You Were There (1/10/04)
Long years you have served, served faithfully, never succumbing to dissatisfaction. Long years you have held to the path of righteousness. Oh, most certainly there have been moments of weakness, but they have been moments and no more. Your dedication to the Mighty One has never faltered. Yet, the blessings that one might expect of such steadfastness have not come. The greatest honor that befalls man is to be blessed with children. This has been withheld from you. The greatest honor that befalls the priest, greater even than children, is to be chosen to offer up the prayers of the nation in God's very presence. Once at most you may experience this honor, but it is by no means guaranteed.
Long you have served and known neither honor, but today…today your turn has come at last. It is a fearsome thing to have this honor, isn't it? In so many ways, your whole life has been spent preparing for this moment, yet nothing can truly prepare you. You will be entering into the very presence of God. Have your efforts to live a righteous life been enough? You know with Whom you are about to meet, and you know that His Holiness cannot tolerate sin, will not suffer sin in Its presence. This could very well be your last act in life. What will become of Elizabeth should you be found wanting?
Joy and fear are so intertwined in you just now. How can one not experience joy in finding God has indeed remembered him? Yet, how can any man who is honest with himself not be fearful, too. It is a dreadful thing indeed to fall into the hands of the living God! Will He suffer your presence? Will He accept the offering you bring? Carefully, you review the training you have had over the years, making certain that you can remember every detail of the service you are about to perform. You consider each of the many times you have witnessed your fellows entering that Place. How different they seemed when they emerged. Unconsciously, you touch the hem of your robes, reassured by the sound of the bells, the sound by which those outside will monitor your wellbeing. You accept the rope about your ankle - the lifeline for the nation should you be struck down for failing. A dreadful thing… yet, an honor beyond all honors.
Outside, you hear the calming roar of voices rising in prayer. It is on behalf of these that you are called to serve. It is the message of those voices you bear into the very heart of God's abode. Oh! That He may accept the prayers of His people! Oh! That indeed He would find this offering a sweet smelling sacrifice. Your own voice joining in with the chorus of prayers, you take up the tongs, pick up a glowing coal from the altar upon which the sin offerings have been burning all day long, and enter, knees weak, perhaps, but faith strong.
New Thoughts (1/10/04-1/11/04)
"The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps." Thus reads Proverbs 16:9. In this portion from Luke, we are seeing this truth played out. It came about, I just happened. The priests and Levites had been following the same habitual tours of duty for centuries, pretty much since David first set the direction, barring the seventy years of exile. The minds of men planned their way. It's such and such a week, therefore the Abijah division is on duty. Now it must be determined who will offer the incense. Everybody who's already done so stand down. Now then, everybody who's left, draw straws. The lot fell to Zachariah.
In a belief system which, at least in our thinking, has no room for gambling, what was up with all these lotteries? It was simply their way of saying, 'OK, God, You choose.' In our highly cynical age, I suppose any number of safeguards would be required. First, we would need background checks to verify that none of those standing had already served, perhaps another check to ensure that all those not standing had. Then, a great deal of effort would need to go into the selection of the straws, how they would be presented, and so on. Everything possible would have to be done to be certain that nobody could rig the results. I'm thinking the priesthood, at least such as were priests in earnest, understood implicitly that no amount of manipulation was likely to interfere with God's choice anyway. The Almighty One would make His choice, and nothing man was going to do would be likely to change it. No, this was merely a tool by which they could know His decision.
So we see Providence in action once more. Man plans his ways. The order of service is laid out, the calendars carefully marked and watched to make certain the right division is in place each day. The rules are set. No man serves twice. But, in the end, it is God who directs, God who decides. Everything done on this particular day was done as it had been for generations, all was according to longstanding traditions. But God had marked and appointment on His calendar for this particular day, an appointment with one particular priest. This appointment, like the matter which would be discussed, had been determined before creation, set in stone before there was stone to set it in.
From an earthly perspective, God had remembered. The lot was cast, and as the choice was announced, somebody in that Temple was saying, "God has remembered." They could not declare the decision without saying this! No doubt, the one who so declared was not aware of the significance of his declaration. As he heard himself, he heard nothing more than the name of a colleague, perhaps a friend. Zacharias would bring the coal into the Holy of Holies to burn the incense. Zacharias would enter into the heart of the temple to bear the prayers of a nation before God.
For Zacharias, this would prove a most personal application of his name. God had remembered him, personally, had not been unaware of the sorrows that accompanied his steadfastness. For the nation of Israel, the significance was even greater. They had been under the heel of one invader or another probably as long as anyone living could remember. When Rome wasn't there, the Parthians had come in. When it wasn't those two, the Greeks had overrun the place, and if it wasn't them, there was always Egypt waiting to cause trouble. What had become of this King they had read about? Where was the One who would save God's people? Where was God?
This was very much the national attitude of the time. Every eye anxiously looked for Messiah. Any who looked to be able to lay claim to that title could be assured of some following. Yet, every time the candidate disappointed. They would have to look for another. Into this setting, on this day, God made an announcement, "I have remembered." As we will see in coming studies, He made certain that the announcement would not be missed.
The other thing for us to carry forth from this passage is an understanding of what it was Zacharias was to do. To help with this, I want to go back to Exodus, where Aaron first receives instruction regarding the altar of incense. Twice a day he was instructed to enter the tabernacle to trim the wicks on the lamps, so that the lamps would continue burning properly. At each of those two times he was instructed to also burn incense upon the altar (Ex 30:7-10). Why this instruction? So that there would always be incense before the Lord.
Again, it is important to understand what the incense is about. Incense is symbolic of prayer. In the rising smoke was seen the ascending prayers of God's people, rising to come before His throne. With that in mind, what is God saying in Exodus? He's essentially telling His priests that there is to be continual prayer. There ought always to be words of prayer ascending to Him. Then again, there's the point that the cloud of smoke from the incense obscured the sight of the priest as he entered into the Holy of Holies, lest he see the Lord and die. The eyes of the Pure and Holy One cannot bear to look upon sinful man. Justice would demand that He remove such impurity from His presence, that He destroy sin utterly. The incense, then, was protection for the priests, who could never attain to the perfection required by God.
For us, the importance of this is that we gain the same protection from our prayers. The veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple has been torn asunder, and we are given access. But this is not to suggest that we can enter without further thought. God is a God of order, and proper protocol and preparation must be observed. For us, that preparation is prayer. To seek entry into God's presence without prayer is to seek destruction.
Now, notice some further instruction that was given to Aaron. Nothing but the proper incense would be accepted from that altar. Nothing but earnest prayer will suffice for us. This is not, however, telling us that we should constantly come with our requests and desires. There's a place for that, certainly, but that is not the whole of prayer. Consider the passage regarding Hezekiah's arrangement of the priesthood. The priests were once more organized by their divisions, and team by team the made their offerings to the Lord. They offered their sacrifices, they offered their petitions and requests. They also offered worship, thanks and praise to God (2Chr 31:2).
Our prayers ought be no different. If we are only coming with our needs, we are falling far short. We have not yet offered the proper incense on the altar. We do not give to God a sweet smelling aroma. Incense is a blend of many things. Any one of those things of and to itself might not produce a pleasant scent. In fact, some of the ingredients, taken alone, smell downright unpleasant. It is only when all are mixed together, each in its proper measure, that the desired odor comes forth. So also our prayers. It takes a measure of praise, a measure of pure worship, a great deal of thanksgiving, and perhaps a pinch or two of request to mix the incense that God seeks from the words of our hearts.
There is one more thing worthy of note with regards to the incense offering. The coal upon which the incense was burnt was to be taken from the altar of burnt offerings. This was where the sin offering was made. The sin offering was an attempt to atone for our shortcomings, our failures to go on obeying the commands of our God. Without that coal, the incense would produce very little in the way of scent, certainly nothing in the way of obscuring smoke to guard the priest. Our prayers likewise need a catalyst to produce their fullest beauty in God's sight. They need the coal that comes from the atoning for our sins.
Now, there's two ways to see this coal, I think. First and foremost, we cannot look at the atonement and not see Him who bore our sins, Him about whom these Gospels are written. The sin offering required blood. For us, there can be no other offering but the blood of Christ, willingly shed to fulfill all that the system of sacrifices had typified. As the author of Hebrews declares, there can be no other sacrifice. After the fulfillment, nothing else remains. He is the final sacrifice, in reality the only sacrifice for sins. All the millions of animals slaughtered on the altars before He came were only useful insomuch as they pointed to His work. Once a year, Exodus indicates, Aaron had to take the blood of that sin offering to cleanse the altar of incense, the offering of prayer. We no longer have such an annual requirement, but we still have the requirement. The prayers we offer are worthless except for the blood of our Savior. Indeed, like so much of the Mosaic system, we could look at this requirement as having been amplified rather than superceded. Every offering we make requires that preceding sanctification by His blood.
Still, we have not looked yet at the coal. We have looked at the offering that produced the coal, and we have looked at the offering that was made upon the coal, but we haven't seen the coal itself. What is it? Why must the coal come from that one fire and no other? I would suggest it is precisely this: It is the repentant heart. That which makes our prayers a sweet and pleasing aroma in God's nostrils is the earnest repentance of our hearts, the desire to fully obey His every command, and the humility to recognize that we so quickly give up on attaining our desire.
All three must combine: the blood of Christ, the heart of repentance, and the words poured out of our soul. The words must bear in them a mixture of praise and worship, a mixture of thanks and request. But the words will go nowhere if they are not burned upon the coals of repentance. And we cannot obtain that coal anywhere else but from the place which has been covered by the blood of Christ.
We are called to be a nation of priests. We no longer serve by turns, but we each serve continually in the temple which is our flesh until such time as we are called to the heavenly city. We are called, then, to pour out a continuous column of prayer, fired by repentance, made acceptable by the Blood. This is the necessary atmosphere by which we can enter into the Holy of Holies.
This morning, at service, we sang the song, 'Take Me Into the Holy of Holies.' That closing line, "Take the coal, touch my lips, here I am." Yes, it points back to Isaiah's vision, but it points to this scene, as well. The coal of repentance, it is this which purifies the words of my mouth, it is this that gives us safe passage into the throne room of our God. Only with that coal igniting the holy passions of our hearts will the air in that room be so filled by a purifying haze that the eyes of the Holy One can rest upon us with joy, seeing His Son, seeing His righteousness, hearing His heart expressed in the words of our mouths.
Lord God, it is only pride which is so deceived as to think there is nothing to repent of. How often, Father, do I feel that way myself, feel that there is nothing I need to seek Your forgiveness for? How foolish of me! There alone I have cause to repent. Lord, there's so much I need to repent of, so much that needs Your forgiving. There's that pride. We've talked of this for years, You and I. Still it plagues me. How, Holy Spirit, do I turn from it? I need look no further than my coworker last week. Where was the goodness of You in my treatment of him? And for what cause did I ride him except pride? God! I am tired of having Your work in me spoiled by that disease. What of the anxiousness that has gripped me of late? Have I been guilty of serving You for the benefits? May it never be! Yet, if it has been that way with me, I reject it utterly at this very moment. I will indeed go on obeying. Whatever You choose for me in this life, Lord, I know it is well. My trust truly is in You and You alone. If, at any point, I have tried to claim any of Your due glory for myself, if I am guilty of trying to place myself upon Your throne, this too I ask forgiveness for.
Yet will I praise You, my God! If all the pleasantness I have known in this life be stripped away, yet will I praise You. Oh, may there be found no grumbling in my mouth, no complaint at any unfairness from Your hand, but only the absolute certainty that You are Good, only the sure comfort that all my days are in Your hands.
