Holy

Reading Leviticus 9 and 10 yesterday. The reading culminates many repetitive chapters concerning the proper way to offer the different kinds of sacrifices (sin-offering, grain offering, peace-offering). Most of my life I have found these chapters to be difficult. They were foreign to my life experience and not terribly interesting to me. (And I am pretty much the final judge on what is interesting and what is not interesting, right?)

The invitation to read Torah yearly (by a Messianic rabbi) has changed much of that. It has also been helpful to purchase a couple of Jewish Torah's which have many good notes. While the Christian reading of the OT (an unveiled approach advocated by St. Paul) emphasizes seeing everything through the lense which is Jesus, there is value in simply reading the story for itself. Men who still see value (dare I say ultimate value) in the text itself provide wonderful insight.

Chapter nine begins on "the eighth day." For seven days Aaron and his sons have prepared for the sacred duty of priesthood. [Of course, the eighth day in Christian thought is the new creation day of resurrection or Easter Sunday. On that day Jesus was established as the Great High Priest in glory after His sacrifice the previous Friday.] The text is clear, this is what YHWH God commands the people to do. A miraculous confirmation of the event occurs when God's glory appears in their midst and then a fire shoots forth and consumes all the sacrifices. God Himself lights the fire. It is a good beginning.

Many times I long for God's mighty acts in our midst. I wish His fire would miraculously ignite things for us. I wonder how we would respond if He were more obvious in His activity among us. Would it matter or would we be constantly looking for the next big thing? At any rate, the day of celebration is short lived. Two of Aaron's sons (Nadab and Abihu) brought forth "unfitting fire." The Hebrew word, zarah, refers to something which is "outside the group." In other words, they did not keep the rubrics. No explanation is given for their choice of this 'outside the acceptable' fire; is it intentional? an error? confusion? directed at another god? What we do know is hundreds of years later, after the civil war and split between Israel and Judah, King Jeroboam has two sons who construct golden calves at sanctuaries in Dan and Beth-el. His sons names are Nadab and Abiyah. Coincidence? Not likely. There is a message here.

Like the sacrifice before ust prior, the two men are consumed by the fire of YHWH. This stern and complete judgment take one off guard. It seems overboard. It appears God is harsh. It does not fit with our image of a loving Father who is long suffering and puts up with anything. Where is the GRACE????

Perhaps the answer is, grace is not the whole story of salvation. Perhaps the point is holiness is dangerous stuff. Perhaps we have not read our CS Lewis where he reminds us, in the Chronicles of Narnia, God is good but He is not tame. The Lord is power and truth and holiness and goodness. When we approach Him in worship we need to do it right. This caused me to ponder my own tendencies to take worship for granted, to let my mind wander, to focus too little attention on praise.

Contemporary worship tends to be congregation focused. We sing songs we like. We create conmfortable conditions which we can enjoy. It is often a concert with a feel good message. Leviticus reminds us that worship is serious business. Perhaps we are lucky. It would be nice to see God's mighty acts, miracles which confirm our faith, but those acts can just as easily be judgment as awesome displays for our edification. I don't want the fire consuming me when I mess up! I want God in a box, contained and safely tucked away like a magic sword for my use. True worship is self emptying. It follows rules set down by God. It recognizes that it is not about me (or us) it is about God. Worship flows out of gratitude. It flows out of understanding. It flows out because it cannot be contained. It is a response to the Holy One.

Richard Friedman says we no longer do a good job of differentiating the holy and the secular. That is probably true. It is the blindness of our age. Every period has things it is good at and things at which it is not good. We ridicule the Middle Ages and Ancients for their errors. It is hard for us to imagine we are making our own. It is hard for us to believe that when it comes to holiness and worship, we just do not get it.