Priesthood -- A Dangerous Job


     I was reading Exodus 30:17-21.  It says:
 Adonai said to Moshe,  “You are to make a basin of bronze, with a base of bronze, for washing. Place it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water in it.  Aharon and his sons will wash their hands and feet there  when they enter the tent of meeting — they are to wash with water, so that they won’t die. Also when they approach the altar to minister by burning an offering for Adonai,  they are to wash their hands and feet, so that they won’t die. This is to be a perpetual law for them through all their generations.”
     And I thought it was interesting that it said, "They are to wash with water, so that they won't die."

     Did you know that they could have died?

     Talk about  job hazards!

    It's like being an electrician.  An electrician works with something that is very powerful.  There is a set way of doing things so that you don't get electrocuted.  You can never get careless or familiar with the electricity.  You can't say "oh I'll just skip the safety measures this time."

     And it made me think about how different God's priesthood was from any other in history.  Most priests of other gods were powerful men.  They controlled their people by a pretense of deity.  They performed rituals that lent a sense of awe and wonder to their works.  But there was no one to stop them if they were corrupt.  They could make up whatever story they wanted to in order to sway the people.

    But God's priests were serving a real God.  A God who was Holy and Powerful.  They  literally could die if they did something wrong.

     And He is still Holy.

     And we are still to be washed, in a sense, before we approach Him.  Ephesians 5:25-27 says,
Husbands, love your wives just as Messiah also loved His community and gave Himself up for her  to make her holy, having cleansed her by immersion[a] in the word.  Messiah did this so that He might present to Himself His glorious community—not having stain or wrinkle or any such thing, but in order that she might be holy and blameless.
    Why can we approach His throne?  It is through the sacrifice of the Messiah and through a "mikvah" (immersion) in His Word.

     What does it mean to immerse in His Word?

     It means the same thing as to immerse yourself in a language.  You read it and speak it and study it.  You fill your whole life with it.  It flavors everything you touch.  You are surrounded on all sides by that language and culture.  That is immersion -- just like to immerse yourself in water means you dive completely into it so that every part of you is submerged.

     You cleanse yourself by immersing yourself in the "water of His Word."

     Because He is holy.

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