The Table in the Wilderness

"Come, to the table that's been prepared for you." This is an invitation to have the deepest hunger of your soul satisfied. Coming to the table represents not only nourishment it represents communion and fellowship. Each Sabbath twelve loaves of shewbread covered with frankincense were placed on the golden table in the Holy Place. The Hebrew word for shew is peneh, which means countenance, presence, or face. The first time bread is mentioned in the Bible is when God sent Adam out of the Garden and told him that by the sweat of his face he'd eat bread until the day he died. The bread on golden table was a gift.

I can still remember when I was a little girl spending the Summers with my grandmother what it was like to wake up to the smell of fresh baked bread. She would always bake twelve loaves. Grandmother's bread was meant to be shared. One of my jobs was to take her bread throughout the "patch" to waiting neighbors. There was always enough. There was always bread on the golden table in the Holy Place.

"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life; he that comes to me shall never hunger...I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." (John 6:35,51) "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."(Luke 22:19)

What happens when we come to the table that has been prepared for us? What happens when we come to have fellowship and communion by eating the bread of life? The Shewbread, the Bread of the Presence was covered in pure frankincense. "Thanks be God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ." (2 Corinthians 2:14-15)

Lord Jesus I thank You that You have not sent me from Your presence to eat bread by the sweat of my face but instead You welcome me to come and have communion with You. The first table was set in a wilderness but Your word speaks of a table in the future that will have a wedding feast prepared on it; until then I will eat my daily bread and remember You.