Backstage passes aren't cheap
This week is on Leviticus 16:1-2:
Aaron's two sons died in a freak clergy accident when they were offering "strange fire" on the altar. Nobody really mentions what they did wrong. Some people think they were drunk, or were trying to make a show of their role in worshiping God. Other people think they approached God in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with fire they made themselves instead of taking from the altar. The common thing is that they died doing something we would probably have looked at and thought was completely reasonable.
God contacts Moses and tells him to talk to Aaron, after all of this has died down. The basic message God has for Aaron, is "Don't treat this position you have like it isn't a big deal." Aaron is not to just waltz into the holiest of holies wearing his muck boots and and eating a microwave burrito, in a rush to punch his God card and get it over with. God gives him a complicated ritual to perform, in order to remind him of how valuable and unique it is to have access to the God of the universe. Approaching God is a huge thing, even if we're not required now to treat it that way.
It doesn't matter how we dress or how we act in approaching God nowadays, or even where and how often we do it, but we should still realize the blessing we have in being able to do it in the first place. It's not something we do as a show, or to punch the card so that we can be right with God. It's a huge privilege to be able to communicate directly with God, the same as the priests used to do in Moses' days.
Be thankful for the opportunity to pray and to encounter God. Don't ignore that privilege, or go into it uninterested and uncommitted. It is a really big deal that we have that access.
The LORD spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron who died when they approached the LORD. The LORD said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover.
Aaron's two sons died in a freak clergy accident when they were offering "strange fire" on the altar. Nobody really mentions what they did wrong. Some people think they were drunk, or were trying to make a show of their role in worshiping God. Other people think they approached God in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with fire they made themselves instead of taking from the altar. The common thing is that they died doing something we would probably have looked at and thought was completely reasonable.
God contacts Moses and tells him to talk to Aaron, after all of this has died down. The basic message God has for Aaron, is "Don't treat this position you have like it isn't a big deal." Aaron is not to just waltz into the holiest of holies wearing his muck boots and and eating a microwave burrito, in a rush to punch his God card and get it over with. God gives him a complicated ritual to perform, in order to remind him of how valuable and unique it is to have access to the God of the universe. Approaching God is a huge thing, even if we're not required now to treat it that way.
It doesn't matter how we dress or how we act in approaching God nowadays, or even where and how often we do it, but we should still realize the blessing we have in being able to do it in the first place. It's not something we do as a show, or to punch the card so that we can be right with God. It's a huge privilege to be able to communicate directly with God, the same as the priests used to do in Moses' days.
Be thankful for the opportunity to pray and to encounter God. Don't ignore that privilege, or go into it uninterested and uncommitted. It is a really big deal that we have that access.
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