Catching Fog

The LORD called to Moses from the Tabernacle and said to him, “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. When you present an animal as an offering to the LORD, you may take it from your herd of cattle or your flock of sheep and goats.

“If the animal you present as a burnt offering is from the herd, it must be a male with no defects. Bring it to the entrance of the Tabernacle so you may be accepted by the LORD. Lay your hand on the animal’s head, and the LORD will accept its death in your place to purify you, making you right with him. Then slaughter the young bull in the LORD’s presence, and Aaron’s sons, the priests, will present the animal’s blood by splattering it against all sides of the altar that stands at the entrance to the Tabernacle. Then skin the animal and cut it into pieces. The sons of Aaron the priest will build a wood fire on the altar. They will arrange the pieces of the offering, including the head and fat, on the wood burning on the altar. But the internal organs and the legs must first be washed with water. Then the priest will burn the entire sacrifice on the altar as a burnt offering. It is a special gift, a pleasing aroma to the LORD. (Leviticus 1:1-9)

The book of Leviticus was a “Dummies” guide, an instruction manual for how to use the tabernacle for its intended purpose: the worship of God. God offered very detailed instructions about how the Israelites were supposed to worship him. He explained what they could sacrifice and what they could not sacrifice. He told them when to sacrifice, how the priests were to behave, and how they were to dress. He told them everything that they needed to know in order to worship him exactly the way he wanted them to.

The purpose of the sacrificial system, the purpose of all the niggling details, was to create a complete picture for his people. It gave them outward signs of what was supposed to be going on in their hearts. The symbols of worship were not the substance of true worship. The rituals served as symbols of the inner reality. Their worship of God was intended to reflect the relationship they had with him. And it served as a pattern, a parable, of what Jesus would ultimately accomplish on the cross. After Jesus’ sacrifice, the rituals in the Temple would cease. Today we simply worship in spirit and in truth, no longer making use of the same outward forms.

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Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: “You shall also make a laver of bronze, with its base also of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put water in it, for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it. When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the LORD, they shall wash with water, lest they die. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest they die. And it shall be a statute forever to them—to him and his descendants throughout their generations.” (Exodus 30:17-21)

God is not afraid of germs. God told Moses to make a basin of bronze and to put it between the tent where God met with Moses and the altar where the priests would perform sacrifices so that the priests could wash their hands and feet. The ceremonial washing required of the priests before they went in to perform the sacrifices had nothing to do with personal hygiene. Instead, the purpose of the washing was entirely symbolic: they were washing off the dirt from their hands and feet as they performed the sacrifices with their hands and walked in the holy places, signifying that they were properly prepared to serve God. It was akin to when God told Moses at their first meeting by the burning bush to take off his sandals because he was on holy ground. Centuries later, when Jesus’ washed his disciples’ feet, and Peter objected, Jesus told him that unless he washed him, he had no part with him. If the priests did not wash their hands and feet before going to the altar, they would die. The washing was an external sign of what should have been true inwardly: a clean heart, a clean conscience. Even today we are told to examine ourselves before taking the Lord’s Supper, to make certain that there is not something standing in the way of our fellowship with God or with our fellow believers in Christ.

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Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it.”

So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.” (Genesis 8:15-22)

After God told Noah and those with him that it was safe to exit the ark, Noah’s first reaction was to thank God for sparing him and protecting him. After God smelled Noah’s sacrifice, he promised that he would never again destroy all life. The ground would not be cursed again, either.

God did not make the promise to Noah, his family, or the animals because the human race had suddenly become righteous. In fact, God pointed out that human beings were full of evil from their childhoods on; in fact, every thought of every human was always tinged with wrongness.

So why did God decide to spare the human race from future destruction? Despite how awful human beings are, God still loved us. Rather than solving our problem by destroying us and punishing us, God chose to solve our problem by destroying and punishing his Son, Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross. Jesus took the punishment due the human race: everlasting destruction. Therefore, we can rest secure now. God doesn’t break his promises.

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“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

“In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

“The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves; all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves.

In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity. (Zechariah 12:10-13:1)

The apostle John quoted the words of this prophesy from the book of Zechariah and applied them to Jesus on the cross, when a Roman soldier plunged a spear into Jesus’ side rather than break his legs. The mourning of “Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo” refers to what happened at that spot, a village on the plain of Megiddo, where King Josiah, considered a good and righteous king, one of the best that Israel ever had, was killed by Pharaoh Neco (2 Chronicles 35:22ff). His death was mourned bitterly by the people of Israel. Jeremiah composed a lament on his behalf. God compared that national mourning over Josiah to the mourning that would come over the death of the Messiah. On the day of this mourning, God promised that he would cleanse everyone of their sins—which of course is what the death of Jesus on the cross accomplished—and not just for the people of Israel, but for all people, everywhere.

Jesus’ death on the cross was a time of great sorrow. But just three days later, it become a time of rejoicing when the Messiah came back from the dead. The rejoicing was even greater once the implications of the Jesus’ sacrifice were understood. Jesus’ death had saved us all.

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“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace to the nations;
His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.’
“As for you also,
Because of the blood of your covenant,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to the stronghold,
You prisoners of hope.
Even today I declare
That I will restore double to you.
For I have bent Judah, My bow,
Fitted the bow with Ephraim,
And raised up your sons, O Zion,
Against your sons, O Greece,
And made you like the sword of a mighty man.” (Zechariah 9:9-13)

All four of the Gospels in the New Testament describe Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem the week before he was crucified. Two of them, John and Matthew, quote God’s words about the king riding on a donkey. It was a prophesy that Jesus fulfilled. But the expectations of God’s people regarding the nature of the coming Messiah was something other than what God had in mind. While they saw a conqueror bent on overthrowing the Roman government—a thought heavy on the minds of Jesus’ disciples and the adoring crowds that cast palm branches at his feet—Jesus’ throne was not earthly, but instead was heavenly. The fulfillment of God’s words to Zechariah was far grander than the disciples or anyone else ever imagined. Jesus was not king just of Israel, but of the universe itself—of all that there was. And he intended to reign in the hearts of his people forever. Of course, God made his intent clear, when he told the Israelites that he would get rid of the weapons of war from their hands, when he spoke of salvation and peace. Our weapons are not the weapons of this world, but rather spiritual. God has conquered sin and brought salvation to us all.

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“Up, up! Flee from the land of the north,” says the Lord; “for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven,” says the Lord. “Up, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon.”

For thus says the Lord of hosts: “He sent Me after glory, to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye. For surely I will shake My hand against them, and they shall become spoil for their servants. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me.

“Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” says the Lord. “Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and they shall become My people. And I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you. And the Lord will take possession of Judah as His inheritance in the Holy Land, and will again choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for He is aroused from His holy habitation!” (Zechariah 2:6-13)

God so loved the world, not just the nice people. Zechariah prophesied to the newly returned former captives from Babylon about seventy years after Jeremiah. While they were rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple, God told his people to rejoice because he was bringing non-Israelites to join them. God was not just the Jewish God, he was the God for everyone.

That the Jewish people thought in terms of Yahweh being only for themselves was normal for the ancient world. The gods of Egypt were just that, the gods of Egypt. Same with the gods of Babylon, Greece and Rome. It was culturally unnatural to think of one’s gods in universal terms. But that is precisely the message that God was trying to get across to his people. Now that they had returned from Babylon, they understood at last that they were to worship no other gods but Yahweh. At that point, the prophets began working on them to broaden their comprehension of something God had maintained as far back as the first chapter of Genesis: not only was Yahweh the only God they could worship, not only was he the only God that existed, he was not the exclusive property of the Israelites.

Not until persecution in the first century forced the early Jewish disciples of Jesus to share the Gospel, did the universality of Israel’s God finally make sense to them. God really is for everybody, even those we don’t care about.

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“How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I set you like Zeboiim?
My heart churns within Me;
My sympathy is stirred.
I will not execute the fierceness of My anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man,
The Holy One in your midst;
And I will not come with terror.
“They shall walk after the LORD.
He will roar like a lion.
When He roars,
Then His sons shall come trembling from the west;
They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt,
Like a dove from the land of Assyria.
And I will let them dwell in their houses,”
Says the LORD.
“Ephraim has encircled Me with lies,
And the house of Israel with deceit;
But Judah still walks with God,
Even with the Holy One who is faithful. (Hosea 11:8-12)

It is hard to punish those we love. God knew that he had to punish the Israelites for cheating on him with other gods, but it was something that caused internal conflict. God would rather have only blessed the Israelites. He wanted them to be happy and at ease. But he also wanted them to be the best that they could be. He knew what it was that they really needed and to his great sorrow, he knew they needed to be disciplined. Had he been merely human, then he might have given in to his preference to bless them. Human beings, often times, will allow their emotions to get the better of them. But God was not human and so he could rise above his emotions and do what so desperately needed to be done: to discipline his people on account of their sins.

In the end, God knew, his people would be okay. As unpleasant as discipline is for both the disciplined and the one doing the discipline, the outcome invariably leads to something very good. Children raised by parents who discipline them turn out far better than children who always get their way, who never face criticism, or who never get told no. In the end, we are happier and better off for the punishment than if we hadn’t gotten it.

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