Me? A Priest? Selections from Leviticus 8-10
My wife’s grandmother was a woman who always spoke her mind. When my then-fiancee told her grandmother that she was going to marry a minister, the crusty old woman said, “Marry a priest? I wouldn’t do that! You can do that if you want, but I would never do that.”
I hate to tell you, Grandma, but all Christians are priests!
The role of a priest is to make a connection between God and people. In the Old Testament, priests offered sacrifices, on behalf of the people. In the New Testament, a priest is anyone who connects people to God. As the Apostle Paul said in Romans 15:16, “[God] gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Peter said the same thing: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
You are a priest! You are a priest to your family, as they may be to you. You are a priest to people who do not know God and his grace. You are a priest to friends, as you share the love of God, a word from the Lord, a prayer of intercession, or the presence of Christ in a time of need.
Being a priest of the true God is an AWESOME PRIVILEGE and AWESOME RESPONSIBILITY. As someone has said, “In the end, all that matters is God, humanity, and bringing the two together. That is what a priest does, and that is what we are privileged and responsible to do.
Old Testament priests provide a picture of the awesomeness of our privilege and responsibility, as priests who bring God and people together.
The backstory of the Book of Leviticus is that the Israelites have come out of Egypt, where they were slaves to the Egyptians. In Egypt, people worshipped the sun, the moon, and animals. The Israelites were headed for the land of Canaan, where worship might involve everything from goat idols to drunken orgies, ritual prostitution, or child sacrifice. God will have none of that!
God does not leave worship to the creativity of Moses and the people; he tell them exactly how they should come before him. In chapters 1-7, he gives detailed instructions for several different kinds of offerings. Now, in chapters 8-10, he gives instructions for how priests are chosen and set apart to connect people with God.
Imagine the scene, as we read Leviticus 8:1-24.
What an AMAZING PRIVILEGE for Aaron, the high priest, and his four sons. Aaron is dressed in majestic garments, with “bling” from head to toe. Everything about his outfit represents his role in bringing the people into the presence of the God who has chosen and redeemed them. Aaron connects people to God!
Yet as Moses dresses Aaron, Aaron is also humbled. He is dirty, so he has to be washed. He needs clean underwear, underneath his elaborate robes. He needs to lay his hands upon the head of a bull, symbolically laying his sins upon the animal. The bull is then killed, as an offering for his sin, and the sin of his sons. Then two rams are killed, and Aaron is touched from head to toe in the blood of the sacrifice God commands.
After all that, Aaron and his sons must spend seven days at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the place where God meets his people. This is not optional; if they leave there, they will die. Connecting God and people is an awesome privilege—and it must never be taken lightly.
On the eighth day, Aaron and his four sons are finally ordained as priests. There is another sin offering, another burnt offering, and a fellowship offering. Sin is atoned for, the aroma of the offering is pleasing to God, and the priests and the people have fellowship with God.
Then an amazing thing happens: (Read Leviticus 9:22-24.)
I don’t suppose anything like that has ever happened to you!
Do we ever see the glory of God? Yes, for the greater glory of God is not in fire and smoke, but reflected in God’s saints. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
When a priest brings people into the presence of God, glory is revealed:
You sit with a person who is hurting, or ashamed, or lost, and you share God’s words of forgiveness and acceptance.
You bring an offering of music and praise to the Lord, others join in the offering, and the Lord is pleased by the offering.
You teach the children, and one by one, the lights come on. You see God’s glory in their eyes!
You confront discord and strife among people, and you are able to bring God’s healing and grace into a place of darkness.
You share the good news of Jesus with someone who has never understood the grace of God, and the way of salvation. The lost soul becomes a child of God!
It is an awesome privilege to be a priest of our God!
At the same time, it is a humbling experience. Like the high priest, you need to be washed, and you need atonement for your sins. The glory that is revealed is not your glory, but the glory of God. As the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:5-6 “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
It is an AWESOME PRIVILEGE to be a priest of our God. Yet it is an AWESOME RESPONSIBILITY.
Aaron, the brother of Moses, was the first high priest, and he and his sons were the first priests to be anointed. His four sons were, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.
Imagine that you are Nadab, the oldest son. Imagine how excited you are, as you are anointed and ordained, and you see the fire of the glory of God consume the burnt offering. Would you be tempted to think that you are something special? Would you get caught up in the desire to make it all about you?
Nadab and his brother Abihu had earlier been part of an amazing spiritual experience. In Exodus 24:9-11, we read that, “Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.”
Now God’s glory has been revealed to all the people. They are shouting for joy, falling down on their faces before a holy God. Nadab wants more of that! Nadab wants to be at the center of that!
So, (read Leviticus 10:1-5.)
Fire came out from the presence of the Lord, but the fire consumed Nadab and Abihu, not the offering. Why would God do that, to his priests, no less?
The Old Testament is like an R-Rated movie: wild, passionate, sometimes violent, and often grand. In the most graphic way, God was showing his people that the awesome privilege of the priests was also an awesome responsibility. They were entrusted with a holy task, and they were treating it as an unholy thing.
Thank God that we don’t live in Old Testament times, or there might be charred bodies in churches. Yet Christians have access to something even more holy: Hebrews 10:29 “How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?” It is a dangerous thing to misuse or take lightly the gospel which has been entrusted to us!
What exactly did Nadab and Abihu do wrong? Were they misusing the holy incense, made according to God’s specific instructions? Were they not following God’s prescribed rituals? Were they trying to outdo their father and brothers? Were they hoping to duplicate the experience of the glory of God, making it happen by their actions, manipulating God?
Whatever it was, it was all about them. God did not tell them to do this. They were focused on the experience of glory, not on God and God’s people, and bringing them together.
It is a dangerous thing when people use God for their own purposes. Some leaders are more concerned about their own ego and impressing others, rather than worshipping and honoring God. People grasp power and control, instead of serving as God leads. Instead of representing God to others, people use God for their own comfort or status. Instead of listening and obeying, people want to do their own thing.
When people use religion for their own benefit, they are in spiritual danger. They are abrogating their responsibility as priests to serve God and connect people to God. Jesus warned about the consequences of misusing holy things in Matthew 18:6, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Being a priest is an awesome privilege, and an awesome responsibility, for priests deal with the holy things of God.
WE ARE ALL PRIESTS.
We handle the holy things of God: the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the people God loves. We have the awesome privilege of helping people connect with God, in our families, at church, at work, and even in the community and the world. It is an awesome responsibility, to which we dedicate our lives, as priests of the Most High God.
This week, as you go about your priestly duties of connecting people to God, you can know that God has set you apart to the holy task of bringing together God and people, to the glory of God.
