And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof, two tenth deals shall be in one cake. And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. Leviticus 24:5,6
My brothers and I went into the old house a few months after one of our favourite aunts died, to move some pieces of furniture out. It felt very lonesome as we entered the kitchen, even though very little had been done to the room after our aunt was taken to the hospital. The cheery fire was not burning in the range, and the sweet smells of a busy kitchen were missing. As we stood there to let the realization of her absence sink in, one of my brothers walked over to the far counter and lifted the top off the cookie jar. He peered in, and shook his head. For years, we had gone to that cookie jar every time we visited, and had always found big, white, crunchy sugar cookies there. But our beloved aunt was gone, and the cookies were no more. Maybe the shewbread was like that, reminding the Israelites that as long as there were the twelve loaves on the table, God’s presence was in the Tabernacle.
Every week, on the sabbath, priests would take twelve freshly baked (and probably still hot) loaves of shewbread and place them on the special table in the holy place. At the same time, the priests would remove the loaves that had been placed there the week before. They could then eat the old loaves, as long as they did so within the tabernacle. The shewbread was also called the bread of the presence, because it was always on the table, fresh every week, in the presence of God. In this bread we see some lovely illustrations of a special remembrance ceremony in our own time.
We have a table spread for us each week. Around that table, we conduct a remembrance feast. We each bring that which we have prepared during the previous week, and we refresh our souls for the following week on what we appreciate during the feast. In this way, the remembrance feast is always before us, and always before the Lord. This feast preserves and nourishes us just as the shewbread did for the Aaronic priests.
The placing of the shewbread was a weekly event. No sabbath went by without the priests placing fresh shewbread on the table. Similarly, no Assembly can allow the practice of weekly remembrances to slip. Just as the shewbread indicated the presence of the Lord, just as our Aunt’s sugar cookies indicated her presence in her kitchen, so the remembrance feast bears witness to the presence of the Lord in His Assembly.
Will the Lord preserve His Assemblies as long as we maintain His supper? I believe so, as long as we keep the table pure. – Jim MacIntosh