This morning our seventh and eighth graders celebrated Maundy Thursday in a unique way involving unleavened bread. On this day in history Christians remember Jesus celebrating Passover with His disciples in an event which has become known as the Last Supper. Our students each assumed the character of an Old Testament Hebrew enslaved in Egypt and anxious to quickly bake, pack, and run before Pharaoh changed his mind again. They threw together some wheat flour, eggs, salt, honey, olive oil, and water and made a crude dough. Then they made a dozen frisbee-sized “loaves” to bake and share with the other classes around the school. Each pair of junior high bakers visited the other classrooms to present the bread for sampling and to briefly make the connection for younger students between the Passover, the Last Supper, and Jesus as our “Bread of Life.”
The Message Middle School Shared with Younger Students
This is unleavened bread which our class just made. “Unleavened” means it has no yeast….the stuff which makes bread rise and get fluffy. Notice how this bread is flat like a pizza crust or pita bread. It’s the kind of bread you could make in a hurry and take it with you. It’s the kind of bread the Israelites quickly made as they fled from Egypt before the pharaoh changed his mind.
For centuries Jewish people have eaten this type of bread to celebrate the Passover. It’s similar to the type of bread Jesus would have eaten with his disciples at the Last Supper. Today we celebrate Maundy Thursday, the day Jesus ate with His disciples before he was captured. This bread helps us to remember that Jesus is the “bread of life”…..he is all we’ll ever need.
