Welcome back to the Garden in Delight Devotions Blog with another themed series for the season of Lent. This religious 40-day observance will give us 7 weeks to dig into a special aspect of God’s Word and get to know our Jesus more intimately, who he is and what He has done for us, growing our hearts for a deep embrace on His Resurrection Day, April 20th.
A special aspect from the garden, that is! Gardeners, the Lord planted so many metaphorical reflections of Himself through His Word in the landscape, and that is why we gather here at Garden in Delight: To seek and worship Him, and enter into dimensions of His character and love hidden in the horticulture, like discovering a secret garden.
Bread Backstory
This year brings us back around to the beginning of this Series-of-7 tradition. The Devotions Blog got started over 10 years ago, at first to offer garden design ideas and horticultural information for the plants of the Bible—well, we had to have pictures! God’s Word for Gardeners Bible had just released, initiating a movement to join Scriptures with garden life, to watch and taste and see for ourselves the wonder of God in our own backyard planting.
That first spring, I wrote A Lenten Look at Bread, and a few more posts following the metaphor of bread in the Bible where it touched on garden plants. Succeeding years yielded a more formal Lenten approach, topics with a meme and meandering outline to move us towards Resurrection Day with full hearts and refreshed relationship with Jesus.
Take in collections of devotions on trees of the Bible, flowers, herbs, Biblical landscapes, the Song of Songs bridal songbook, garden prayer, and more at Series of 7 Studies on the Potting Bench.
This year, we will return to the crossroads of bread and gardening and restore this theme to a full 7 devotions, updating the former posts with more Scriptures, prayer, and a weekly recipe.
Why return to A Lenten Look at Bread?
Because in the last year, breadmaking has been restored to our lives—my husband’s weekly Sunday Night Dinner now features homemade sourdough, yum! Our precious neighbor brought me back to bread with a Christmas gift of starter last year, and I am happy to say that breadmaking has prevailed as a pleasant rhythm in our lives ever since, along with inspiration to restore the series of Lenten bread devotions.
click here to link to the original A Lenten Look at Bread
After my bread blog adventure in 2015, the bustle of life…and I confess, super-stinky starter stored on the counter…overwhelmed the hobby, and I had to let it go. Sigh. If baking weekly bread is not for you at this appointed time, I understand.
Yet I continued to cherish the take away lessons of God’s gentleness and mystery in crafting bread; while it was hard to grasp exactly what to do, it was also hard to mess it up too badly. Even disastrous-looking loaves were tasty!
My testimony in being restored to bread life is even more of God’s forgiveness and endearment…and I learned that the starter can be stored in the refrigerator in between loaves to prevent the smell, LOL. I feel deeply joined to Jesus the Bread (John 6:48), in the silliest, sustaining way. And He has revealed himself as Lord of the Sabbath.
Breadmaking Becoming Sabbath
Part of the mystery in sourdough bread involves timing. Certainly, the ingredients are not elusive: Flour, water, salt, and starter; starter is made up of unseen yeasts feasting on flour and water. Yet bringing these 4 elements together to create bread requires a certain sequence.
A few simple pauses in an otherwise normal evening is all that is needed. Yet, intriguingly, attention to these uncomplicated steps has risen a desire for an uncomplicated life. That is, the routine of these key pauses to assemble and move the bread dough along have led to a routine of pausing from a rushing, hectic schedule. I am surprisingly content to stay home on a Saturday night so I can work the dough—caring for the dough is a cultivating process, hello gardeners!—3 times in 3 to 4 hours, let it rise overnight, and again in the morning hours, for a Sunday loaf for family dinner. Sourdough has grounded me in Sabbath.
click here for my sourdough bread recipe
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath
We meet Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath in 3 of the 4 gospels: Matthew 12, Mark 2-3, and Luke 6. Not exactly a bread story but taking place in a wheat field.
One Sabbath Jesus and his disciples were walking through some wheat fields. His disciples were picking grains of wheat as they went along. Some Pharisees asked Jesus, “Why are your disciples picking grain on the Sabbath? They are not supposed to do that!” Jesus answered…“People were not made for the good of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for the good of people. So the Son of Man is Lord over the Sabbath.” Mark 2:23-25, 27-28 CEV
Jesus shakes up Sabbath practice by revealing himself as Lord of the Sabbath. Shabbat (Hebrew word for sabbath) is good for mankind, He implies, by giving us the time for rest in order to be nourished and restored in the Lord. This Sabbath tussle and the one to follow (Mark 3:1-5) exposes the Pharisees’ entrenched rules-view of revering God; actually, the rule-keepers ask Jesus a natural question, “Why are you violating Shabbat?” (Luke 6:2 CJB)
If picking grain is reaping, and reaping is work, and Sabbath rules say no work (Exodus 20:8-11)…it’s a logical bewilderment, why are you breaking this rule!? Yikes, Jesus, don’t you know the rules?!
So with God we will move on to deeper truths. Hebrews 6:7 TPT
Yet disciples are with Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, and He chooses to nourish them with fresh wheat. With discernment we see that this is not a violation of Sabbath but its deeper truth: The Lord desires to nourish and restore His people through His Presence. More than keeping rules, keep company with Me.
Come to me and I will give you rest—all of you who work so hard beneath a heavy yoke. Matthew 11:28 TLB
“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. John 15:4 The Message
Keep company with God, get in on the best. Psalm 37:4 The Message
Yet the fact remains that we still have the opportunity to enter into the faith-rest life and experience the fulfillment of the promise! For God still has ordained a day for us to enter into called “Today”…there is still a full and complete Sabbath-rest waiting for believers to experience. Hebrews 4:6,9 TPT
Let’s come into his presence with a song of thanksgiving. Psalm 95:2 GW
Restored
Again Jesus, still on the Sabbath, prompts the rule-keepers to be transformed by revelation:
He said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Come up where we can see you!” Then to [the Pharisees] he said, “What is permitted on Shabbat? Doing good or doing evil? Saving life or killing?” But they said nothing. Then, looking them over and feeling both anger with them and sympathy for them at the stoniness of their hearts, he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” As he held it out, it became restored. Mark 3:3-6 CJB
Sadly, this sends the Pharisees into a missing-the-whole-point mutiny (which easily happens to me, too!). Yet Jesus uses the man’s restored hand to hint to the essence of Sabbath: To be restored by the Lord. He completes a word-play poetry—that the work of Sabbath, His opus, is God’s nourishing rest. We refrain from work to rest and let resting in God do its work of nourishing and restoring us.
Notice how rules made to worship God, like the proper practice of Sabbath, can actually overtake His Presence and divert us from His simple purpose and profound blessing, and His playfulness. That’s why God came to earth personally, because a set of rules would never do (Galatians 3:10-14).
Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath prepares us to be shaken from our routines, rituals and current understandings, liberated from entrenchments; to experience more of God, His deeper truths; and be restored to Him.
From the Beginning
From the beginning, the essence of Shabbat has been God’s nourishing rest.
On the seventh day—with the canvas of the cosmos completed—God paused from His labor and rested. Thus God blessed day seven and made it special—an open time for pause and restoration, a sacred zone of Sabbath-keeping, because God rested from all the work He had done in creation that day. Genesis 2:2-3 VOICE
He rested on His seventh day of work to institute the pattern of restoration for His people. Work, work hard, work creatively, but in rhythm with your working routine, rest with Me. I will nourish and restore you. Work 6 days and I will give you a precious day to be with Me; gather your family and let’s feast.
Sabbath touches us in weekly rhythm with the Lord in His creation story, brushing us with eternity as the background to all we face.
Bread of the Presence
Let’s remember one more bread story, the bread of the Presence, lechem panim.
Set the bread of the Presence on the table before me always. Exodus 25:30 NCB
You shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes, two-tenths of an ephah in each cake. You shall set them in two rows, six cakes to a row, on the pure golden table before the Lord. You shall sprinkle pure frankincense upon each row, on the bread, so that it might be a memorial offering made by fire to the Lord. Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord forever. It is an everlasting covenant for the children of Israel. Leviticus 24:5-8 NCB
In simple terms, the bread of the Presence, also translated showbread or shewbread, was always before the Lord on the table in the Tabernacle and Temple. On the Sabbath, it was refreshed. Twelve replenishing loaves were ushered in on Shabbat, reiterating God’s purpose and blessing to nourish and restore us in His Presence on this day, resounding through the sacred setting how holy and dear we are to Him.
Be Restored
In this first week of our worship together, let us be open to how Holy Spirit might restore us to Sabbath, watching for however creatively He might lead us to a 7th day pause from life’s pressures and anxieties, in a way that is personal and simple. May the following Words refresh you and bring to mind the work of the Lord to restore you.
After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Hosea 6:2 NIV
Come back, come back, O God to restore us! You are the Commander of Angel Armies. Look down from heaven and see our crisis. Come down and care for your lovely vineyard once again. Nurture our root and our fruit with your loving care. Raise up the Branch-Man, the Son whom you made strong. Psalm 80: 14-15 TPT
…we know that God raised the Lord Jesus to life. And just as God raised Jesus, he will also raise us to life. Then he will bring us into his presence together with you. 2 Corinthians 4:14 CEV
Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. Ephesians 5:1-2 The Message
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17 NIV
God, your wraparound presence is our defense. In your kindness look upon the faces of your anointed ones. For just one day of intimacy with you is like a thousand days of joy rolled into one! I’d rather stand at the threshold in front of the Gate Beautiful ready to go in and worship my God than to live my life without you. Psalm 84:9-10 TPT
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 The Message
Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. 2 Corinthians 13:11 NIV
Worship with a Weekly Loaf
Sourdough Bread Recipe
I highly recommend you follow someone much better at this! Also, a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients is much easier than measuring. I got started in sourdough with Foodbod Sourdough and this recipe is hers:
Closing Prayer:
O Lord of the Sabbath, I am leery to let You to shake things up in my life, but You are gentle and kind; and You always move me towards your nourishment and restoration, even when I don’t understand what you are saying or doing. Thank you for stirring me to deeper truths in Your Word and growing in me a sheer delight for Your Presence. Wow, Sabbath…a whole day for You, set apart from my usual work…that is a lot to consider in this 24/7, on-demand world. But all Your ways are good! Grow my trust in You as I turnover more of my time to You. You have watched over me from the beginning of my life, and You sustain me, now and forever. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Revive us again, O God! I know you will! Give us a fresh start! Then all your people will taste your joy and gladness. Pour out even more of your love to us! Reveal more of your kindness and restore us back to you! Psalm 85:6-7 TPT
A Lenten Look at Bread is a 7-part series at the crossroads of bread and garden plants in God’s Word. Slicing into bread analogies draws us closer to Lord of the Sabbath, the Word, more life-sustaining than bread, and the Bread of heaven, for starters (yes, there will be sourdough!)—against a background of wheat, barley, coriander, and Israel’s best produce. Taste and see my goodness, the Lord beckons (Psalm 34:8), so we’ll be worshipping with a weekly loaf for hands-on help in grasping who Jesus is and what he has done for us, growing our hearts for a deep embrace of the ultimate metaphor, He is Risen!
Do you love connecting God’s Word to your gardening work and the trees and plants around you? You will love my new book, My Father is the Gardener, Devotions in Botany and Gardening of the Bible, order at this link.
Learn more about growing wheat in your garden in the Garden in Delight Plant Guide, one of the 7 Species – www.gardenindelight.com/plant-guide/wheat/
More Devotions Blogs on Wheat include The Wheat Prayers Blue Wheat, and The Seven Species: A Garden-to-Table Guide
Photo Credits: ©Shelley S. Cramm
CEV notes Scripture quotations taken from the Contemporary English Version Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.
CJB notes Scripture quotations taken from the Complete Jewish Bible by David H. Stern. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Messianic Jewish Publishers, 6120 Day Long Lane, Clarksville, MD 21029. www.messianicjewish.net.
GW denotes Scripture quotations taken from GOD’S WORD®, © 1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God’s Word to the Nations Mission Society. Used by permission.
The Message denotes Scripture quotations taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries.
NCB denotes Scripture taken from the SAINT JOSEPH NEW CATHOLIC BIBLE® Copyright © 2019 by Catholic Book Publishing Corp. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
NIV denotes Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®
TLB denotes Scripture quotations taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. The Living Bible, TLB, and the The Living Bible logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers.
TPT denotes Scripture quotations taken from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com
VOICE denotes Scripture quotations taken from The Voice™. Copyright © 2012 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
