Bread

Bread

 

When the History Channel broadcasted last month in a series “The Bible”, a Christian story starting from the Genesis and ending in Revelation, audience watched with great interest and praise with diverse reactions. Among others, caught my eyes one scene which I am about to talk: Then was Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness (of Judea) to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward hungry. And when the tempter (in a black wardrobe) came to him, he said, If you be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

 

We know the rest of the story as late Paul Harvey used to say. Turning stone into bread is a presumptuous proposition. Jesus was challenged of His divinity by the tempter with the stupid proposition. Jesus needed not to prove who He is, but had let him find for himself.

 

The tempter might have come with Plan B on the same subject of bread, before he moved to the other two temptations. Plan B could have gone like this: The tempter said, “Jesus, you look terrible. How could you stand without eating for 40 days and 40 nights. Perhaps, you had at least some water from a stream down the valley. Listen! There is oven-baked fresh bread plentiful left over by those greedy rich in Jerusalem, which is not very far from here. I have the world’s swiftest hovercraft with me. I can fly to steal the bread and bring here to feed you so that your hunger pain would turn into pleasure in satiation, if you just say ‘yes’ on my vote.”

 

Talking about the Plan B, there is a different Plan B called the morning after pill. An innocent young girl made a mistake on a night. Since we are so concerned about her otherwise bright future, we have to save her from a potential trouble. So even under 17, she is to have access to the Plan B without any restriction, though the long term side effect of taking the pill in underage has not as yet been determined. But this is a health issue of the next generation. In the meantime, pharmaceutical companies will have a boon to flourish, while we debate who is going to pay the bill. This is getting complicated with no promontory in sight.

 

It is in essence the issue of morality. If we took morality out of our society, our society would start to crumble quickly. For it is the glue that binds us together, morality requires us not to be careless, but to be responsible. Therefore, in response to the tempter, Jesus answered and said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” (April 6, 2013, KYP)