Read John 6:1-14 and 26-41 to start.

Many years ago, when I was in high school and starting university, I worked at a 24 hour gas station. There are lots of stories I could tell about that place, between interesting coworkers, colourful customers, the unbelievable amount of mess that you have to clean up when you break a 1.5L glass bottle of Pepsi, but that’s not what I want to talk about this morning. This gas station was special in that it had a bakery, a real bakery, with dough and ovens and everything. That meant that most every morning, six days a week if I recall correctly, there was a baker who came in and baked bread. When you worked night shift, which ended at 7:00 am, and the baker came in around 6:00, if you were lucky you would enjoy the smell of fresh baked bread at the end of shift.

I don’t know about you, but there are few smells better than the scent of fresh baked bread. Usually we get store-bought bread, but Laura bakes bread occasionally, and the smell just fills the house. It’s so good. A loaf of fresh bread also looks amazing, she brushes a little melted butter on top of the bread while it’s still warm to crisp up the crust and enhance the flavour. It’s rare that a loaf lasts a full 24 hours.