There is no smell quite like that of cookies freshly baking in your oven. I say “your oven” because that means they are for you! Just like that glorious aroma, I love walking in the door and smelling Emily’s fresh baked bread nestled on the stovetop. The aroma sticks around upstairs as we head up for bed. It’s rare to see a bread loaf left undevoured by children after two days. Bread nourishes. The aroma is not only delicious but offers a fragrance of life not unlike the story of Christmas.

You have likely heard the reminder spoken each year at this time, the child in the manger was is the bread of life.

There was no room in the guest homes because of all the families gathered for the census, the festival spirit, the feasts and banquets of the world, the provision of human hands for human mouths. But something else happened in the place where animals and shepherds alone find warmth.

In the feeding trough Mary delivered the long-promised child of God. Joseph could provide no suitable place, but God ordained out of human necessity, this particular location in Bethlehem (beth-lechem, “house of bread”). It is no mistake that we read of a feeding vessel filled with the Son of David, the true manna of our wilderness, the bread of heaven come down out of heaven from God. “He who eats this bread…” is that not what He said years later? Here laid before us — not only in the story, but in the gospel given to each one of us — is the bread which nourishes for eternal life.

As we inhale the aroma of cookies, of candles, of ginger, clove, and cocoa, we do well to remember the first Christmas night. Born to us in the place which was to house bread, to bear the seed of David, was only one who nourishes the weary, burdened, heavy-laden. The pilgrim on the journey of this world is sustained for the next in Christ Jesus alone. He is the sufficient bread of life, let us rejoice as we become within a fragrant aroma of His Spirit. Be ever-nourished as you read His story again and again this season.

Merry Christmas!
Pastor Chris