April 26th, 2012
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Who Makes Whom Holy?

Please see the links to our EXTRA Bible Study notes at the bottom of the page.

Opening Prayer

Lord, help me to make this time holy, a time set apart for reading Your Word and absorbing its meaning.

Read Exodus 29:1-28

[1] “This is what you are to do to consecrate them, so they may serve me as priests: Take a young bull and two rams without defect. [2] And from fine wheat flour, without yeast, make bread, and cakes mixed with oil, and wafers spread with oil. [3] Put them in a basket and present them in it-along with the bull and the two rams. [4] Then bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water. [5] Take the garments and dress Aaron with the tunic, the robe of the ephod, the ephod itself and the breastpiece. Fasten the ephod on him by its skillfully woven waistband. [6] Put the turban on his head and attach the sacred diadem to the turban. [7] Take the anointing oil and anoint him by pouring it on his head. [8] Bring his sons and dress them in tunics [9] and put headbands on them. Then tie sashes on Aaron and his sons. The priesthood is theirs by a lasting ordinance. In this way you shall ordain Aaron and his sons. [10] “Bring the bull to the front of the Tent of Meeting, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. [11] Slaughter it in the LORD’s presence at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. [12] Take some of the bull’s blood and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and pour out the rest of it at the base of the altar. [13] Then take all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, and both kidneys with the fat on them, and burn them on the altar. [14] But burn the bull’s flesh and its hide and its offal outside the camp. It is a sin offering. [15] “Take one of the rams, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. [16] Slaughter it and take the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides. [17] Cut the ram into pieces and wash the inner parts and the legs, putting them with the head and the other pieces. [18] Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the LORD, a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the LORD by fire. [19] “Take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. [20] Slaughter it, take some of its blood and put it on the lobes of the right ears of Aaron and his sons, on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. Then sprinkle blood against the altar on all sides. [21] And take some of the blood on the altar and some of the anointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and their garments. Then he and his sons and their garments will be consecrated. [22] “Take from this ram the fat, the fat tail, the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, both kidneys with the fat on them, and the right thigh. (This is the ram for the ordination.) [23] From the basket of bread made without yeast, which is before the LORD, take a loaf, and a cake made with oil, and a wafer. [24] Put all these in the hands of Aaron and his sons and wave them before the LORD as a wave offering. [25] Then take them from their hands and burn them on the altar along with the burnt offering for a pleasing aroma to the LORD, an offering made to the LORD by fire. [26] After you take the breast of the ram for Aaron’s ordination, wave it before the LORD as a wave offering, and it will be your share. [27] “Consecrate those parts of the ordination ram that belong to Aaron and his sons: the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented. [28] This is always to be the regular share from the Israelites for Aaron and his sons. It is the contribution the Israelites are to make to the LORD from their fellowship offerings.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Meditate

“Holiness is a condition of purity or freedom from sin, or being set apart to special service” (Millard Erickson).

Think Further

This complex ceremony may seem unnecessarily pretentious, but it’s not. Holiness in Hebrew means being set apart for a purpose. People make things holy; people set them apart for God’s service. These rituals ensured that this setting apart was cemented in the minds of priest and people. Have we become so sophisticated that we think ordination needs only prayer and intellectual assent when, for thousands of years, our Christian forebears understood the need for symbolic action to fix meaning into people’s consciousness?

Each stage of Aaron’s consecration had deep meaning. He was washed, the old clothing and all it represented stripped away and replaced with the new (4,5). He was anointed, the mark of being chosen (7). The altar he would serve at was made holy with the blood and fire of sacrifice (10-13). His sins were symbolically carried away, destroyed outside the camp (14). The first offering on the altar was for God (18). The blood of the second, “the ram for the ordination” (22), marked Aaron on ear, hand and foot, reminding him to be attuned to God’s voice and the needs of the people. Blood and oil symbolically marked his robes, something he would recall every time he dressed (19-21). Finally the practical note: all were reminded of the priest’s right to live on his share of the offerings (27,28).

My denomination tries to make ordinations memorable, but perhaps it fails at other levels. We commission all manner of people—youth workers, council members, lay ministers and more—but perhaps we do it in a perfunctory manner. Perhaps we do not sufficiently express in memorable ways the importance and, indeed, the holiness of these callings to our church community.

Apply

When you set apart people as leaders in your church, how could you better impress upon their consciousness the holiness of their positions?

Closing prayer

Holy Spirit, continue to make me more holy, more like Jesus. I’m grateful I’m not what I was but I need to be what I should be, to God’s glory.

Click here to sign up to receive the EXTRAs via email each quarter.

© 2024 Scripture Union U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission is prohibited.

Encounter with God is published in the USA under license from Scripture Union England and Wales, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF.

View all readings

Get ENCOUNTER:

in your email:

in Print:

Become a Member | Visit our store