The Gospel In A Manger

Bread’s main ingredient is ground grain. In a sense, bread in its infancy is grain—and grain is what you feed sheep. So when Jesus, the Bread of Life, was laid in a manger (a feeding trough), it quietly carried a prophetic message from the very beginning. It also casts profound light on His later words to Peter: “Feed my sheep.”

Jesus is also the Seed—Scripture returns to this image again and again. The Bible says that unless a seed falls into the ground and is broken, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. The word ground can mean the earth as a whole, or soil specifically—either way, the picture holds. Jesus came to the earth to be buried and raised. Like grain that must “die” to become bread, the Seed dies so life can multiply.

Even the process of making bread becomes prophetic of communion. Ground grain is mixed with water (the Word) and oil (the Holy Spirit), then exposed to fire (consider how the Lord revealed Himself to Israel). Yet bread’s transformation isn’t complete until it is broken and shared—just as Jesus said, “This is my body, broken for you.” And the wine, pressed from crushed grapes, mirrors the same pattern: fruit must be crushed to release what gives life, becoming the blood of the covenant.

Jesus’ birth in the manger foreshadows all of this. He lay as bread in a feeding trough, pointing forward to the meal where He would offer Himself: “Take, eat… drink… in remembrance of me.” The infant in the manger and the broken bread at the Last Supper are the same offering—God making Himself food for His sheep, the Seed that falls and dies so that many may live.