Introduction
They say that every Jewish holiday is celebrated the same way. So the story goes. Here’s the liturgy of any Jewish holiday whether Passover or Hanukkah or whatever: Our enemies tried to kill us; we won; let’s eat. That may be a bit simple, and certainly not as holy or significant as some would want, but food is a major concern in the Bible in relation to the people of God. What we eat tells a story. And it is the story that is important.
It’s so common it’s almost laughable, whenever a group of Jewish people are on a weekend together, during one meal, plans are always made for the next one. So as Jews, let’s never diminish the relevance of the food itself. Or the story.
For instance---Three men-- an Italian, a Frenchman, and a Jew, were condemned to be executed. Their captors told them that they had the right to have a final meal before the execution. They asked the Frenchman what he wanted.
"Give me the best French wine and French bread," he requested.
So they gave it to him, he ate it, and then they executed him. Next it was the Italian's turn.
"Give me a great big plate of pasta," said the Italian.
So they brought it to him, he ate it, and then they executed him. Now it was the Jew's turn.
"I want a big bowl of strawberries, " said the Jew.
"Strawberries!!! They aren't even in season!"
"Nu, so I'll wait..."
Food, glorious food. Oliver Twist knew that gruel and a second plate of it, was worth his asking. What does God want for us to eat, and what did the priests eat, and what is the significance for us as 21st Century people? What is the significant purpose of priests and ordination also? That’s what we will look at today.
Ordination of the priests: What to eat?
“Thus they shall eat those things by which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration” (.33) This verse is tucked away later than most would like. The chapter begins with a consecration ceremony filled with pomp and circumstance. Garments for the ceremony were in place. We discussed those last week. Now there are some animals involved, and specifically killed. Their blood is dealt with in different ways and each titled a different kind of offering. But what was all this for?
Only in verse 33 do we understand the purpose. It was for atonement. “V’achlu otam asher koopar bahem”
God wanted our Jewish people to learn and to build into the system of our diary the major theme of sin, and atonement, the requirements to remove it from us. Sin is a terrible thing. It undermines all human relationships and it ruins our relations with God as well. God goes to seemingly immeasurable lengths to prevent our sin and if we do it, to deliver us from both it and its consequences. True love found in the Almighty requires this kind of ruthless orientation to the nature of sin.
So what kind of animals attended the ordination ceremony of the priests? Bulls and rams and lambs are listed. Bulls are a major supply of both future animals by siring and of food itself by slaughtering. Nevertheless, the bull used in this ceremony was for a sin offering, and thus was not eaten by anyone. Some would shout, “Waste!” and they are right in the human level.
Do you hear the sounds of Judas Iscariot? Listen to this story from John’s recording of it, some 60 years after the death of Messiah. The story takes place just before the crucifixion, and Mary and her sister Martha are near Yeshua.
“Mary took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Yeshua, and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to poor people?” Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.” (John 12.3-6)
When some cry ‘waste’, others are crying for ‘elaborate.’ God goes to no small end making sure we know the costs of the separation from Him. Bob Mumford was a Bible teacher who influenced me greatly when I began in Messiah some 50 years ago. His books are still out there. He said in a conference once, “Do you want to know how far we fell (referring to the Garden of Eden and man’s sin)? Look how hard it is to get back to him and how hard we try.” In other words, you don’t know how far you’ve fallen away until you try to return.
Sin is and always has been the problem between God and man. And there is only one way with which to deal with this. That is by atonement and blood on the altar.
Friends, I don’t know how often I hear from Jewish folks about the irrelevance of the Bible to them. Listen, if you dismiss the reality of your own sin, yes the Bible becomes a thick, religious book, wrapped in dull history and mythological fanciful tales. If you say the Book cannot dob you in for your part in the play of human failure, then its requirements become banal and boring.
However, if you see yourself in the mirror of God’s Word, not as a superhero, but as a sinful needy person, you will find in the Bible a wealth of future and hope. You will find the requirements to be promises, and its details filled with depth. You will find forgiveness and relevance in the Lamb of God who died for our sin and made us to be priests to our God.
So which is it? Are you the sinful soul needing forgiveness? Are you climbing your way back to God in desperation and longing? Or do you find the text to be historically dismissable and shamefully filled with animal violations? Your answer determines more than your pleasure today; it determines your eternity.
So first and foremost, the food the priests ate was a teaching devise to remind them of their own sin and the sin of all Israel.
You can imagine as Israel is wandering in this wilderness without a grocery store nearby, that they might have been angry at Moses in whom they didn’t have too much confidence, if he asked for their bull. They might have thought he had lost it.
Ordination of the priests: The choice
Moses is told to bring in Aaron and his children. The chapter unpacks the timing of the ceremonies. It will take place over 7 days. One by one, the priests, first Aaron, then his sons, will be anointed in this elaborate gala. For seven days the bulls will be killed, and atonement made. For seven days lambs are brought in to atone for the altar itself. For this one week, with all Israel watching, God would Himself consecrate with His glory the section of the Tabernacle where others would hope for pardon. The altar would forever do its job in healing the rift between sinful man and Holy God.
Let’s think a bit about the choice of the priests. Aaron was Moses’ older brother. He was at least 83 at this time. Most nowadays would retire this man; But it’s God’s good pleasure to keep saints going in His service until He’s done with them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about ordination lately, not only because of this section of Bible we are reading. And it’s precisely because of God’s call that He chooses priests to exist. All Israel is called to be a kingdom of priests, as we read in chapter 19. (Mamlechet kohanim)
Israel is to be a priest-nation so that the nations of the world might know about God. We need priests who would represent God to us, so we can represent God to the goyim around us. Ordination then is not so much a representative governmental system, rather it’s a present tense system of incarnation. It’s God in the midst of His people so that the people can be God in the midst of the nations. This seems cosmic; it’s certainly ‘out there.’
Robert Terwilliger (a US Anglican priest) described it this way in his book To be a priest:
“God gave us a priest- this is the Gospel… Jesus is the one and only priest…Jesus is the end of all other priesthoods. The priesthood of Messiah is sent forth into the world. The commission of the apostles is part of the gospel. Jesus projects what he is and what he does for man into history in the persons of other men. He chooses them to go forth in his name. They are not merely teachers and examples but extensions of himself and his divine mission.” (Matt 10.40) “(Seabury Press, 1975, New York City, page 5)
Yeshua is our priest and we are called to be a nation of priests who will serve our God and bring His word and Him through us to the nations. We are not just informers; we are not his reps. We are God in Christ calling to the world. This is dangerous if you misunderstand this.
Touching the altar
They say, “Bad company corrupts good morals.” Paul quoted that in his Corinthian letter. I was explaining this principle to a teenager yesterday about how some Christians are not keen to watch the Harry Potter movies. They use this principle, and I used the image of a bunch of grapes, and the requirement to rid the bunch of any rottenness. You will often see this kind of bunch in the shops when the grapes are in a plastic bag. One of the first things to do with the bag is remove it. Otherwise, if a rotten grape exists it will ruin the others. A person who wants to get the most out of the purchased bunch must remove any rotten grapes first.
Now in our text today we see this phrase,
“whatever touches the altar shall be holy.” (.37)
In other words, the altar is the sanctifying agent. If you touch the altar you are cleansed. Some used it later as a magic home base in the game of ‘You’re it” (1 King 1.50, 2.28) but the altar was not originally designed to be a safe haven in human terms; it was designed to be the place of finding safety in our relationship with the Almighty.
Yeshua knew about this and challenged the Pharisees in the same way. “You say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering upon it, he is obligated.’ You blind men, which is more important, the offering or the altar that sanctifies the offering?” (Matt. 23.18-19)
The way the rabbis fought the misuse of vows and oaths was by differentiating between what was binding and what was not. In that sense, they encouraged evasive oaths, and therefore lying. Jesus cut through these differentiations by insisting that people must tell the truth. He charged the teachers of Torah in those days, and the Pharisees with mishandling the Scriptures they claimed to defend.
Yeshua knew this principle of change. He knew that the Bible here in Exodus teaches that altar does the sanctifying. We stand before a holy God who has holy things on His table. We stand or fall in relationship to that and to Him, not to how efficacious we are in doing things for Him. In other words it’s the God of the altar who is the sanctifying agent supreme. He is the One who cleanses and changes us.
Ordination of the priests: Final purpose
God wants to have priests so that people have a connection with Him. You would think this is exactly opposite of the understanding in a sacerdotal system. The priests are probably the power brokers. The priest will get in on relationship with God. The priest will represent the people to God and the God to the people. That’s a priest’s job, isn’t it? But in Israel it was to be different. Listen to verse 45. It’s a continual theme in the book of Exodus, and we saw it first in chapter 25.
“Consecrate Aaron and his sons to minister as priests to Me. And I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will be their God.” (verse 44-45 here)
The purpose of the ordination of the Aaronides was for the people to know God personally and that He might dwell among us. Anything less than that is simply less; it’s substandard. It’s unacceptable to the Almighty.
Priests are there so that you know God, not so that they know God. It’s not a reserve for the priesthood; it’s an overflow of the effusive God that all of us might know Him that in our awareness of and in our incarnation of God we go out to the world that they might know him.
Priesthood is not about a separate caste of special holy ones; it’s about you being in relation to the Almighty.
Lessons learned
I believe we should see applications from our chapter today.
1) God’s demands on his people to represent Him makes us aware of our own sinfulness
2) We have a responsibility to the nations of the world
3) Sin is the problem in the world and it is surmountable by the love and forgiveness of God if done in his way
4) Yeshua is the Jewish messiah and calls us to be priests in His service and in His name to the world
