Sermon Tone Analysis

Today as we prepare to celebrate communion, I also want to give you a brief preview of a sermon or two I am planning for March.

I’ve been reminded recently about the great story of Scripture, the Greatest Story Ever Told.

We tend to look at Scripture in bite-sized pieces without taking the time to pull back and survey the meal.

In doing so, I think we miss much of the true beauty the Bible offers in its account of God’s love and God’s plan for mankind and its redemption.

One of my favorite things at Thanksgiving is to see the table before anyone sits down, when it is still full of the food that has been prepared.

In that moment, before anyone dips a spoon into the sweet potatoes or takes a carving knife to the turkey or spills the gravy from the gravy boat, it is easy to see how richly we are blessed.

Certainly we can recognize our blessings as we tear into the turkey or dig into the stuffing, but looking across the totality of the meal gives us a unique perspective on those blessings.

I thought of this when I saw a unique representation of Scripture online a week or two ago.

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What you’re looking at here is the result of a project by Chris Harrison, an artist and assistant professor of human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University.

Working with a Lutheran pastor, Harrison sought to give a visual representation of all of the 63,779 cross references in the Bible — the places where Scripture refers to itself.

The white and gray lines across the bottom represent every chapter of every book in the Bible, with the length of each line representing the length of that chapter.

The long one in the middle is .

The colored arcs across the top show each instance in which one Scriptural text refers to another.

The different colors correspond to the distance between those references.

I have no idea whether Mr. Harrison is a believer or not, but what I do know is that the work of art he created is a truly beautiful representation of the complexity of God’s revelation of Himself in His Word.

I’ve spent some time zooming in on this, and I can tell you that there’s not one chapter in Scripture that stands alone.

Each chapter is part of the rich tapestry that God wove as the Holy Spirit breathed the inspired words to the human writers.

Today, I want to pick at one little thread of that tapestry as we discover the significance of the bread that we will break together here today during our observance of the Lord’s Supper.

Next month, when we celebrate this shared meal together again, I hope to do the same for the wine.

Turn with me, if you will, to Leviticus, Chapter 24.

We don’t spend much time in this book in the New Testament church, so I’ll help you find it: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus.

Some people have called Leviticus “The Holiness Code,” because it concerns itself with the demands of holiness.

Its message statement could be summed up this way: “God’s perfect holiness compels His covenant people to pursue holiness in every part of their spiritual, personal and corporate lives.”

This particular part of the book calls on God’s people to celebrate His provision, His blessings, His mercies, His protection, His justice and even His correction as they maintain those things that have been devoted to Him.

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As we pick up in Verse 5, we will see God’s direction concerning the Table of the Bread of Presence.

It was one of the furnishings within the tabernacle that God had directed should be erected within the camp of the Israelites as they wandered through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.

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The tabernacle was where God would establish His presence among the people, and as such, it was the subject of some very explicit directions.

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Most of us have a hard time picturing what the tabernacle would have looked like, so I found a great video online that may be helpful toward that end.

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https://sermons.faithlife.com/logos-media/732163-7388353--

Each of the parts of the tabernacle was important to the worship of Yahweh, but today I want to concentrate on the Table of the Bread of the Presence, what was called the Table of Showbread in this video.

We see its purpose in verses 5-9 of our passage today.

READ

Here is what the Table of Showbread would have looked like.

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Now the 12 cakes or loaves of unleavened bread you see there represented the 12 tribes of Israel.

They were set on the table in two rows — probably the better translation is piles, as reflected in this drawing — and they were left there in the presence of God for a week.

That’s how this table came to be known as the table of the bread of the presence.

Note in Verse 8 that God says this is to be done continually.

In fact, Jewish historians record an elaborate procedure in which four priests were in charge of removing the old loaves and four priests were in charge of placing the new ones such that all 12 loaves were always on the table at any time.

The idea was that the Table of Showbread reminded the people of Israel that they were always in God’s presence and that God was always present with them.

We who follow Jesus Christ have similarly been promised that God is always with us.

Having been saved by grace through faith in Jesus, we receive the very Spirit of God, who then works within us to sanctify us, to teach us, to convict us of sin and to empower us to do the works that God has prepared for us.

The Table of Showbread was a reminder of the Mosaic Covenant, the agreement between God and His people that if they would be faithful to Him by forsaking all gods but Him, He would bless them.

By contrast, the bread that we will share today is a reminder of the New Covenant that God has made with mankind through the sacrificial death of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The prophet Jeremiah spoke of this covenant.

Jer 31

When He instituted the Lord’s Supper as a continuing ordinance of the church, Jesus confirmed that the bread and the wine are memorial signs of this new covenant.

Mark 14

So this odd observance that we see in the book of Leviticus points us forward to Jesus and His atoning sacrifice on our behalf.

Luke 22:20So this odd observance that we see in the book of Leviticus points us forward to Jesus and His atoning sacrifice on our behalf.

Isn’t it wonderful how the story of Scripture, viewed from a distance, just ties together so beautifully?

Remember this?

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The Table of Showbread also served to remind the people of Israel that God had provided for all their needs.

Look back at Verse 5.

Each of the 12 loaves was made with two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour.

That works out to about 75 pounds of flour, but more important than the total is the reference to two-tenths of an ephah.

This isn’t a random number.

After hearing the people of Israel grumble that they were not getting enough food as they journeyed from Egypt toward the Promised Land, God promised to provide bread for them.

After hearing the people grumble that they were not getting enough food, God promised to “rain bread from heaven” for them.

Ex 16:4

Each morning the people would go out and find that the evaporating dew had left a fine, flake-like substance on the ground.

We know it now as manna.

They were to collect an omer of manna per person each day except for the sixth day, when they were supposed to collect twice that amount, two omers, so that they would have enough manna for the Sabbath, as well.

Now, we don’t measure with omers and ephahs anymore, but what’s important here is that one omer is equal to one-tenth of an ephah.

So each of the loaves on the Table of the Bread of the Presence was made with two omers, or two-tenths of an ephah — the same amount of flour as the manna that was collected on the sixth day.

Even in the simple matter of the recipe for the showbread, God was reminding His people that He provides for them, even on their day of rest.

It’s interesting to note that this bread was set before the presence of God, but it wasn’t intended for Him to eat.

Note in Verse 9 that He says the bread “shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place.”

The bread was for the priests, and they were to eat it in the holy place — in the presence of God.

In a sense, the priests, who represented God to His people, would go into the tabernacle to dine with God on the bread of His presence.

Our observance of the Lord’s Supper is the Church Age’s counterpart to this experience.

Jesus Christ, the very Bread of Life, who represents His people to God, says that if someone will open the door to Him, He will come in

But Jesus Christ, who represents His people to God,

Under the Mosaic Law, only the priests could participate in this shared meal with the Lord.

But the sacrifice that Jesus made for our sins on Calvary’s cross changed everything.

Peter wrote about this change.

We who follow Christ are part of the royal priesthood.

As such, we are permitted — indeed, we are called — to dine at the Lord’s table in the presence of God.

The priests of Israel ate bread that had been made by human hands to recall the life-giving bread God had provided while they wandered in the wilderness.

It’s significant to note that it did not take long for the people to start grumbling about the manna.

:4

So the people of Israel rejected the life-giving bread that God had sent them after delivering them from slavery in Egypt.

Wandering in a wilderness of sin, mankind has by and large chosen to revile God’s offer of life through His Son.

We who

Covenant

Nearly 3,500 years later, most of them would reject the Bread of Life that He sent to release them from their slavery to sin.

And lest we judge them too harshly, we need to recognize that, until we accepted our own sinful state and Jesus Christ’s sacrifice to free us from it, we, too, rejected the Bread of Life.

But for those of us who have made Jesus our Lord and Savior, we will today eat the bread that represents His body, broken for us, and drink the fruit of the vine that represents the blood He shed for the remission of our sins.

But the communion in which we are about to participate doesn’t just look backward.

It also looks forward to the day when the bride of Christ, His church, will join Him in heaven, where we will dine in His physical presence.

John writes about this in the book of Revelation.

So the priests in Israel ate the bread of the presence of God, separated from Him by a veil in the tabernacle.

Now, we eat the bread that represents the body of Christ in the presence of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us as believers.

But in a glorious and coming time, we will eat bread in Heaven with Jesus Christ Himself.

And all of Scripture will have been accomplished.

This truly is the Greatest Story Ever Told.

And the greatest hope of mankind.

Now, as we prepare to partake of the Lord’s Table, remain seated as we sing Jesus Paid It All, No. 305 in your hymnals.

When we are finished singing, the deacons will join me here at the front, and then they will distribute the bread.