Fra Angelico, 1451-53.

Maundy Thursday, 2009

One of my tasks this Lenten season has been to assist my pastor wife in baking bread. Actually, I have been the bread baker and she has done the planning. She was doing a Sunday series for Lent called Bread for the Journey using different types of bread each week. Until this week we used the breadmaker pre-mixes that you dump into the bread machine, press start and let them go. That also allowed her the ability to set up the bread machine at church on Saturday evening, use the delayed setting and then have the wonderful smell of fresh baked bread make everybody hungry on Sunday morning.

That was good for me to work with when I was recuperating from Surgery but this past week we wanted to do something more original for tonight and this weekend. I made a free-form round loaf of pumpernickel for tonight- the theme being "Body Bread." I don't know what her lead-in will be or how she will explain that, but for me it was a really neat experience.

I have enjoyed baking bread for years. My favorite is always a good sourdough made from one of those starters you keep renewing in the refrigerator. The taste and texture of one of those is out of this world. I have never made a good dark loaf like the pumpernickel. Rye, whole wheat, white flours with added dark molasses and a bit of instant coffee turns out this beautiful loaf with a great looking crust.

I always make a cross-shaped cut in the top just before I put it in the oven when baking a round loaf. Especially for communion. This one is no exception. I actually get excited by doing this. It is a physical way I can participate in the preparation for communion. It is a physical way that I can prepare myself to come to the table. Not because I made it myself, but that I was able to give from what I have been given. It is a gift.

But this pumpernickel seems special. It is different. It is not what we normally think about when we think of communion bread. For many of us we envision the little wafers that one of my confirmands years ago called "styrofoam." There is no taste, no substance. Yes, I know that it would be difficult to use real bread. No one in this day and age has the time to do that.

But a real bread has taste, substance. Body. There is a weight and a presence to even a tiny piece given by the pastor in the service. It is more than some ephemeral something or other. It is There. It is Real. It has Strength.

Tonight that will help me remember Jesus. Earthy and alive. Even all these years later. His Body. Broken.