Wait, Trust, and Declare Your Allegiance to Easter Hope

I hardly ever bake our very favorite homemade bread. It’s delicious and moist with just a hint of molasses. We enjoy it with soup, and it makes the best toast, but I don’t make it very often because it has to rise twice in the bowl and then, again, in the pans. (I’ll be sharing the recipe at the end of this post!)

Combining the ingredients, the mixing, and the kneading are only the beginning. How strange to punch down the dough after that first rising, and then put the dishtowel back in place for that second rising. Even with the woodstove keeping our house toasty and warm, the process takes most of the day!

Anyone new to the breadmaking process might have a hard time seeing what all this waiting around has to do with the creation of two loaves of bread. This one thing I have learned about breadmaking, though: the yeast will not be rushed. The time of quiet resting is crucial for the formation of a beautiful and fragrant loaf.

Waiting for the Rising

In the days leading up to Easter, I imagine myself into the sandals of Jesus’s first-century disciples and friends. They didn’t know that the awful quiet of the Saturday following Jesus’s crucifixion and the hopelessness of their grief were only a snapshot, a moment in time on the way to the bigger story of resurrection. Their sorrow and emptiness left little room for the hope of new life.

I know what to expect from my bread dough, but, like Jesus’s disciples, I enter my more consequential times of waiting full of uncertainty. Living in the in-between, even expectant silence is still silent. It’s easy to lose sight of the promise of spring when all I can see is dead branches against a gray sky.

Living in the in-between, even expectant silence is still silent. Like Jesus’s disciples, I enter consequential times of waiting full of uncertainty.

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It was the sight of barren trees in mid-winter that brought Nicholas Herman to faith, dramatically, in 17th-century France as he considered “that with a little time, the leaves would be renewed, and after that, the flowers and fruit appear.” Struck to the heart by the power and providence of God, he joined a monastery and has been known forever after as “Brother Lawrence,” author The Practice of the Presence of God, a classic work on spiritual formation.

David the psalmist set the same pattern for us. Although he felt “wasted with grief, and… spent with sorrow,” he knew what to expect from God and made this declaration of faith:

But I trust in you, O Lord;
    I say, ‘You are my God.’
My times are in your hand…”

Psalm 31:14-15

Kneading my bread dough, waiting for the yeast to do its work again and again, I trust the process and wait for the rising. Hints of resurrection may be all around us—but we miss them when our hearts are looking for something else, something quicker.

Waiting for God to work, trusting for deliverance, we declare our allegiance to Easter hope.

Holding You in the Light,

Kneading my bread dough, waiting for the yeast to do its work, I trust the process and wait for the rising. Hints of resurrection may be all around us—but we miss them when our hearts are looking for something quicker.

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P.S. It has occurred to me that some of you might like to try your hand at this old-fashioned recipe for Anadama Bread, so I’ve created a PDF that you can either print or save to your device. Simply click HERE to access the recipe, and if you try it, be sure to let me know how it worked for you!

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Photo by Simona Sergi on Unsplash