Come to the Table

Welcome! Today we will remember the Lord with the bread and the cup, just as Jesus instructed His disciples to do about 2000 years ago. Following this, we will have a sharing time, where anyone can share what God has been teaching them, what God has been doing in their lives. In preparation for this time of communion, I have a short message today entitled, “Come to the Table.” Now, the table you may have in mind when I say this might be the communion table that holds the bread and juice, and on one level you would be right. But I also have another table in mind, one that fits in with our current series on the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The table I have in mind is first mentioned in Exodus 25.

"Make a table of acacia wood—two cubits long, a cubit wide and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold and make a gold molding around it. Also make around it a rim a handbreadth wide and put a gold molding on the rim. Make four gold rings for the table and fasten them to the four corners, where the four legs are. The rings are to be close to the rim to hold the poles used in carrying the table. Make the poles of acacia wood, overlay them with gold and carry the table with them. – Ex. 25:23-28


From what we estimate about cubits, it is believed that this table was about three feet long, one and a half feet wide, and about two feet tall; not all that different from the table on which we have our bread and cup. Now this table was an important component of the tabernacle, the place in which the Spirit of God rested. Recall that in the tabernacle there was a curtain that separated the “Holy Place” from the “Most Holy Place.” The Most Holy Place was only entered once a year; the Holy Place, on the other hand, was regularly visited. Where was this table kept? The answer is in Exodus 26.

Place the table outside the curtain on the north side of the tabernacle… –Ex. 26:35a

Now the reason I am telling you about the table is not so much about its dimensions or the materials used to make it; my interest in this table is based on what was put on it. I will first tell you the Hebrew phrase for what this was: lechem panim. The first word, lechem, means bread; Bethlehem, for example, in Hebrew is bayt-lechem, house of bread. The second word, panim, means face; its root word is p’nu-el, which means the face of God. Even without the el, the meaning implies the face of God unless it points to the face of something else. So lechem panim means the bread of the face, or the bread before the face of God. The KJV calls this shewbread, and the NIV calls it the bread of the Presence. Ex. 25 explains where this bread goes:

Put the bread of the Presence on this table to be before Me at all times. – Ex. 25:30

The “at all times” is no exaggeration; even when the Israelites disassembled the tabernacle and were on the move, the bread remained on the table, covered with a cloth, as explained in Numbers 4.

More details about this bread can be found in Leviticus 24.

Take fine flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf. Set them in two rows, six in each row, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. Along each row put some pure incense as a memorial portion to represent the bread and to be an offering made to the Lord by fire. This bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant. It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in a holy place, because it is a most holy part of their regular share of the offerings made to the Lord by fire. – Lev. 24:5-9

In I Samuel 21, David and his men, fleeing from Saul, visit Ahimelech the priest, at the location of the tabernacle at that time. David asks for food for his men, but the priest has none except for the old lechem panim. Because the old bread hadn’t yet been eaten, this meant that the day this happened was a Sabbath. Ahimelech asked if David’s men had kept themselves pure, and David said yes; the priest then allowed them to take it.

In I Kings 7 and I Chronicles 9, we see that the lechem panim continued to be made in the Temple, and in fact, Solomon made a new copy of the table for the Temple. And, although we are not this far in our series on Ezra and Nehemiah yet, in Nehemiah 10, we see that a tax is collected for supporting the various sacrifices and ordinances at the rebuilt Temple, including, as it says in verse 33, “for the bread set out on the table.”

We know that the bread continued to be set out continually on the table at the time of Jesus. And the bread is mentioned in the New Testament, in Hebrews 9, where the Old Testament regulations are described, including the requirement for holiness to enter the Most Holy Place, a requirement satisfied by the shedding of innocent blood, a requirement Jesus satisfied with His own blood.

And Jesus Himself mentions the bread with regards to the incident with David and his men being given this bread on a Sabbath.

"At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." – Matt. 12:1-2

He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? – Matt. 12:3-5

Did you follow all that? There are two “violations” here. First, the violation that the David and his companions were eating the bread that was only for the priests. That was what the Law of Moses said; it was quite clear, and there were no listed exceptions. That was the first violation. But the second violation – this just had to blow away Jesus’ audience.

Continually, week after week, from the days of Moses until that week with Jesus, (with the exceptions of periods when the Israelites were so unfaithful that they completely neglected the things of God, or the period in which they had no Temple, the years right before the beginning of the book of Ezra), the lechem panim had been made. And week after week, when was it made? On the Sabbath! Yet there were rules about not working on the Sabbath, even to the point of preparing food! For example, Exodus 35:2-3 said that kindling a fire (that is, even adding fuel to keep it going) was expressly forbidden on the Sabbath. But the law regarding the lechem panim (Leviticus 24) makes it clear that new loaves were to be baked and set out on the Sabbath. In addition, the passage in I Samuel 21 (verse 6) makes it clear that the new bread set out was “hot” bread; that is, it was freshly baked on the Sabbath.

Recall how even collecting manna was not done on the Sabbath; the day before, they were to pick a double portion. I just love how Jesus points out this huge gaping apparent contradiction that they had never thought about! Jesus’ point was that the Sabbath was a period of rest for people; it was never meant to enslave God’s people. As Jesus put it, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

We could go much further here talking about the Sabbath, but all I really want to say is that just as the Sabbath was instituted for people, we can say the same of communion. Partaking of the bread and the cup is something Jesus told us to do, but it is something He told us to do because it is for us; it is good for us; it helps us. I’ll talk about how it helps us in just a minute.

Now, in 70 AD, several decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Temple was destroyed, and the priests and people killed who remained in Jerusalem. And this put an end to all of the Temple practices, the sacrifices and so on. And it also put an end to the preparing of the lechem panim. There is still no Temple today, and thus, no lechem panim either. And so now you know the history of the table and the bread that was set out continually upon it.

But now let’s talk about why this bread was there. What was the point? What was its meaning? What did it symbolize? First of all, let me say what it didn’t mean. It wasn’t food for God. Many religions in that day, and even today, believe that you should leave out food for your god or gods. There is a Chinese restaurant here in Clemson where as you go in, you can see this very practice. No, that is not the meaning of the lechem panim.

So what did it mean? Well, there were twelve loaves. That is not an accident. What would twelve loaves remind the Israelites of? It would remind them of the twelve tribes. Israel consisted of twelve tribes, based essentially on the twelve sons of Jacob. The lechem panim, symbolic of the Israelite people, simply sat there in the presence of the face of God. Was it only sometimes in God’s presence? No. It was always in God’s presence – this is why there was always bread, the twelve loaves, set out in front of the curtain to the Holy of Holies, at the Tabernacle and then the Temple and then the rebuilt Temple. We are always prone to forget God, to forget that everything we do, everything we think, is known and seen by Him. In other words, the purpose of the lechem panim was to help people remember God.

I can just imagine a priest, one who worked in the Tabernacle, bringing his sons to the table and showing them the twelve loaves. I can imagine him explaining this to them. “Do you see these loaves? There are twelve of them, just like there are twelve tribes in our people. These loaves symbolize all of us, including you and me. And they are the lechem panim, the bread in the presence of the face of God. Just like you and me – we too are constantly before God. God, who rescued us from bondage, who has prepared a place for us and leads us day and night, is constantly watching us. He sees us when we sin – and we should remember this and instead choose to follow Him – but He also sees us when we are oppressed, or hurting, or depressed. He is constantly watching us because He loves us. He is like a shepherd, a good shepherd, leading us through the wilderness. Let us always remember Him.”

Well, I want to switch gears to another scene, many, many years later. It is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Jesus is with His disciples. You have probably heard this verse many times:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is My body." - Matt. 26:26

How many disciples were there? Twelve. Twelve pieces of bread – if you like to think of it this way, twelve little loaves. Could we not call these pieces of bread lechem panim? Do you realize, first of all, how literally this was true? These twelve pieces of bread were handed out by Jesus, God the Son, Himself. These blessed men were literally gazing on the face of God, the panim, God in the flesh. But unlike the old lechem panim, which was only allowed to be eaten, under normal circumstances, by the purified priests, this lechem panim was for the disciples, the followers, of Jesus. They were not priests, in the traditional sense, based on their lineage, but what does the New Testament say?

To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve His God and Father—to Him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. – Rev. 1:5-6

All of us, if we have asked Jesus into our lives, if we have believed in Him by faith and asked Him to forgive us of our sins, all of us, are priests now. David and his men were a shadow, a hint, of something great to come. We, who are not priests, are now priests indeed!

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. – 2 Peter 2:9

We may eat, as did those first disciples, of the lechem panim, now symbolic of Jesus’ own body, broken for us. Turning back to that Last Supper, Jesus continued:
Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. – Matt. 26:27-28

Again, as it says in Revelations, He loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood. We could talk much more about the cup, but today my focus has been on the bread. I do believe that the lechem panim was a foreshadowing of Christ’s work on the cross, the face of God lifted up in agony as payment for our sins.

In the next few minutes, as music plays softly, reflect on these things. As you come to our table, let the bread remind you that you are continually in the presence of the face of God, the God who loves you and sent His Son to die so that you could live eternally in the direct presence of God Almighty in all of His holiness and love. Because of the cross, because of the sacrifice of His body and His blood, we will see His face, we will know Him fully, and we will love Him fully, forever.