Jesus called himself the bread of life. He was born in Bethlehem, which in Hebrew means house of bread.

The name

It was a small farming town south of Jerusalem, surrounded by wheat and barley fields. It was also the town of King David. That's why everyone expected the Messiah to come from there: "Doth not the Scripture say: That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of Bethlehem, the town where David was?" (John 7:42).

The prophet Micah had named it seven centuries early:

Laid where the animals eat

When Jesus was born there, his mother had nowhere to put him:

A manger is a feeding trough, the box animals eat from. The angels made it the sign for the shepherds: "And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger" (Luke 2:12).

In the house of bread, the newborn Saviour was laid in the place where food is put out to be eaten.

The bread of life

Years later, the crowds that Jesus had fed with five loaves came looking for more. He told them who he was:

And a little later, "I am the living bread, which came down from heaven" (John 6:51).

This is my body

On the night before he died, he took bread in his hands:

He began his life in a feeding trough in the house of bread. He ended it giving himself as bread.

Bread came back to Bethlehem

The book of Ruth opens with a famine. A family from "Bethlehem Juda" left because there was no food in the house of bread (Ruth 1:1). Years later, Naomi heard "that the Lord had looked upon his people, and had given them food" (Ruth 1:6), and she came home with Ruth "in the beginning of the barley harvest" (Ruth 1:22).

Ruth married Boaz of Bethlehem, and became the great-grandmother of David. From that family, in that town, came the bread that would feed the world.