Dear church,

One of the mistakes we make when we think about the Sabbath is that we frequently make into something that is only about “rest.” And yes, the Sabbath is about resting.  

But this was not the primary purpose of the Sabbath. The primary purpose of the Sabbath was worship. It was to provide a day in which God’s people were bound back to their Creator in faith and love. 

God created the heavens and the earth in six days and then he rested. And then he picked out a chosen people, Israel, and he gave them a way in which to worship him with the tabernacle and priests and all the rest. He capped all this off with a command to honor the Sabbath. The people  were to take one day out of seven and give it to God. It was a day that was “holy to the Lord.” 

The whole purpose of creation was aimed at God’s rest – and God’s people resting with Him. 

Christians sometimes debate the Sabbath. Should we do the same as the Israelites and rest one day per week? I think it’s a good idea. A regular pause to return in gratitude to our Creator is always a good thing. Practice does make perfect, after all.

But we ought not to forget the primary purpose of the Sabbath. Jesus is our new “tabernacle.” And our Sabbaths are focused squarely on him. He makes a way for us to enter into the final rest of God – the ultimate Sabbath that never ends (Hebrews 4:9-11).

The fascinating thing is that we already have entered into the rest of God by faith in Christ. We have stopped our “working.” In faith, we have received eternal life. There’s nothing more for us to do but to keep trusting in Christ. He, of course, is leading us.

So every day, in some sense, is a “Sabbath” for the Christian. We continually pray, continually praise, continually offer thanks. We continually are bound back to God in faith and love. Christ is with us all the time. We worship everywhere and always in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24).

Take time today to thank God for the “rest” he has given you in Christ. And enjoy that rest!

Chris

Dear church,

The holy anointing oil was one of a kind. Experts were recruited in its creation. It was crafted according to exact specifications laid out by God. People were forbidden from trying to re-create it. There was to be no fraudulent anointing oil in the community.

The tabernacle, the ark of the testimony, the table and its utensils, the lampstand and its utensils, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and its utensils, and the basin and its stand were to be anointed. God said, “You shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them will become holy.”

But that is not all. Certain people also were to be anointed – Aaron and his sons, the priests. They were set apart by God. They were consecrated. They were made holy.

And God said of the holy anointing oil, “It shall not be poured on the body of an ordinary person.”

When Jesus was anointed at Bethany, it was with very expensive perfume (John 12:1-3). We don’t know the exact composition of this oil, but we do know it didn’t come out of the temple. It wasn’t the holy oil prescribed by God in Exodus 30.

And the person who anointed Jesus’ body, wiping his feet with her hair, was not a representative of the temple. 

The rules were broken for Jesus. He was no ordinary person. His anointing oil didn’t not overflow from the temple, but it bubbled up below – from among the unwashed masses of humanity. 

We might say this was unholy oil. But when it touched Jesus – the Son of God – it became holy. 

Jesus needed nothing to become holy. He simply IS holy. 

Those who come into contact with Jesus Christ in faith become holy as well. We know for certain that to touch this man yields change. We can think of the woman with the blood problem. “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well” (Mark 5:28). Miracles occur in the lives of those who reach out to Jesus in faith.

The chief miracle is that we, too, are made holy. “Whatever touches them will become holy.” That referred to the anointed things in and around the tabernacle. It also applies to us, as we reach out to Jesus in faith – and to those faithful seekers who come into contact with the people of God.

The apostle Paul described the life of the church as people who are following Christ in a victory procession – like people following a victorious king marching through the streets of a conquered town. The sights and sounds and smells of this procession are remarkable. Those who watch it stand in awe. 

And there is an aroma at this victory procession. Jesus is the Anointed One – the Messiah. “But thanks be to God, who in Christ Jesus always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” (2 Corinthians 2:14).

This has echoes of Exodus 30. When a person entered the tabernacle grounds or came near to a priest, the scent of that holy anointing oil would fill his or her nostrils. The person would know he or she was in the presence of something not “ordinary.”

Paul went on to say, “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16).

Something pleasing takes place when we gather as a church. We see our brothers and sisters in Christ – our fellow passengers to eternal life – and we rejoice. We are at home. This is a holy thing that happens when we gather. 

And those who would be saved can sense the same thing as they encounter a member of the church out on the street or in the workplace or at the grocery store. There’s something pleasing and attractive about one who has been made holy by Christ. 

And those who would not be saved – the reaction is much different. 

“Who is sufficient for these things?” Paul asked. 

We keep on going, spreading the fragrance. We are ambassadors for Christ, people who represent him on earth – the image of God, the bearers of the good news. 

Chris

Dear church,

When we follow Jesus, we are following someone who is entirely unlike us. He did strange things during his time on earth – and strange things happened to him. One of the strangest was during a meal in Bethany when a woman named Mary came to Jesus and anointed his feet with very expensive ointment. She wiped his feet with her hair (John 12:1-3). 

And we begin to feel – again – that Jesus is a unique man, and people saw him as such. They were driven to do things for Jesus that we don’t fully understand. They were carried along by their wonder at this remarkable man, and they threw themselves into their extreme acts of devotion. 

And we read about Jesus, and about the people around him, and we find ourselves perplexed by it all. Part of it is cultural. We do not live in that culture. Ours is very different. But part of it also is the holy nature of Christ. His life was wholly set apart for God. He had a task laid on his shoulders that we cannot imagine. 

And at Bethany, Jesus was anointed as the high priest of Israel, in the most remarkable and unconventional of ways. Jesus was set apart for his holy mission of standing in place of the people before God.

God had set this in motion years earlier. “You shall take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and anoint him.” In ancient Israel, priests and kings were anointed. These were the special leaders of the people. They were unlike anyone else. They carried on their shoulders the holy responsibility of leading – and in some cases of bearing the guilt of the people. 

We ought to think with wonder about Jesus and the things that occurred to him during his life. This is appropriate. His mission went beyond anything we can imagine.

In that home in Bethany, the house was filled with the perfume of Jesus’ anointing. I suppose the same always was the case at the anointing of Israel’s high priests. It was a reminder of the priests’ holiness. Something special had happened. 

I wish I knew what it smelled like.

Chris

Dear church,

The high priest of Israel carried the entire nation before God. They were on his shoulders and on his heart (Exodus 28:12, 29). The high priest also carried the people’s sins (Exodus 28:38).

This was a solemn responsibility. On this man – whom we would say was rather strangely dressed – were carried an entire people. He carried them before God so that they were remembered, and so that their sins could be forgiven.

Aaron and every subsequent high priest was a forerunner of Christ – the ultimate high priest who went before God on our behalf with finality: 

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. … For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. … So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’” (Hebrews 4:14; 5:1, 5).

And so there’s a sense that we are carried by Christ before God. We are not forgotten. Those true believers, who put their faith in Christ, are on his shoulders and on his heart. 

Beware of any attitude that tells you that you have somehow earned your salvation – that you are morally or intellectually good enough to be saved by God. No, the only thing we do is “hold fast our confession.”

The people of Israel were entirely passive as the priest walked forward, into the tabernacle, to meet with God. He carried them in with him in a symbolic sense. But it was not because of any righteousness on their part. 

So it is with us. Christ carries us with him. We only believe.

Chris

Dear church,

What role does sacrifice play in a community? The altar formed the center of life for the Israelites. This is where they came to interact with God. They came with their sacrifices. 

Some people say this practice – the sacrificing of animals – is brutal and grotesque. But really, the people were offering back to God something that he had given to them – their livestock and their grain. These are the things of life and survival. They are blessings. 

The people could simply have gone on eating of their livestock and their grain. But the sacrificial system put God into the center of their working and their eating. At the appointed time, they would sacrifice – and then eat. They stopped to recognize that what they had came from Him. He is the giver of all good things.   

And so they would sacrifice to God from among the things that they had. 

In our secular American culture, where do we find sacrifice? I had to think about this for a minute.

We sacrifice to pay our taxes, so there is that. We groan and pull out our wallets and recognize that the government needs some of our money to operate – that our roads and our military and our schools and our law enforcement need money to function appropriately. This calls for a sacrifice on our part. We are commanded to do these things. We can’t really function as a nation or a county or a town if we all don’t do our part. And this requires sacrifice.

Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). 

Our government has a certain claim on us. We receive the benefits of living in this place, but there is a cost. So some of the things that I have in my possession (and my bank account is a possession) ultimately belong to the government. This is what the government is due from my life. 

We might say the same thing about the military draft. We owe the government this service in times of national crisis. 

So what kind of claim does God have on the lives of humanity? Well, it’s a much greater claim than the government’s because God is the creator of life and everything in the world. We would have nothing without God. And so to render to God that which is God’s, we really owe him everything that we have – our whole lives. 

But for the people of Israel in the wilderness and later in the Promised Land, God set a boundary on what he required of them. We will read more about that in Leviticus. The people didn’t give him everything, but they did give their sacrifices as they were commanded. They paid what was owed. 

This, of course, is re-oriented by Jesus, who gave all. And now what are we to give? “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). 

Think about sacrifice in your own life. What kinds of sacrifices do you make on a regular basis, and to whom do you make those sacrifices? What kinds of sacrifices do you make to God – and why do you make those sacrifices? What is your attitude as your make those sacrifices?

Chris

Dear church, 

We cannot read about the veil without also thinking about the tearing of the veil. That was a veil that was meant to be torn in two, right down the middle (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38). 

And we thank Jesus Christ for making a way for us to enter into God’s presence, by the covering over of our sin and immorality – things that cannot come into the presence of God.

But do you recognize the difference between the sacred and the profane? In the old era of the tabernacle, the Israelites came to learn this very well. The Holy of Holies was sacred space, as was the bulk of the tabernacle grounds. All other space was deemed ordinary. 

The tearing of the veil did not make everything sacred or profane. Rather, it brought the sacred – the very presence of God – into the hearts of those who believe the good news of Jesus Christ. Every Christian now is “sacred space” in this sense (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Do you think of your body and your soul as sacred space – a holy home for God? Spend a few moments thinking about the implications of that. If we really dig into that thought, it is daunting. Our sin seems to be too much. God surely wouldn’t dwell there!

God has entered profane space, and he is making it holy. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We come as we are in faith in Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit begins to do the work. 

The vehicle I drive is a mess – inside and out. Dirt and grime and old French fries. A little rust on the outside. I would call it space that is not sacred. 

But it could be. A person could come to it (from the outside) and clean it up, wipe it down, wash it out. 

As Christians, we must start by recognizing what we are. In some strange way, even with all our faults, we are sacred space for God. 

Chris

Dear church,

The attention in this section of Exodus turns from commandment to covenant to worship. God’s people were to follow his commandments and, in doing so, enter into a covenant relationship with God that would result in unbelievable blessings for his people. 

With that foundation in place, God instructed Moses in the proper worship of God. Instructions in these next chapters discuss the ark of the covenant, the tabernacle, and the garments of the priests, among other things. This section extends from Exodus 25 to Exodus 31. It focuses on the worship of Israel.

Where do you experience the presence of God in your life? Is it in the church building or during a worship service? Is it while you are reading Scripture or walking the trails alone? Is it during your times of prayer?

The fundamental purpose of the tabernacle was to be a sign of God’s presence among the people. “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.”

We call the main worship space at the church building the “sanctuary.” I suppose this is why. That particular room, in a certain way, is a sign to us of God’s presence. There’s a sacredness about it because it is the primary place where our church gathers to worship as a family of faith. This is the number one physical location on this planet where our church comes to be in the presence of God together. And because we are physical people on a physical planet living out our physical lives and looking forward to the physical resurrection, we have a special place in our hearts for our physical church sanctuary. (And this is why there’s a reluctance to allow the space to be used for other purposes – like yoga!)

It’s not that God only dwells in our church sanctuary while we worship, though. That is not true at all. 

God’s presence is with each one of us. The apostle Paul said our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Further, Paul said the church as a group is also the place where the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16). So God’s presence is with each believer and within the church family. He dwells in our midst. We don’t build God a sanctuary. We are the sanctuary!

The idea of “dwelling” emerges from the life of Jesus, too. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Jesus very clearly IS God. This verse has very close ties to the idea of God’s dwelling with Israel in the tabernacle. 

And so we see one of the main purposes of God in his creation is to dwell within it – specifically, to dwell with humanity, whom he made in his image. 

What are we to do with this? 

First, we ought to be aware of the presence of God in our lives as we move through the ordinary activities of our days. God is with us. He doesn’t abandon us in our difficulties. He wants to guide us through them. And so we ought to look to him, just as the Israelites would learn to look toward the tabernacle to hear from God. 

Second, we really ought to tune our hearts toward God’s presence when we gather together to worship as a church. God is among us. What did Jesus say? “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matthew 18:20). And so we are in the presence of God as we gather together as a church. It is a holy moment, and our senses should be alert in that moment. 

Chris 

Dear church,

We can have no relationship with God without blood. 

Some Christians would rather this not be so, desiring a clean and easy path to reconciliation with God. They want to take showers, put on clean clothes, liberally apply hand sanitizer, and stroll boldly into God’s presence. They want nothing to do with blood. Blood entails violence. And violence, they say, is always unnecessary. All we need is love.

Unfortunately, humans wrecked the opportunity to operate in that way. We’ve blocked our own pathway to God by selfishness and, yes, violence. The wages of sin, the apostle Paul wrote, is death (Romans 6:23). Death is when blood stops flowing. It pools. Our bodies harden. And they put us underground. 

Is putting a body in a box and piling six feet of dirt on top of it violent? Is it violent to take that body-in-a-box and burn it? Our world is marked with all sorts of unpleasant things, and death is one of them. 

We associate blood with death, and blood makes us uncomfortable because of that. The only time we see blood, a lot of blood, is when something has died. 

But blood ultimately is a symbol of life. Without blood, no human being could live. When the blood is taken away, life stops. 

The people of Israel saw this play out in real time. The oxen were sacrificed. The blood drained out of those animals. The symbol of life was held in a bucket. 

Moses read the Book of the Covenant – we assume this to be Exodus 20-23 – and he sprinkled the blood on the people. They were marked by this symbol of life and sacrifice. The animals were offered fully to God, given over entirely to him – symbols of the people’s dedication now to God. The oxen were given over in the people’s place. This also was a picture of atonement, after all (Hebrews 9:22). The people were never going to be able to keep the Law.

Moses called the blood of those animals, now thrown onto the people, “the blood of the covenant.” It sealed the deal. It marked how things would go between a holy God and his unholy people. Death, unfortunately, would always be part of the project. And so would blood. Sin remained with God’s people. They were not yet holy.

And so the people could have no relationship with God without blood – and sacrifice. Neither can we. But somehow God has made this work in our favor.

When Jesus offered the bread and the cup to his disciples at the Last Supper, he said the wine represented “my blood of the covenant.” This was something new – and something old. Our covenant with God is sealed not by the blood of oxen – by the blood of non-human things. Rather, it is sealed with the blood, the symbol of life, of the perfect man. Jesus gave himself entirely over to God, recognizing our inability to keep the Book of the Covenant – and our need for forgiveness.

Jesus’ blood is a sign of life. This is the blood we ought to desire – sprinkled on us. 

This gives meaning to the Lord’s Supper we take each Sunday. Here is the blood that binds us to God. 

Chris

Dear church,

Here, we read the end of the first group of laws the people of Israel were given by God. And it is more of the same. This is what it looks like to like to live a good life – a moral and ethical life. This is how God wanted his people to live. 

They were never to be deceitful or to give false or malicious witness. They were not to fall in line with the “many” in bringing false charges. They were to be people of justice. A person’s social status had no bearing on the carrying out of that justice. Fairness was required. Bribery was prohibited. 

God’s people were to care for their enemies. They weren’t to leave an enemy’s donkey on its knees under its burden. Jesus taught something similar (Matthew 5:44). 

And God’s people were to take care of “sojourners” – people who were visitors and travelers among them. These were people who were far from home and in need of support. Sojourners were people who did not control their own lives because they were in the land of other people. God’s people were to take care of the vulnerable.

This is what it means to be a moral person. Anyone from any culture would agree. A moral person is honest and boldly independent of the crowd. A moral person looks past things like social status in administering justice. A moral person isn’t vindictive against one’s enemies. A moral person helps the weak and vulnerable.

And these laws are 3,500 years old! Nothing has changed in all that time.

God gave his people some things to motivate their morality. For instance, they were to recall, when being kind to sojourners, that God’s people were also sojourners at one point in Egypt. They were to treat people with compassion because they had been in the same position at one point. They could relate.

And God’s people were to pay attention to the promises of God – that if they obeyed God’s laws, God would bless them. God would give the people a land. He would prosper them. He would make Israel’s enemies run from them. 

The promised blessings of God, however, were based on the people’s obedience to his commands. God wanted his people to be different than the world – to be noticeably righteous. He wanted them to live as his image-bearers in the world, carrying his character among the nations.

God’s people, of course, did not do this. They didn’t follow the Law, and they didn’t obtain the blessing. We all could look at the commandments in this chapter alone and recognize that we, too, have missed the mark. And we probably didn’t miss it by only a little. 

And so the people squandered away their birthright – like Esau grabbing for a bowl of stew. 

Fortunately, God made a way. He sent Jesus, whom we know came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17).

Jesus did not go along with the many (John 8:1-11). Jesus cared for his enemies (Luke 22:51; Luke 23:34). And Jesus took care of those who were living far from home and who were in need (Mark 8:3).

Jesus had every right to claim the promises of God. He had obeyed every bit of the Law.

And yet, Jesus gave up that right and died the death that sinners deserve. He did this so that any of us who have faith in him – and believe his sinless life, his death on the cross, and his resurrection – can have eternal life. We can have the blessing through Christ because he fulfilled the Law.

And so we see how these promises in Exodus 23 come to fruition in an ultimate sense in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This chapter points us to the gospel message. When Jesus walked out of that tomb, every enemy had been defeated (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

And we can live in the promises of God through Christ. “You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.” (See also Revelation 21:3-4.)

That’s eternal life, when the number of our days is “fulfilled.”

Chris

Dear church,

We have more laws in this chapter – laws about restitution for damaged property and people, laws about idolatry, laws about how to treat those who are struggling, and laws about how to treat those who rule over us. 

Again, God’s desire for his people becomes clear. They are to treat one another fairly. They are to take personal responsibility for their actions. They are to worship God alone. They are to care for those who are in need, and they are to respect their leaders. 

My eyes landed on a couple of sentences that I think are important for us as a church. First, I noticed this: “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him.” And then I noticed this: “You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people.” 

How do you think about your brothers and sisters in Christ? Do you view them any differently than other people you encounter in your life – your co-workers, your biological family, your friends?

One of the temptations in the church is to view one another as just ordinary people to whom we have only a slight connection. We come together to worship on Sundays. That’s it. No bond other than coincidence.

But God’s calling for his people was that they would take care of one another – even to their own loss. They are not to treat one another as they would treat an outsider. They do not seek to profit off of one another, especially if a person was in need. And they would respect their leaders. 

As Moses was writing down the Law of God, he was writing to a literal family – the direct offspring of Abraham. The church is no less so. The apostle Paul called us the “household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). And God’s great desire for his church was that we would love one another. 

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” (John 13:34). This can be a costly thing, to love our fellow disciples. 

“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls” (Hebrews 13:17). This is perhaps the most difficult of all. What if my leaders do something I don’t personally agree with?

As we take these old laws in Exodus and discover their underlying principles, we may discover we aren’t living up to them as it relates to our brothers and sisters in Christ and to our leaders in the church.

Remember, Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law. He came to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). He submitted to his heavenly Father. And he sacrificed everything for his brothers and sisters.

These are good things to think about today.

Chris