C-rations and Hardtack: Survival Bread For the Hardest of Hearts

Back in the day, my dad produced his own special type of bread and baked goods to offer to his kids. But his delights didn't come out of the oven like Mom's did. His came from an old box he kept in the back of his closet.

Sealed in dusty little green cans stamped with the name of the contents on top of each, these "treats" were basically--what shall we say--antique or vintage or retro foods? Or...just old, stale, and potentially toxic snacks that probably shouldn't have been served to children.

Yet, there we were, (or at least I was--my sister always approached everything with more discrimination and caution than I did) excited to taste the contents of Dad's leftover C-rations from his army days.

As I watched Dad deftly open each two to three-inch-high can with a tiny P-38 army can opener, I remember thinking about how amazed my friends would be if I took some of those in my lunch to school. Who knew that cracker rounds or pound cake could be canned?

YouTube was still over thirty years in the future, so there was no video audience to view these occasional Opening Of The Cans events. Mom, my older sister, little brother and our eager dog, Lady, were the only attendees to the private reserve affair. Out of the group, I was probably the most enthusiastic as I was easily swayed by any form of carbohydrate.

In an out-of-context setting, the novelty of these aging canned goods overpowered their taste. My eight-year-old palate deemed the dry, dusty crackers as delicious and the metallic-flavored cake chunk as the best thing I had ever eaten. For me, it was all about the experience.

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Of course, the in-context experience for which C-rations (and later, MREs) were manufactured was anything but fun. These rations were developed to feed soldiers on and off the battlefield. Although some effort toward palatability and variety was important for good morale, their overall purpose was to keep our military troops nourished. It was mass produced survival food, pure and simple.

Hardtack--a flat cracker-type of bread--was the progenitor of military and seafaring rations. It was baked multiple times to remove all traces of moisture, thus making it impervious to spoilage on long sea voyages.

It was also impervious to chewing.

Sailors had to soak their daily ration of hardtack in water before they could even think about biting into it. Ancient mariner accounts relate how the soaking also coaxed the bugs and worms to exit the hardtack prior to eating. It was awful stuff, but it provided just enough nourishment to keep people alive during long sea journeys. Barely alive, that is.

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Speaking of taking bread along on a journey, then, brings to mind the following story as told in both the books of Mark and Matthew. This takes place directly after Jesus miraculously turned a few loaves of bread into enough to feed thousands of people:

Mark 8:14-21: But the disciples had forgotten to bring any food. They had only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.”

At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread.

Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, “Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all? When I fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up afterward?” “Twelve,” they said. “And when I fed the 4,000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?” “Seven,” they said.

“Don’t you understand yet?” he asked them.

Silly disciples. How could they so soon forget that Jesus had just produced a massive amount of fresh bread out of thin air?! Yet, there they were, with their short-term memory banks and their spiritual eyesight clouded with anxiety over physical circumstances, they were again missing the glorious obvious.

Matthew's version of the story puts Jesus' comment about the Pharisees at the end of the narrative. This changes the emphasis slightly:

Matt. 16:11-12: [Jesus said], 'Why can’t you understand that I’m not talking about bread? So again I say, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’

Then at last they understood that he wasn’t speaking about the yeast in bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (NLT)

I believe Jesus wasn't merely chiding the disciples for overlooking his miracle, he was pointing out the difference between two worldviews in the larger picture.

Like an infectious Candida yeast colony, the Pharisees and Sadducees' teaching had permeated the Jewish religion. Symbolically, it had taken over the aromatic Bread of Presence to produce loaves as unpalatable as hardtack. It had survived through millennia and was infested with opportunistic exploiters worming they way into the Jewish system of worship.

The disciples' inability to absorb, or to comprehend, the miracle they had just witnessed put them in the camp with the Pharisees whose hearts were hardened through unbelief. Jesus pointed out this hardness of heart on several other occasions, and he always connected it to the leaders' stubborn refusal to recognize that God was working in a new way, a spiritual way, among His people.

Like Pharaoh in Moses' time, the religious leaders' hard hearts blinded them to the demonstrations of God's supernatural power working right in front of them.

But the New Covenant that Jesus was bringing into the world could only be recognized through new, fresh eyes--a type of spiritual eyesight that enables believers to perceive the heavenly realm that surrounds our physical lives.

I believe every time Jesus physically healed a blind person, he was illustrating its spiritual parallel. And every time he produced fresh bread out of thin air to feed the hungry, he was showing us that he is the ultimate provisioner for all our needs--material and otherwise.

Jesus was teaching his disciples that his Presence on earth meant that they would no longer have to nibble on the dry, old hardtack-y doctrine the religious leaders offered their followers like sea captains to sailors on an interminable journey.

"Don’t you understand even yet?" Jesus had asked his followers that day beside the water.

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One other group of God's people, the Israelites in the Exodus, showed the same symptoms of a hard heart infection. At some point in their long trek through the wilderness, they started doubting God's promise to provide for them. This doubt led them to romanticize their years of enslavement in Egypt as they remembered the food they had access to there. Their clouded memory banks spawned a community-wide complaining, which led to community-wide blaming of leadership. They started pointing fingers at Moses and Aaron, holding them responsible for their food insecurity issues.

But seriously, folks--these were the same people who witnessed the parting of the Red Sea and had miraculously walked right through it on dry land!

How could they doubt God's power to take care of them? And how could they so soon think that mere men were somehow responsible for their situation? Or that mere men could somehow fix it?

The writer of the book of Hebrews recounted it this way:

Hebrews 3:6-9: That is why the Holy Spirit says, “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness. There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years." (NLT)

Yet, in spite of the complaining that tested His patience, God, in His mercy, provided nourishing food for them on the spot. He sent flocks of quail for protein and caused a fresher-than-fresh bready type of MRE, called manna, to appear on the ground for them each morning.

As a type of food for the journey, manna was the complete opposite of hardtack. Manna came with a one-day expiration date that brought maggots in along with a bad smell if not eaten within twenty-four hours of gathering. It was survival food of a different kind--the miracle kind.

Manna was not something people could farm or produce for themselves. It was pure daily provision, a new reminder every morning of God's miraculous mercies for His people. And it was that same mercy, that same compassion, that moved Jesus to feed his followers in the wilderness near the Sea of Galilee.

Hard-heartedness is the opposite to compassion. Believing hearts are softened, humbled and surrendered hearts--hearts that constantly notice and remember the miracles of undeserved forgiveness and mercy they wake up to each morning. Being utterly dependent on God for this supply, they gladly share it with their neighbors as He directs, knowing it isn't theirs to hoard for themselves.

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Like the complainers in the wilderness and the Pharisees in Galilee, we, too, can let our hearts harden and dry out when we stay stuck in seeing only the workings of the material world while failing to recognize the infinitely more powerful, yet hidden, work God is doing all around us.

Yes, we American Christians should continue to pray for God to send sensible leaders who will bring more conservative and healthy policies back to the legislative table.

But what if God's true provision for our nation is not physical, but spiritual? What if He is more invested in building His worldwide church than shoring up the crumbling framework of our American system?

Is it possible He is asking us to close the lid on the political hardtack barrels many churches have acquired in a survival mindset and to use their precious resources and time instead to serve the fresh, aromatic Bread of Life to all who come through their doors?

Are some Christian hearts hardening enough to feel more energized by hosting candidate forums than they are by offering community worship services?

Are our hearts more triumphant when our rightest-of-the-right-wing candidates get elected than they are when a down-and-out sinner gives his heart to Jesus?

What are we serving? Hardtack...or the Bread of Jesus?

And so, Jesus asks all of us, "Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all?