Cue to Care

God loves to give reminders.

The first reminder in the Bible is one we still see today: a rainbow is God’s beautiful pledge that He’s promised to never again destroy the earth with a flood.

In Leviticus 24 is another holy reminder. God commands that every week the people are to prepare twelve loaves of bread and place them on the golden table inside his sanctuary. These loaves, says God, are “as a memorial portion” (v. 7).

The first thing is how to make those loaves: “You shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf” (v. 5). We don’t know exactly how much is two-tenths of an ephah but it was probably around 8 cups. The loaves weren’t made from ordinary flour, which was a coarse mixture of crushed grain and bran. This recipe calls for “fine flour,” which was taken from the inner kernels, then ground up and sifted carefully.

Once the twelve loaves are baked, “You shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the LORD” (v. 6). Made from a good bit of flour, these loaves were probably long and fairly flat (because no yeast could be added). With those big loaves stacked up in two piles, the table would’ve looked like the full baker’s rack.

These loaves of bread were constantly on the table inside the sanctuary, and every week a new batch was prepared. Then at the end of the seven days, these twelve loaves were given to the priests as food.

While it became priestly food, this stack of bread was meant firstly as an offering to God. One of the other names for this bread was the “bread of the presence,” or literally, “bread of the face.” Being inside the sanctuary, it was always near God’s holy presence, before his face. In the very next room was the ark of the covenant, symbolic of the throne of God.

It was hard to get much closer to the Lord God than this!

So what was the meaning of this bread? It doesn’t mean that God gets hungry and needs food. Israel’s other offerings were not his food, and neither were these loaves. The true God doesn’t need to eat, but He is worthy of unending worship. That’s what this bread was: an act of worship, a perpetual offering from Israel. For the loaves were “a memorial.” It was a memorial or reminder in two ways.

In the first place, the bread offering reminded the worshipers that all good things come from God. From his many gifts they could take a portion and present it to him. That’s an important reminder for our own receiving, and our own giving. God gives so generously—He gives us hours and days, gives ability, income, energy, and more—so we want to give back to him: living our whole life coram deo, before his face.

The bread was a memorial in a second way: a reminder to the Lord. God has a perfect memory, so He doesn’t need reminders. But God knows how quickly we forget. “What was it that God said to us?” “What if He’s overlooked my prayers?” “How can I really be sure that the Lord cares for me?” We can be sure, because in his heavenly presence God has a constant cue to care.

The Lord wasn’t going to forget his people. Every day of every year, the loaves were there. This is why God commands that twelve loaves be placed in his presence, one for each tribe. It meant that all of his people were being remembered, even if they were from the smallest tribe and most insignificant clan.

Compare it to how the breastplate of the high priest contained twelve different gemstones, one for each tribe. When the high priest went into God’s presence, every tribe could know that they too, were being carried before the LORD through prayer and sacrifice.

No one was left out, and no one was forgotten, but all came before him.

Today, God still sees and knows each of us. We have the privilege of living before his face. Each of us is allowed into his presence through faith in Christ. For when He came to earth, Jesus drew a line under all of Leviticus and said it was accomplished. This is why there’s no more tabernacle, no more daily offering of bread. But in Christ the lesson of the bread endures.

By his Word and by his sacraments, Christ says He is present to sustain and encourage us. While the Bread of Life is now in God’s heavenly presence, He also says, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.” He wants us to be assured, to know it deep within ourselves, to be certain that He will not forget.

Today it will be easy again to forget the LORD. Sometimes days go by with barely a thought for God’s goodness or grace. We forget. Or we read the Bible and realize we’ve forgotten so much of what it says. Or we act like God isn’t near and we just do your own will. We forget.

There is a well-known Christian prayer: “I will in the course of this day forget thee; forget thou not me.”

God does not forget us ever. But God wants us to remember: to think of him daily, to speak with him often, to live every day aware that we’re in his holy presence.