Meditation:
 The season of Lent gives us a wonderful opportunity to modify our diet, to give more careful thought to what we consume, and to perhaps make healthier adjustments.
Personally, I do a semi-fast during Lent, omitting meat and fast-food from my diet. (One year I lost 21 pounds during Lent!) But the primary purpose of these dietary adjustments is to be more conscientious about my devotional life. I’m driven to thinking more about the sacrifice of Christ for humanity, and what my role is in the Kingdom.
And as I save money from what I would have spent on food, I set that aside as a special offering for the World Hunger Appeal. This year it would be appropriate to do that for Haiti relief through Lutheran Disaster Response, for example.
Because we don’t like to be hungry we might obsess about food. Yet Jesus teaches us in today’s Gospel from Luke that hunger is not simply physical. People are also imbued with a hunger for emotional and spiritual satisfaction.
The “Bread of Life” we seek is found in a relationship with the One who went to the cross for us, who then calls us to live out that relationship in the real world with others.
We don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the heart of God.
May our relationship with Christ satisfy our hunger today. |
