In Mark’s Gospel, the motif of bread initially represents earthly hunger as Jesus miraculously feeds thousands of followers with only a few loaves of bread. However, the meaning of the bread motif shifts throughout Mark’s narrative: equating Jesus with bread implies that Jesus is the fulfillment to spiritual hunger as bread is the fulfillment to earthly hunger. Thus, Mark uses the motif of bread to establish a core component of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. By establishing the bread motif as a symbol of humanity’s spiritual hunger, Mark crafts the Last Supper as a ritual that Jesus’s disciples can use to renew their spiritual hunger after Jesus’s death on the cross. Throughout Mark’s Gospel, the motif of bread symbolizes the earthly hunger of the disciples that Jesus fulfills. Throughout his ministry, Jesus executes two large-scale feeding miracles. In Mark 6, as Jesus preaches to a crowd of people the disciples request, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away …show more content…
Jesus foreshadows the significance of spiritual hunger in Mark 8 when he says to the disciples, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” (Mark 8:17-21). Jesus grows frustrated at the disciples because they do not yet understand the connection between earthly hunger and spiritual hunger that bread represents. However, Jesus implies to his disciples that they need not worry about having bread because Jesus will meet their needs. Thus, in this passage Jesus foreshadows his eventual sacrifice to replenish their spiritual hunger