Baker’s Dozen

I was washing the apples that I had just bought at the grocery store.
I bought a bag of apples.
I knew that the bowl, in which they are usually kept, was empty.
I reached in the bag and washed each one, placing it in the bowl.

I was not counting them as I put them in the bowl.
After they were all nestled in the bowl, I counted them.
I counted them again.
There were only eleven apples, when I thought there would be twelve.

The bag was one apple short.
There was no way to know that before I opened the bag.
What would I have done anyway?
I would not have taken the bag back to the store for the one missing apple.

Memories of a bakery came to mind.
It was a place I loved to go.
It was a place I went to with my mother.
We would always stop there on the way to my grandmother’s house.

My mother would drive into the city every day to check in on her mother.
She would often clean and make her dinner.
I watched her as she helped my grandmother.
She would come home and do the same things at our house as well.

As my grandmother got older, her appetite was not good.
My mother thought of ways to get her to eat.
She would prepare the food she liked.
She knew that my grandmother had a sweet tooth.

We would stop at the bakery and my mother would make her selection.
I remember pressing my face against the glass case.
Cookies, cakes, and donuts were lined up in the cases.
Fresh baked bread was behind the counter.

The aroma permeated every corner of the bakery.
The aroma lingered on our clothes after we left the shop.
My mother knew the things my grandmother liked.
Some larger items were placed in a white box and tied with string.

Smaller things were placed in a white bag that was neatly folded over on the top.
My mother would let me keep the white box on my lap in the car.
She wanted it to remain steady so the things inside would not get crushed.
The white bag was usually placed on the floor at my feet.

By the time we got to my grandmother’s house, the white bag had shadows on the paper.
It was not that the baked goods were greasy, it’s just that they were buttery.
The buttery shadows were indicators that there were delicious cookies inside.
Delicious cookies that my grandmother loved and would have with her cup of tea.

As my face was pressed against the glass of the bakery case, I pointed to cookies I liked.
I did not have a sweet tooth, but there were a few cookies from the bakery I enjoyed.
There were butter cookies that looked like a flower with a dollop of white icing on top.
My mother would always include a few of those.

The baker knew my mother from all the times she stopped in the shop.
He always seemed to enjoy seeing me as well.
Well, hello, little lady, he would say.
I would smile at him through the glass.

He would hand my mother the white box that he tied expertly with a string.
He would put the buttery cookies in the white bag.
And a baker’s dozen for you, little lady, he said as he handed me the white bag.
I smiled and took the white bag, neatly folded over on the top.

I wanted to tell him that the cookies were for my grandmother.
Only the butter cookies with the dollop of white icing were mine.
My mother was paying him and they were talking.
I knew not to interrupt.

What is a baker’s dozen? I asked my mother when we got in the car.
A what? My mother asked.
The man said he gave me a baker’s dozen when he handed the bag to me, I reminded her.
Wasn’t that nice of him? My mother said without expecting an answer.

How many things are in a dozen? My mother asked.
Twelve, I answered remembering we had just learned that in school.
A baker’s dozen is thirteen things; one extra, she told me.
He did that just for you, she added.

There are a few theories as to why a baker’s dozen became 13, but the most widely accepted one has to do with avoiding a beating. In medieval England there were laws that related the price of bread to the price of the wheat used to make it. Bakers who were found to be “cheating” their customers by overpricing undersized loaves were subject to strict punishment, including fines or flogging. Even with careful planning it is difficult to ensure that all of your baked goods come out the same size; there may be fluctuations in rising and baking and air content, and many of these bakers didn’t even have scales to weigh their dough. For fear of accidentally coming up short, they would throw in a bit extra to ensure that they wouldn’t end up with a surprise flogging later. In fact, sometimes a baker’s dozen was 14—just to be extra sure. (https://www.britannica.com/story/why-is-a-bakers-dozen-13)

God lavishes His grace on us.
Grace upon grace.
Grace is more than we deserve.
Grace is not earned, since if it was earned, it would not be grace.

Out of the fullness of his grace he has blessed us all, giving us one blessing after another.
(John 1:16)

Grace is God’s baker’s dozen.
Grace overflows.
Grace is ours in abundance.
Like the white bag with the buttery shadows, grace cannot be contained.

For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Like the extra cookie that the baker put in the white bag, grace is a gift from God.
The baker put the extra cookie in the bag just because he wanted to do that for me.
God lavishes His grace upon us as His Gift, just because He wants to do that.
God does that for our good and for His glory.

In Christ, we have grace upon grace.
In Christ, we have an abundance of God’s grace.
Can you imagine the buttery shadows on the baker’s bag?
How much more the evidence of Gods grace in our lives.

Grace is God’s baker’s dozen.
What a gift.