Living With the Holiness Dimension

Scripture: Numbers 4: 1-20

Sermon: Living With the Holiness Dimension

Topics: holiness, Levites, awe, vertigo

Preached: August 22, 2010

Rev. Mike Abma

Preamble

This morning we are going to read a passage from the book of Numbers.

Just to get our bearings a little before we read,

Numbers begins at Mount Sinai.

Israel had just escaped from Egypt.

They had just received the Law of God.

In the first 10 chapters of Numbers, Israel gets its marching orders, so to speak, and in the following chapters they begin to march through the desert.

Chapters 3-4 are instructions

to Aaron and his sons – the priests,

and also to the tribe of Levi

regarding how to transport the tabernacle.

Now the tribe of Levi was split into 3 large clans:

The Kohathites

The Gershonites

And the Merarites.

If you look a little further in chapter 4, you will see that the Gershonites and Merarites also had jobs to do when it came to transporting the tabernacle:

The Merarites had to take the hardware – the posts, the crossbars, the bases, and frames.

The Gershonites had to take the software – the curtains and the fabric.

But it was the Kohathites who were given the job of taking the furniture — the most precious and most holy parts of the tabernacle.

Numbers 4: 1- 20 The Kohathites

4The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ²Take a census of the Kohathites separate from the other Levites, by their clans and their ancestral houses, ³from thirty years old up to fifty years old, all who qualify to do work relating to the tent of meeting. ⁴The service of the Kohathites relating to the tent of meeting concerns the most holy things.

5 When the camp is to set out, Aaron and his sons shall go in and take down the screening curtain, and cover the ark of the covenant^* with it; ⁶then they shall put on it a covering of fine leather,^* and spread over that a cloth all of blue, and shall put its poles in place. ⁷Over the table of the bread of the Presence they shall spread a blue cloth, and put on it the plates, the dishes for incense, the bowls, and the flagons for the drink-offering; the regular bread also shall be on it; ⁸then they shall spread over them a crimson cloth, and cover it with a covering of fine leather,^* and shall put its poles in place. ⁹They shall take a blue cloth, and cover the lampstand for the light, with its lamps, its snuffers, its trays, and all the vessels for oil with which it is supplied; ¹⁰and they shall put it with all its utensils in a covering of fine leather,^* and put it on the carrying-frame. ¹¹Over the golden altar they shall spread a blue cloth, and cover it with a covering of fine leather,^* and shall put its poles in place; ¹²and they shall take all the utensils of the service that are used in the sanctuary, and put them in a blue cloth, and cover them with a covering of fine leather,^* and put them on the carrying-frame. ¹³They shall take away the ashes from the altar, and spread a purple cloth over it; ¹⁴and they shall put on it all the utensils of the altar, which are used for the service there, the firepans, the forks, the shovels, and the basins, all the utensils of the altar; and they shall spread on it a covering of fine leather,^* and shall put its poles in place. ¹⁵When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, as the camp sets out, after that the Kohathites shall come to carry these, but they must not touch the holy things, or they will die. These are the things of the tent of meeting that the Kohathites are to carry.

16 Eleazar son of Aaron the priest shall have charge of the oil for the light, the fragrant incense, the regular grain-offering, and the anointing-oil, the oversight of all the tabernacle and all that is in it, in the sanctuary and in its utensils.

17 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ¹⁸You must not let the tribe of the clans of the Kohathites be destroyed from among the Levites. ¹⁹This is how you must deal with them in order that they may live and not die when they come near to the most holy things: Aaron and his sons shall go in and assign each to a particular task or burden. ²⁰But the Kohathites^* must not go in to look on the holy things even for a moment; otherwise they will die.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

I admit, I was a little nervous choosing Numbers 4 for our text this morning.

Here is this text about transporting the tabernacle,

something about as exciting

as the genealogies in Genesis,

or the dietary laws in Leviticus.

Numbers 4? What were you thinking?

Mike, have you come back from your vacation a bit loopy?

Maybe I have come back from vacation a bit loopy,

but here are three reasons to look at Numbers 4.

1. NEW

One thing about vacations is that they sometimes allow us to visit new places, and explore new territories.

Numbers chapter 4 may very well be a new place for you.

Have you ever read this passage before?

Have you ever heard a sermon preached on it before?

My guess is, for most of you, this is a pretty new passage.

2. NOT EASY

A second reason for choosing Numbers 4 is that it is not the easiest passage.

To begin to understand this passage,

you need to understand something of the Holiness Code given on Mount Sinai, and how all of life was divided into the categories of

unclean, clean, and holy.

You need to know how Israel was chosen and set apart by God from the nations of the world;

You need to know how the tribe of Levi was chosen and set apart from Israel

in place of the firstborn of Egypt who died in the tenth plague.

You need to know how the clan of Kohath of the tribe of Levi was set apart

to handle the most holy parts of the tabernacle.

You also need to know a little about the tabernacle itself.

The tabernacle was

a little bigger than a basketball court,

a little smaller than a hockey rink.

It had a curtained wall all around it.

In the curtained open area

was a basin of water and a bronze altar.

Inside this open courtyard

there was one closed tent 30 ft by 15 ft.

This tent was divided into 2 rooms:

the larger was called the holy place;

the smaller was called the most holy place.

The holy place had

a golden table

a golden lampstand

and an altar for burning incense.

The inner room – the most holy place, or holy of holies,

had the ark of the covenant.

That was the tabernacle.

The Kohathites were instructed to carry this furniture from these two interior rooms: for the holy and the most holy place.

But did you notice how everything first had to be covered or wrapped by Aaron and his sons, the priests.

They first had to carefully wrap everything

either in leather, or blue cloth, or crimson cloth.

Everything had to be wrapped

so that when the Kohathites handled them,

when they carried them,

they would not touch them with their hands

or see them with their eyes,

otherwise they would die.

3. NOT NICE

“Or they will die”

And that brings a third reason I chose this passage.

It isn’t the nicest passage in the Bible.

There is something dangerous about this passage.

This passage highlights the holiness of God.

The closer one came to God,

the holy presence of God,

the more dangerous things became.

That is what I would like to ponder this morning – the holiness of God.

II. THE HOLINESS OF GOD

That word “holiness” – have you ever tried to define it?

You know, so much of our religious language is basically

the language of daily life put to theological use.

Earlier in the service, during the service of confession, we used words like wash,

and clean — washing and cleaning are part of daily life.

We wash hands, clean clothes.

But here, in church, we put those daily words to theological use.

We talk about washing hearts and cleaning lives.

The word “holy” is somewhat different.

It is close to words like clean, pure, spotless.

But it is more than that.

When something or someone is holy,

there is something wholly “other” about them,

something not of this world,

something transcendent.

It is a word that describes

who God is,

but it also describes the things and people that belong to God,

that are devoted to God.

Any relationship with God has to take into account his holiness —

the fact that there is this huge gap,

this space between us and him.

In his classic book called Beginning to Pray, Anthony Bloom begins by asking what it means to really desire to be in God’s presence?

He writes that if we read the Bible, we can’t help but become aware of the majesty of God, the holiness of God.

He writes that it is only right to wonder sometimes, “Am I even worthy to come before the Lord?”

Am I even worthy?

I know that the direction of this sermon may be making some of you nervous.

It may be sounding a bit like “worm theology.”

“Worm theology – what is that, you may ask?

Well I am using the phrase “worm theology”

to describe those theological traditions

that were obsessed with

how unworthy we are – as unworthy as worms.

These were traditions that made the holiness of God

so stern and so severe,

that the holiness of God could only be regarded as

both hard and harsh.

In many ways, and for many reasons, we don’t want to go back to that kind of

“worm theology.”

But don’t you think the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction?

Don’t you think we have lost the sense of the holiness of God?

III. BANAL/FLAT MODERN VIEW OF GOD

When people think about God today, what kind of God are they thinking of?

Isn’t it usually of a being who is nice and fair;

someone who is warm and approachable;

someone who is not very demanding at all – someone content to wait on the sidelines of our life until we are ready for him or need him?

This isn’t simply my opinion.

This is also the finding of a recent survey done by the National Study of Youth and Religion.^[1]

According to this survey of people in 7 different Christian denominations,

the majority of church-goers see God

as nice, easy-going, and there when you need him.

The Study gives a name to this kind of faith in this kind of God.

The Study calls it “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

Moralistic — God is nice and fair, and wants us to be nice and fair too.

Therapeutic — God wants us to be happy and feel good about ourselves.

Deism – God is fine with not being involved in our life, but he is there if we need him.

That seems to be the view of the majority of Christians in North America right now. A fairly flat, harmless, banal view of God and the Christian faith.

What is missing is a sense of God’s holiness,

of his transcendence,

of his power, his might – little sense of the great space that exists between us and God.

You know in the book of Hebrews it says,

“It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Later it says,

“Let us worship God with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”

The person who wrote those words had a keen sense of God’s holiness.

They lived with the Holiness Dimension in their lives.

So how do get that Holiness Dimension back.

Or how do we at least strengthen it, so that we too can worship God with reverence and awe?

IV. REVIVING THE HOLINESS DIMENSION – SPIRITUAL VERTIGO

Earlier this week, I was listening to the NPR program Fresh Air, with Terry Gross. She was interviewing a woman named Sue Barry, who has recently published a book called Fixing My Gaze. Sue Barry grew up extremely cross-eyed. So much so, that her brain starting processing the information only from one eye. The result was that she could see, but she could only see the world in 2 – dimensions.

Her world was flat.

Then, as an adult, she saw a developmental optometrist (I didn’t know there was such a thing, but apparently there is). This developmental optometrist began a regime of vision therapy – in other words, she helped teach Sue how to use both her eyes.

It was tough, but after a while Sue began to see the world in 3-dimensions.

And for Sue Barry, suddenly seeing the world in 3-dimensions was breath-taking.

She was stunned at how beautiful the world was.

But she also began to appreciate the danger of some of that beauty.

Before, when she saw the world in 2 dimensions, she had no fear of heights.

She could look down from high mountain tops and not feel a thing.

Now, when she is on a mountain top and looks down a steep cliff,

she is suddenly very aware of the space and very respectful of that space – she knows she is high, high up.

So these were some of the new things in her life:

awe before the beauty of the world;

yet deep reverence for some of its dangers too.

I think we need something like this in our spiritual life too.

I think we need to train our eyes to see and our minds to understand

that the world is filled with the glory of God, the beauty of God, the wonder of God.

But I also think we need to train our eyes to see and our minds to understand the huge gap or great space that exists between us and God.

I like to think of this awareness of that huge space between us and God,

as “spiritual vertigo,”

as making us somewhat dizzy with the reality of the holiness and majesty of the Almighty.

Think of Isaiah when he had his vision in the temple of angels singing,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.”

Isaiah had spiritual vertigo — he fell to his knees, and cried,

“Woe is me; I’m done for,

I am unworthy,

Yet I have seen the Lord God Almighty!”

When John was on the island of Patmos

and had his vision of the throne of heaven,

he also experienced “spiritual vertigo.”

He fell to his knees as though he were dead.

CHRIST — OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST

Spiritual vertigo –

that is what sensing God’s holiness is supposed to cause

– a certain degree of spiritual dizziness,

a certain degree of fear and trembling.

How can we, unholy, imperfect people that we are,

be anywhere near such a holy, perfect, and dangerous God?

On our own we can’t.

But here is the wonder of it all — what we could not do, God did.

God came down himself.

He came down and tabernacled with us.

By his blood, we are washed clean.

By his Spirit, we are declared holy.

He became the one,

by whom and through whom

we meet the Father.

In his name we are encouraged to approach God,

boldly,

confidently,

In his name, we are encouraged to call God

Father.

In his name, we are invited to have

an intimate relationship God the Father;

so intimate,

that we are able to enjoy Him

and to delight in him forever.

Trembling before God’s profound holiness,

yet rejoicing with profound gratitude for God’s mercy —

that is the essence of holy worship.

That trembling and that rejoicing

is what living with the holiness dimension

is all about.

1. See Kenda Creasy Dean, “Faith, nice and easy” Christian Century, August 10, 2010. ↑