redeeming what you have offered as a sacrifice
Two things jump out at me today. First, the idea of redeeming the firstborn. It seems that God claims for himself whatever is produced first. The first part of the crops, the first part of our flocks, the first son of our families. I suspect that it has something to do with demonstrating complete surrender to Him, and honoring God. It isn’t like God needs our first-born sons for something special, they aren’t any different than anyone else, male or female in God’s sight. The Lord does say here that since the Egyptians lost children (the first born) in the Passover, the same thing must happen to the Israelite’s. But God “redeems” them by accepting a substitute sacrifice on their behalf. In this case, the whole tribe of Levi (plus some silver to make up the difference).
We learn here (and other places in Leviticus) that God makes provision for substitute sacrifices. That’s what makes Jesus dying on the cross so beautiful…He was the authorized substitute for our sins, approved by God to take our place.
The second thing is the detailed description of who does what job, and who is going to be in charge. I recognize that God prefers order. You have only to look into a microscope or telescope to verify that God loves order. Everything runs according to plan with God. He never hurries, and He is never late. It’s always perfect when God does it. To help demonstrate this, each clan has a job, and because the temple items are holy and the people are not, they cannot touch or even look at the holy items. The priests set apart by God must cover all holy items before the people allowed to carry them enter the room. The carriers aren’t the common people, they are set apart to God as well…and even they aren’t allowed to gaze upon the holy furnishings. Perhaps this whole process helped the people understand the concept of holy and common, or perfect and imperfect. In either case, it helped them to learn to follow instructions.
I wonder sometimes if God didn’t set this up in this way simply to help us learn to obey.
In today’s reading you will sense the fairness and justice of God. You will probably get a feeling for God’s desire for harmony, order and efficiency. How can we apply those ideas to the way that the church is supposed to run today? Should there be complaining, people bumping into each other because they don’t know whose job is whose, or some doing lots of work while others do nothing?
That’s why we read these passages, to help us apply the lessons to our lives today. By the way, we haven’t even praised God for the most wonderful part of this whole passage: the most holy parts of the tabernacle, that couldn’t be handled by anyone are now planted inside each of us. The presence of God Himself lives and dwells within us. The Holy of Holies is no longer off limits…God resides within His people in the person of the Holy Spirit.
Faithfully,
PR