February 7

The Journey Begins - Numbers 10:1-36, 9:15-23; Exodus 40:36-38; Doubts and Murmurs - Numbers 11:1-35

Yes, cucumbers are mentioned in scripture as a manna alternative.

According to their complaining, the food the people miss from Egypt:  fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.  While I'm with them on the cucumbers and garlic, I have a hard time imagining any of this raining down from heaven or appearing like dew in the desert the way manna did.  Can you see a sea of cucumbers with racing people around picking them up each morning?  There's something comic about praising cucumbers from above.  And manna from heaven has a much better ring than garlic from heaven.

"Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirt that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders.  When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied...." [Numbers 11:25]

Sounds a bit like the Day of Pentecost.  And here is the Lord "come down" again.  Again He dwells among this.  Jesus was not the exception.  He was the rule.

Two guys - Eldad and Medad - receive the Spirit and prophesy even though they didn't go to the Tent of Meeting with the other elders as God asked.  In other words, in strictly legalistic terms, they didn't do what God asked but still received His Spirit.  God just plain doesn't color in the lines like we want and expect Him to.  He does the exceptional regularly.  Even when it's outside the proscribed or the interpretation of the scriptures we swear by.

The righteous Joshua points out that Eldad and Medad are prophesying and aren't at the Tent of Meeting and says, "Stop them!"  Moses replies, "I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!"

Thank you, Moses.  Because I wish and pray the Lord would place His Spirit on all of His children and everyone would go to heaven.  

And I would not object, Lord, if this is your plan.

My post from last year on this date.

February 6

Numbering of the Israelites (Continued) - Numbers 3:14-39, 4:1-49, 3:40-51

My sons Sawyer and John and their friend Justin at the Icewater Springs Shelter in the year we hiked through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the AT.  I think it was 2007.

Moments before sunrise...looking out from the Icewater Springs Shelter.

Sunrise from the Icewater Springs Shelter.  And every time I see the sun rise, I can't help but think -- "He has risen."

Mariana and I on August 12th 2006 at Icewater Springs, GSMNP.  Happy Anniversary.

"The leader of the families of the Kohathite clans was Elizaphan son of Uzziel.  They were responsible for the care of the ark...." [Numbers 3:30-31]

Each of the Levite family had it's own prescribed duty outlined in the care, operation and transportation of the Tent of Meeting.  Some carried the Tabernacle, some worried about the frames, others ropes and tent pegs.  The Kohathites cared for the ark.  Can you imagine that?  If the couldn't touch it, how could they "care" for it?  To knock off the dust and rub out the tarnish, did they carefully run a cloth over it...a cloth attached to the end of a rod?  What was it like to work so near the presence of God?  Did they hear God's voice from time to time as they were cleaning?  Did it glow and blind them with His glory?

I'd like to be the guy driving in the tent pegs and tightening the rope.  There's something satisfying about working with rope and tying a good knot.  I could do that.  Cleaning the ark, being that close to God from day to day would be tough.

"Moses and Aaron and his sons were to camp to the east of the tabernacle, toward the sunrise..." [Numbers 3:38]

I remember camping with Mariana in the Great Smoky Mountains on our anniversary.  I think it was our 23rd anniversary.  We spent the night in the Icewater Springs Shelter on the Appalachian Trail.  So far, it is my favorite place to spend the night outdoors in all the world because the shelter faces the sunrise.  There's just something magical and and miraculous and wondrous and blessed about waking up outdoors greeting the sunrise...with someone you love.

Ahhh, not sure this is the same for Moses and Aaron and his sons....  Make of it what you will.

But I do believe the Bible is our story, too.  So I regularly write myself and those I love into it.  

My post from last year on this date. 

February 5

First Passover After Egypt - Numbers 9:1-12; Numbering of the Israelites - Numbers 1:1-54, 2:1-34

Gandalf and Moses -- All good stories have the same origin.

We've finished Genesis and Exodus.  Now the text  jumps around a bit.  That's what I like about the Daily Bible's arrangement of scripture.  It reads like a novel because its organized chronologically according to a story line.  And that isn't a disservice to the Bible.  It is a story -- a wonderful narrative with heroes and foes, climax and denouement, symbolism, allusion and metaphor, plots and subplots, motifs and themes, rich with characters and loaded with meaning.  It is the story that breathes meaning into and stands as the basis for all our other stories from Ulysses to Arthur, Gandalf to Obi-Wan.  

Wit the Passover in today's reading, we're now one year out from when the Israelites left Egypt.  They left behind the wealth and riches of the Nile Delta for the empty, God-centered dependency of the Sinai Desert.  What are their hopes and their worries?  What did they suppose would happen that didn't?  I'm certain there is as much disappointment as there is excitement, as much fear as faith, as much uncertainty as assurance.

Do we really want God to make our laws and lead our leaders?  It would be our salvation.  But can we live with it?  Watch this theocracy unfold... and then unravel.

My post last year on this date.

February 4

The Levites Chosen for Service - Numbers 3:1-13, 8:5-26; Offerings from the Tribes - Numbers 7:1-89, 8:1-4

"When Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the atonement cover on the ark of the Testimony.  And he spoke with Him." [Numbers 7:89]

I don't know for sure, but this may be the first recorded instance where God speaks to Moses from the Mercy Seat, that space between the two cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant.

Was Moses taken back at all?  He was used to God speaking from something more spectacular.  From burning bushes, pillars of fire and columns of smoke.  He'd spent 40 days with God thundering on Mt. Sinai.  Wouldn't a voice coming from the relatively small space between the cherubim's wings seem far less majestic and powerful.  

Did Moses sense a distance gathering between him and the Lord?  Did he feel one step farther removed from the Father?  Is that what's happening here? 

My post from last year on this date.

February 3

Ordination of the Priests - Leviticus 8:1-36, 9:1-24, 10:1-20

For your religious appetite -- A cereal sculpture of the Children of Israel worshipping the golden calf.  It's crafted with Smacks, Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs, Cinnamon Chex, Rice Krispies and Shredded Wheat.  Hmmmmm, yum.

"So Aaron came to the altar and slaughtered the calf as a sin offering for himself." [Leviticus 9:8]

I wonder what Aaron thought as the calf was slaughtered for his ordination and to purify his sin -- his chief sin, of course, the making of the golden calf and then denying his part.  I'm sure it was a poignant moment.  Did he wonder, was he amazed and humbled that even after such a terrible public sin that he could be and was forgiven?  What grace.  

Why does Aaron escape, even when he tried to lie about it?  And when so many others were punished with death for the idol incident? Why?

And then two of his sons sin in the Tabernacle and die a horrible death, publicly consumed by far from heaven.  Could their be any worse punishment for a father than this?  Yes, they sin and so died.  But their father had sinned and lived.  

This is a hard reading for me as a father.  I pray often that the sins of the father don't visit the children.  I'm sure it left Aaron wondering why them and not him.  Wishing he could trade his fate for theirs.  Did he say and pray, "I would have gladly given my life for theirs, Lord!"

Another Father will sacrifice His Son but not for the sins of the Father or the Son.  He will die for ours.  As tragic and unfathomable as Aaron's and his sons' fates are...far more is what God subjects Himself and His Son to for us.  

Lord knows.

My post from last year on this date.

February 2

Construction of the Tabernacle (Continued) - Exodus 39:2-43, 40:1-35

Tent Revival

"Moses did everything just as the Lord commanded him." [Exodus 40:16]

And I do mean EVERYTHING.  Looks like Moses is a one-man Tabernacle band in this reading.  It's like he sets up the entire thing himself on it's trial run.  But then he did spend all of that time with God up on the mountain, 40 days, so he's the only one that really knows first hand how this thing goes up.  And to whom much is given much will be required.

Ever put up a new tent?  It's an activity that tests many an individual, marriage and family.  Now how about putting one up without any handy diagrams or instructions?  And how about a  really, really big tent.  I can see Moses racing around trying to get the frames and stands and loops all to line up.  Do  you think it went together without a hitch the first time?  Ahhhh, that would be a miracle in my book.

Moses gets it set up and God goes inside and tries out His new digs.  I suppose He likes it because His glory fills the tabernacle.  The Creator of the Universe on Earth...and in a tent.  It's amazing that the Lord wants to camp out with us.  But he does.  And there's no more intimate activity among friends and family.  Camping out together you just can't help get to know someone.

My post last year on this same date.

February 1

Construction of the Tabernacle - Exodus 35:4-35, 36:1-38, 37:1-29, 38:1-31, 39:1

From the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem

'"See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts -- to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic craftsmanship.'" [Exodus 35:30-33]

Bezalel is the lead artist/craftsman on the Tabernacle project.  What's that like?  

I wonder what it's like crafting the Ark of the Covenant?  The place where God presence was...?  Wonder if he made any mistakes and had to start over?  Again.  And again.  And again.  "Until I get it right!"  

I mean, it had to be perfect, right?  I'm sure Ol' Bezalel was quite the perfectionist.  Was he difficult to live with, too?  Was his wife excited, at first, that her husband had landed such a big public piece of work and then did her enthusiasm wane when he became obsessed with the project, waking up late at night and getting out of bed to pace the backyard thinking about it?  Were his in-laws proud for the first time that their no-account-chair-making-fabric-weaving-wall-covering son-in-law had finally made good? 

I'm sure it changed his life forever.  Was it a blessing and a curse?  Did everything he did after that fall short?  Did he die wandering in the desert, hoping that one day he would reach the Promised Land and build a home, a public plaza, a fountain, a permanent temple for the Lord?

We have only one moment in Bezalel's story and I can't help but wondering about the rest of his life....

My post last year on this date.