CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO LESSONS
HE TABERNACLED AMONG US!
Quite frankly, I just can't believe it. I
mean Linda and I live in a pretty average ever-so-dull neighborhood. Our
home at the height of the recent buying craze would have gone for no more than
$259,000 and, in our mind, that would have been $100,000 too much. So it
just doesn't make sense to us why someone would want to build a multi-million
dollar home right across the street from us.
Nevertheless, that appears to be the case. One
of the many realtors here at Bethany Community Church has confirmed it. Initially,
like us, he too chalked the rumor up to absolute nonsense. He figured that
whoever carelessly started the rumor was probably referring to the building of
a multi-million dollar home at Stellar Air Park a mile east of our very-average
neighborhood. But as he checked into he discovered that he was mistaken,
someone is actually going to put up a multi-million dollar home right across
the street from us. Whoever it is must be out of their mind!
You know, as many times as you and I have been
around the block it is probably not possible for us to hear something as if we
had heard it for the very first time. That's too bad because that is how
we ought to be hearing a startling piece of news found in Exodus 25:1 - 16. We
read:
The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Tell the
people of Israel that everyone who wants to may bring me an offering. 3
Here is a list of items you may accept on my behalf: gold, silver, and bronze; 4
blue, purple, and scarlet yarn; fine linen; goat hair for cloth; 5 tanned
ram skins and fine goatskin leather; acacia wood; 6 olive oil for the lamps;
spices for the anointing oil and the fragrant incense; 7 onyx stones,
and other stones to be set in the ephod and the chestpiece.
"I want the people of Israel to build me
a sacred residence where I can live among them. 9 You must make this Tabernacle
and its furnishings exactly according to the plans I will show you.
"Make an Ark of acacia wood-a sacred chest
3 3/4 feet long, 2 1/4 feet wide, and 2 1/4 feet high. 11 Overlay it inside
and outside with pure gold, and put a molding of gold all around it. 12
Cast four rings of gold for it, and attach them to its four feet, two rings on
each side. 13 Make poles from acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 14
Fit the poles into the rings at the sides of the Ark to carry it. 15 These
carrying poles must never be taken from the rings; they are to be left there
permanently. 16 When the Ark is finished, place inside it the stone tablets
inscribed with the terms of the covenant, which I will give to you.
Being the selfish person that I am there are three
things that bug me about this passage. First of all, as I see it, this
guy is wanting me to take my hard earned money and contribute toward the building
of his home. Second, he is enlisting me to be part of the construction
crew as if I didn't have enough to do just to take care of my own home. Third,
this guy is sparing no expense. He's spending money as if he had all the
money in the world. I mean even the poles used for carrying some
stupid chest are covered with gold. In the meantime, the two poles I have
for carrying stuff around are lucky to be covered with a coat of paint!
We missed it! We missed it because we tend
to be wrapped up in ourselves. And perhaps we missed it because we have
been around the block so many times that we fail to see things as if seeing them
for the very first time. What we missed in all of this giving and doing
of ours is the startling news of the eighth verse. It reads:
"I want the people of Israel to build me
a sacred residence where I can live among them."
Say what! You're telling me that the
one who delivered us from Egypt by his mighty hand is going to pitch his tent
in our very-average ever-so-dull neighborhood and live among us. That's
right, that is exactly what Moses is telling us.
It is also exactly what John told us in John 1:14
where we read:
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling
(literally - tabernacled) among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the
One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
Wow! Have you ever had someone move into
your neighborhood and radically transform everything about your very-average
ever-so-dull neighborhood? Probably not! But, if God pitched his
tent in your neighborhood there would be one thing that you discover rather quickly
- this guy is not dull!
In this regard, Dorothy Sayers wrote in her book
Creed or Chaos? the following:
The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being
a bore - on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe . . . . He
was tender to the unfortunate, patient with honest inquirers, and humble before
Heaven; but He insulted respectable clergymen by calling them hypocrites; He
referred to King Herod as "that fox"; He went to parties in disreputable
company and was looked upon as a "gluttonous" man and a winebibber,
a friend of publicans and sinners.". . .
He cured diseases by any means that came handy,
with a shocking casualness in the matter of other people's pigs and property;
He showed no proper deference for wealth and social position; when confronted
with neat dialectical traps, He displayed a paradoxical humour that affronted
serious-minded people, and He retorted by asking disagreeably searching questions
that could not be answered by rule of thumb.
He was emphatically not a dull man in His human
lifetime, and if he was God, there can be nothing dull about God either.
Well, it is one thing to pitch a tent. It
is quite another thing to actually move in and be one of the residents of the
neighborhood. But, that is exactly what God did as we see in Exodus 40:33
- 38. We read:
Then he hung the curtains forming the courtyard
around the Tabernacle and the altar. And he set up the curtain at the entrance
of the courtyard. So at last Moses finished the work.
Then the cloud covered the Tabernacle, and the
glorious presence of the LORD filled it. 35 Moses was no longer able to
enter the Tabernacle because the cloud had settled down over it, and the Tabernacle
was filled with the awesome glory of the LORD.
Now think about this folks! Think about
it as if you were one of the Israelites who had been brought out of Egypt. This
is the living God who redeemed you, who ransomed you with the first born of Egypt,
who led you through the Red Sea on dry land, who destroyed Pharaoh's army, who
fed you for the past year, who met your every need, and he is the same God who
struck down many of you when you foolishly asked Aaron to make a god to go before
you. Is this who you want for your neighbor? If you enthusiastically
say "yes" raise your right hand, if you are in any way hesitant raise
your left hand.
Now that everyone has both hands up, I need to
tell you that regardless of how we might have felt about God dwelling among us
the fact is His tent was pitched right smack in the middle of our camp. How
do we approach Him? What do we do when we enter His dwelling place? How
do we come into his presence?
Perhaps the best thing to do before we even think
of going across the street to knock on His door, or peak through the curtains,
is to read the book of Leviticus. Because in this book, He tells us how
we can come into his presence. Just looking at the first two verses we
read:
The LORD called to Moses from the Tabernacle and
said to him, 2 "Give the following instructions to the Israelites:
Whenever ( any of ) you present offerings to the LORD, you must bring animals
from your flocks and herds.1
The first word of the book serves as its Hebrew
title, wayyiqra, "and he called." Our English title Leviticus
is borrowed from the Latin Vulgate translation which in turn borrowed it from
the Septuagint, the early Greek version of the Pentateuch.
At first glance, it appears that Leviticus is
a good name since the book has a lot to say to the priest which were all from
the tribe of Levi. Chapters 1 - 7 deal with sacrifice which involved a
priest. Chapters 8 - 10 deal with the institution of the high-priesthood
while chapters 11 - 15 focus on the rules of uncleanness; rules administered
by the priest.
However, it would be a mistake to think of this
book as a manual for priest. It is equally, if not more so, concerned with
the role the laity should play in worship. The book tells them when they
should go to the sanctuary, what to bring, what to do once they are there, and
what they can expect the priest to do when they arrive. Then too, most
of the laws, with the exception of chapters 21 & 22, apply to all of Israel. So
with your permission, I am going to change the name of the book to Laiviticus. It
makes so much more sense!
When God reveals himself in the Old Testament
he usually "speaks" and "says" rather than "calls." "To
call" someone means to speak up in a loud clear voice as when a leper calls
out "Unclean, unclean." So for God to call Moses hints at the
significance of what is to come. It suggest that God has something so important
to tell Moses that it cannot wait until Moses finishes working on the spear that
he had been trying to finish up for the past month.
On a side note, I must tell you that there are
some who question whether or not Moses really wrote the book of Laiviticus. In
actual fact, unlike Exodus and Deuteronomy, no where in the book are we told
that Moses wrote the book. All we know for sure is that God dictated it
to him. Others believe that the book was written much much later in about
450 B. C. They suggest it was written by priest who wanted to jump start
the services at the New Temple built by the construction company of Zerubbabel,
Ezra, and Jeshua.
But in regards to the authorship of a book such
as Laiviticus I tend to take the same position as I do when the call of a referee
in football is questioned. As you know, in football a judgment call by
the referee can only be overturned by indisputable evidence. Just
so in regards to the authorship of the book of Laiviticus, in the absence of
indisputable evidence to the contrary I believe it was written by Moses probably
with the help of a priest, maybe Aaron.2 Either way, with or without help,
this is a book worth reading!
1 The sacrifices were to be of domestic animals, not wild
animals or game. According to Deut. 14:4 - 5 game could be eaten if
correctly slaughtered, but not offered as sacrifice, since it cost nothing.
2 It is to be noted that the language of the book presupposes
a wilderness setting. For example, worship is in the tabernacle and
not the temple; and lepers had to remain outside of the camp and not
outside of the city (13:46). When laws intended for the settled nation
are discussed, they are introduced with a statement that God is bringing them
into the land (14:33 - 34; 23:9 - 10). If the book wasn't written during
Moses' lifetime, these expressions are difficult to explain away.
LEVITICUS - GOD'S GUIDEBOOK TO WORSHIP 1/15/06
CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO LESSONS