the weather got a little less hot. However, when I moved to New England I was finally able to experience fall as it’s typically described -- temperatures were in the 60s, the leaves turned bright, beautiful colors, and freshly-picked apples could be seen in every roadside stand, taken straight from the orchards. Despite all of that, though, my favorite memory of fall doesn’t come from New England, but from my mom’s kitchen.
About a year before we moved to New England, Mom got a bread machine for Christmas. She began making sourdough bread every year. There’s something about the smell of warm, baking bread that will always remind me of fall. Even though Mom used a mix from a box to make her bread, the smell would fill the house and would make my entire family crave a thick slice with butter.
The Bible speaks on bread regularly throughout scripture. Jesus used it to perform several miracles, and even Elijah performed miracles with bread. But did you know that the Bible actually has a recipe for bread? In the book of Ezekiel, chapter 4, God tells Ezekiel to bake bread in a certain way in order to make a point to the children of Israel. Starting with verse 9: “‘Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11Also measure a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times. 12Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.’”
Of course, “excrement” means poo. Keep in mind also that that’s the NIV translation. In the original Hebrew, it just says to bake the bread “using human excrement”, so scholars really aren’t sure if it said to bake it with poo as the fuel source or as an ingredient. Yep -- that’s right! The Bible includes poo as an ingredient to bake bread.
Now, to be clear, this bread was intended to make a point, as is explained in verse 13 -- “The LORD said, In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.” Shortly afterward, Ezekiel argues with God (and who wouldn’t!), and God relents and allows Ezekiel to use cow poo instead of person poo. Still, though -- for 390 days (that’s more than a year), Ezekiel used poo to bake his bread.
Thankfully, though, modern bread doesn’t require poo to cook it! But one thing that hasn’t changed since Bible times is that all of the ingredients are still grown on farms and still need to be harvested before they can be made into bread.
The process for this is simple -- let’s take wheat for example. first the wheat is cut, secondly it’s separated from the chaff, third it’s ground into flour, and finally it’s combined with other ingredients in order to be baked into bread. Every other ingredient in bread -- water, yeast, and other oats all need to be changed in some way in order to be useful.
Tonight though, let’s just concentrate on cutting the wheat, or the harvest. When you harvest something, all you’re really doing is just cutting it off. You’re literally separating the useful part of a plant from what seems to have given it life. In many ways, it seems like you’re hurting the plant and killing the part you harvest.
But what happens if you don’t harvest the plant? What would happen if we just waited until the wheat fell off the stalk on its own, or just never harvested it in the first place because we didn’t want it to “die”? Fruit falls off its tree all the time, right? I’m sure wheat would do the same thing.
Except it doesn’t. Wheat is a plant, and therefore bears seeds. These seeds are what we eat. This is true in other plants as well -- we either eat the seeds themselves or the seed container. If we don’t harvest this part of the plant, though, it will get rid of it on it’s own -- through rot. When the head of the wheat stalk begins to rot, the entire plant will die. This is why it is very important that we harvest wheat at just the right time.
Likewise, we also must be harvested at the right time. So when is the right time? To find out, let’s turn to the book of John, chapter 4. At this point, Jesus had just finished speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well. When his disciples returned, they urged him to eat some food. Jesus replied, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Since His disciples were confused (a pretty normal occurrence, really), Jesus went on to explain what he was talking about.
Starting with verse 35: “Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.”
In short, the time is now! We are all being harvested, believers and unbelievers alike. This was mentioned in the book of Revelation as well. Chapter 14, starting with verse 14, “I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” 16So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. 17Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. 18Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.” 19The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. 20They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia.”
See, everyone will be harvested. When believers are harvested, though, we join into the Kingdom of God. But unbelievers, though, will have a Very Bad Day. They will be trampled by God’s wrath! In both of these scriptures, the Bible is saying that the time is now, there’s no time to wait. We need to make our decision quickly, while there’s still time.
This brings up an interesting conundrum, though, for the believer. In order to be harvested, we need to be cut off or separated from the part that -- we think, anyway -- gives us life. We think the world gives us life because we are born into the world, and we live inside the world. In fact, “life,” from a scientific perspective, is defined by four properties that are based in this world.
Growth -- we all grow. We’re not all still the size of newborns, right?
Reproduction -- we all have the capability to reproduce. This is a good thing, otherwise Adam and Eve would be the first and last humans on earth!
Functional activity -- this refers to brain activity, heartbeat and breathing, or, in plants, converting chlorophyll into energy. It refers to things that happen automatically, and without conscious thought.
Finally, life is defined by continual change, preceding death. We change -- sometimes that change is growth. But this really refers to things like movement, instinct, learning, that sort of thing. The four properties that define life -- at least, according to science. When these stop, life is no longer possible, and death is the result.
The problem is, though, if we’re “cut off” from the world, we can’t possibly live, right?
Well, kind of. See, life in Christ does follow the same pattern as life in the world -- growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change. However, instead of life ending at death, as it does here on Earth, it starts with death, and ends with eternal life. Colossians 3:3, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
OK, but we’re all still breathing, right? We’re not truly dead. Well, no, we’re not. But we are (or should be) dead to the world, though. Further in Colossians, in verse 5, it says, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” So, in other words, our sin dies; and in exchange the rest of us can only continue to live in Christ.
A few moments ago I mentioned that life in Christ does follow the same pattern as life in the world. But how does that work, exactly? Thankfully, the Bible explains it all to us rather nicely.
Growth: in the world, growth is only possible thanks to food of some sort. We must eat to grow, therefore we must eat to live. If I stop eating altogether, I will eventually starve to death. The same is true with life in Christ. Matthew 4:4 says, “Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”. If we stop listening and reading the word of God, then we will starve to death spiritually.
Reproduction: in the world, more people can only come about via reproduction. It’s simply not possible any other way -- science has discovered a great deal, but we cannot create life without reproducing it in some way from a mother and father. Reproduction is also necessary for life in Christ, although instead of creating physical babies, we create spiritual babies -- newborns to the faith. John 3:3 states this very clearly, “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’” And how do we reproduce, then? No, the answer is not “spiritual sex”, though that’s a good guess. It’s called the Great Commission, and it can be found in Matthew 28:19-20. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” In other words, witnessing. If we never share our faith, then we can never make new disciples, and the world will die.
Functional Activity: Yes, things like brain activity are still important, but this actually means a different type of functional activity. Remember, this refers to things that are habitual, that we don’t even think about. Breathing, our heartbeat, things of that nature. With life in Christ, our habitual process are not biological but spiritual. Psalm 119:9, “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.” Matthew 6:6, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” You can’t live according to God’s word if you never talk to Him; also, you can’t live according to His word if you never read it. Repeated, habitual quiet times alone in prayer with God and His Word are necessary for continual spiritual life.
Finally, there’s Continual Change: Instead of this continual change preceding death, it actually precedes eternal life! This is what the term “Christian” really means. “Christ-ian”; a follower of Christ. In I John 2:6, this is described. “Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.”. In other words, if we claim to follow Christ, then we must live as He did. Of course, this is impossible to do on our own, however we can constantly strive to achieve this type of perfection. Just like a biological life ends when the constant change stops, a spiritual life begins when the constant change stops -- because it will stop with perfection when we enter Heaven.
Harvesting something simply means that we cut it off. What’s interesting, though, is that we know that “cut off or separated” is the definition of “holy”. In short, we need to be made holy by cutting ourselves off from the world, and relying on our life in Christ to give us strength. If we don’t, we will rot and die.
