Were you bored this morning by the priestly garments?

We read Exodus 28-29 this morning, which gives instructions for making the priestly garments, and then tells how the priests were to be consecrated. Were you bored?

Here are two ways to fight your boredom.

First, remind yourself of the purpose of all this detail. We read that purpose in Exodus 29.44-45: ‘I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God.’ The point of all these intricate instructions is to allow Israel to be a people of the presence — a people among whom God will dwell.

As followers of Jesus, we are the people of God’s presence. Jesus is our high priest (Hebrews 4.14) and our Temple (John 2.19-22).

Second, remind yourself of how vivid and real all this would be for those who were first hearing it. These garments would have been beautiful and striking and highly symbolic. To take another example, the book of Leviticus, which can sometimes threaten to bore us to tears, would have been anything but boring to those who first heard it — for one thing, it is a very bloody book. The sounds of dying animals and the smell and feel of blood fill its pages. But so does the conviviality of families eating together, and the amazing provision of God for forgiveness of sins.

Click onto the video below to see some people who take the biblical passages about the priestly garments very seriously. There is a group of Jews who have recently begun making priestly garments in the expectation that the Temple will return to Jewish control. For these folks, this passage is incredibly important and vital. They’re not nodding off as they read it.

Posted by Stephen Witmer on Feb 16, 09:49 AM