A manger is a feeding trough for animals. In the stable or cave where Mary and Joseph stay because the inns are filled, the manger serves as a makeshift crib for Mary's baby, the Redeemer. God's propensity for foreshadowing comes into play here. Not only is Jesus, who is our Life-Giver, laid in a feeding place, but his birthplace is Bethlehem, a town whose name means "House of Bread." It is as though God goes out of his way to underline that he is Bread for the world.
Eating is as essential for life as breathing. Daily we refuel ourselves with food. Omitting meals for any length of time leaves us weak and malfunctioning. No wonder we pray in the Our Father, "Give us this day our daily bread." We look to God for life. When Jesus spends his first hours in a manger, he indicates that he is our bread, our sustenance. Without him, we can't survive. As Jesus' journey on Earth began with wood, so did it end—not with the warm, welcoming wood of the manger, but the rough wood of the cross. This wood too is associated with bread. The body of Jesus nailed to the cross made efficacious his words of the preceding evening when he held bread in his hands and declared, "This is my body." The cross is the wood through which he became our source of eternal life.
As a good parent, God has always provided bread for his children. In Old Testament times when the world faced a famine, God raised up the patriarch Joseph to store enough Egyptian grain to feed the chosen people and other nations. Centuries later, as the Israelites trekked through the desert on the way to the Promised Land, again they faced starvation. Yahweh had compassion on them. Daily during their forty-year sojourn to Canaan he rained down bread from heaven called manna.
Then in New Testament times, when Jesus held the crowd's rapt attention for hours and they grew hungry, he was aware of their need and had compassion. He astounded them by multiplying bread in abundance. The Gospels give us no fewer than six accounts of the picnic of bread and fish Jesus provided. And Jesus continues to feed the hungry through his Church. After he ascended into heaven, one of the first decisions his followers made was to appoint seven deacons to oversee the distribution of food. Today Christians serve meals at soup kitchens and bring them to the homebound, work at hunger centers, and donate food for people in need.
In this century, Jesus continues to nourish people with bread. Whenever we share in the Eucharist, we are fortified and energized for our particular journey on Earth. As really as Jesus slept in the manger on Christmas night, as really as he hung on the cross on Good Friday, Jesus, now risen, comes into us when we partake of this sacrament. As food and drink he unites himself with us, and we become like him. But becoming like him means becoming bread for others.
To be bread for others is to have compassion on them in their hungers. When someone hungers for attention, we are there to listen. When someone hungers for affirmation, we are there to encourage and support. When someone hungers for understanding and sympathy, we are there to give solace. When someone hungers for justice, we are there to set things right.
In the words of Caryll Houselander: "The ultimate miracle of Divine Love is this, that the life of the risen Christ is given us to give to one another, through the daily bread of our human love."
Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.