God delights to turn curses into blessings! Even in severe judgments He remembers tender mercies. Mercy triumphs over judgment (Jas 2:13)! We can see His shining heart of mercy right from the earliest glimmers of His relating to mankind. Adam and Eve’s terrible tragedy plunged the whole human race into chaos, darkness, and ruin for millennia. Yet through this night a ray of hope shone.
And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Genesis 3:17-19 ESV
One of Adam’s punishments involved obtaining bread by the sweat of his brow. Life would no longer be effortlessly plucking fruit in easy reach from the abundant trees of Eden’s garden. Ironically, bread is one of those foods we enjoy so much that we don’t make the connection that we have it because of the curse. My wife has recently gotten into baking sour dough loaves, and oh how tasty they are fresh from the oven!
“Sweat” appears only three times in the whole Bible, which surprised me. Its scarcity serves to reserve its full redemptive expression in Jesus Christ. Let’s take a look. Fast forward to the night of Passover before Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus has left the Seder dinner and entered into a garden under drastically different circumstances than Adam enjoyed.
And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
Luke 22:39-44 ESV
Expelled from the garden, Adam worked the cursed ground by the sweat of his face to eat bread. Jesus, the last Adam, came to a garden (Jn 18:1). The sweat of Jesus’ face, like great drops of blood falling to the ground, reversed the ancient curse. Jesus sweat for us that we would have true bread!
The manna that the Israelites ate in the wilderness for forty years was a foretaste of the return of Eden. Life was effortlessly picking up abundant manna in easy reach. This bread from heaven was a reminder of being in Eden again. The people didn’t have to work for it by the sweat of their brow. All they had to do was collect what was there—just like the fruit trees in Eden!
Now, Jesus explained how this manna was not the true bread from heaven, but merely a foreshadowing of it.
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”
John 6:48-51 ESV
Jesus’ sweat in the garden of Gethsemane paid the price so that we could eat freely from the bread of heaven! We can eat freely now, a restoration of a quality of life enjoyed in the garden of Eden. Though it’s free to us, it cost Jesus the Son of God His very life.
We’ve just come through this Christmas season singing of Bethlehem, which means “house of bread.”
As we remember Jesus gifted to us as a babe in a manger, a feeding trough, in the house of bread, O come let us adore Him who paid by His own sweat for us to eat true bread. Our sins have been forgiven! The veil separating us from God is rent! Let us come daily to freely receive this wonderful gift from our Father in heaven, the Bread of life that strengthens, sustains, and satisfies us.
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 