The Bread of the Presence
March 7, 2008 by hisfiredancer
Yep, more on the Tabernacle. God is really challenging me in how I think about my role in this life and His expectations. He never changes, never wavers and what He established in the Old Testament made way for the New Covenant that I, and all who call Jesus Lord and Savior, partake of today.
Besides dealing with me about being the light of the world and what He showed me about the lamps burning in the Old Testament Tabernacle. He also showed me the “show bread” or the “bread of the Presence” - it was also called the “bread of faces”. I didn’t know that, and actually read it in a commentary. So often I have taken comfort in knowing that Jesus is the Bread of Life, that everything in the Tabernacle was a type and shadow of Him and what He was to do in His coming. Now, as I said, I am challenged - I see that it was not only about Jesus but about those who believe in Him and choose to follow Him.
The bread of the Presence was 12 loaves of unleavened bread made with the finest flour. The bread was set out in two rows of six on a table specifically for that purpose and was to be left out until the Sabbath, when the priests would take the old bread and replace it with fresh bread. There is more to it but for what I’m writing that’s the main part.
It was called the bread of faces because it represented the faces of the 12 tribes of Israel continually in God’s presence. And because it was continually before God’s face.
The bread represents Christ, Who is the bread of life, the bread from Heaven. It represents His purity, being unleavened and of the finest flour. It represents the sufficiency of God’s provision, the bounty of the table He has prepared for us in His presence. And it represents the lives we are to lead as those set apart to God. Pure, undefiled, fresh in our relationship with the Lord, and finding refreshment in the Lord of the Sabbath who continually feeds of this amazing delicacy.
Jesus, the Bread of Life, was broken for the world to come into relationship with the Father. Holy, pure, set apart and broken so that all who would come and partake of His sacrifice would know life. It is the promise and the hope that never grows old. Just as He broke the bread and passed it out the 5,000 and the 4,000 feeding them all until they were satisfied, His desire is to feed the spiritually hungry and separate from God with His broken body until they come to know Him and find their satisfaction in relationship with Him. In feeding the multitudes, Jesus broke the bread and handed it to His disciples to distribute to those who were there. He said the blessing. He did the breaking. His disciples distributed the bread.
And it is there that the challenge came to my heart - He is the blessed, broken bread of the Presence and He has freely given Himself to me, as His disciple am I being obedient to take of that unending, never stale bread of Life and give it to the hungry and hurting and searching around me? Am I faithful in my relationship with Him so that what I have to give is never the stale bread that should have been replaced last Sabbath but is the fresh, wholesome bread of a present, active, living relationship with Jesus? Am I abiding in the Word? Am I abiding in my relationship with the Lord? Am I willing to say what I hear the Father saying and do what I see the Father doing in spite of what people think? Is my life unleavened - pure before God or is it tainted with passions that I have not submitted to Him? If I were to give someone to eat of the bread that I have - would it be the pure, satisfying, fresh, life giving bread of heaven or would it be stale and leave them empty and still looking?
With Peter, I want to say “Such as I have, give I thee.” And know that “such as I have” is the Bread of the Presence.
