PIECES OF THE PUZZLE - THE MYSTERIOUS STORY OF THE RED HEIFER

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Have you ever felt compelled to study the details of the sacrifice of The Red Heifer?  The study is fascinating and I keep coming back to it year after year.  If you’ve never heard of it, this was a sacrifice of a perfect Red Heifer that God commanded of Moses to make for the people in order to cleanse them before entering the Tabernacle in the wilderness.  Apparently, the ritual was put into place immediately as the Tabernacle came into use as God had instructed Moses. 

The requirements were that the heifer must be three years old and perfectly red; it must be physically free from any blemish or defect; it must never have been used to perform any physical labor; it was to be taken to a specific place outside the camp where it was slaughtered and burned; its ashes were mixed together with pure spring water to make a mixture to be sprinkled on the people for purification.

This practice started with Moses and was carried on all throughout history until the last temple was destroyed.  There have been nine red heifers and the nation of Israel is waiting on the 10^th to appear. 

Originally the people were contaminated and became impure because of the making of the golden calf.  You can read the story in Deuteronomy, Chapter nine of your bible.  To make it very short here it was a time when Moses had ascended to the mountain of God to receive the commandments of God.  The people were tired of waiting on their leader to return.  They were bored and restless, and they appealed to Aaron, whom Moses had left in charge to create a golden calf.  Miriam’s son Hur tried to persuade the people that this was wrong and they killed him for standing up to them.  Now bulls were a pagan symbol of worship in the land of Cannan and also in some areas of Egypt from where the people had just been released from slavery.  Aaron, probably afraid of the same fate as Hur, complied with their wishes and made the calf that they wished for him to make. Many scholars have pointed out too that there were Egyptians that had tagged along with the crowd as they left Egypt and that they had been secretly conspiring, persuading the people to make the calf.  Aaron was said to have stalled for time, thinking that Moses would soon return.  When that didn’t work he was said to have commanded that the people bring all their gold for it, thinking they might be stingy and not want to give it.  They complied.  It is unlikely that Aaron actually intended this calf be an idol, as he proclaimed a Feast for Yahwah after he finished making it.  (Exodus 32:5). 

At first it appeared that the people worshipping the calf seemed to associate it with the God who brought them out of Egypt.  It was said by some that the Egyptian conspirators knew magic tricks that made the calf appear to jump out of the fire.  Many believe that this was when the people’s hearts turned from worshipping God to worshipping the golden calf.  They allowed themselves to be tricked into believing a lie by sensational magic.  What ever the circumstances leading up to this, there are many theories, as time went on the truth came out.  Most of the people had wanted Aaron to make them a God to lead them because Moses had tarried so long on the Mountain.  They had allowed themselves to be deceived.  Whatever their original intentions, it becomes clear in Exodus 32:8 that the people immediately fell to worshipping the calf and violated the first commandment that God was giving to Moses on the Mountain (Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me.)

Now, God is omnipresent.  He could see the people in the camp and tend to Moses on the Mountain at the same time.  He KNEW this was going on the whole time, yet; He was giving Moses instructions of His will.  God informed Moses of his displeasure with the people and that they would die for their sins.  He told Moses that a new people, descendents of Moses would take their place and carry His will with them to the nations of the world. 

Moses was very distressed.  He prayed for God to forgive the people, reminding God of the covenant with Abraham and begging for mercy.  God decided to be merciful. 

Moses had promised the people that he would return in 40 days.  When the 40^th day arrived, Moses returned at sunset with the Commandments of God in his hands.  His assistant, Joshua was waiting on him at the foot of the Mountain.  They returned together at the end of the 40^th day after receiving the Revelation of God, just as promised.  When they approached the camp and saw what was taking place Moses threw the tablets of the commandments on the ground in frustration, breaking them into a million shattered pieces.  He took the golden calf and ground it to dust and spread the dust over water and made the people drink it.  This was his way of showing them the worthlessness of their idol and the lack of power it had.  Moses then stood at the entrance of the camp and told everyone who worshipped God to stand with him.  The entire tribe of Levi came. He then commanded those who were of God to slaughter those who had worshipped the golden calf, no matter how important those people were to them.   That day three thousand of the children of Israel lost their lives because of the sin of idolatry.

Moses went back up the mountain and prayed to God for the next 40 days while the people mourned their dead and atoned for their sins before God.  When the 40 days were up God told Moses to hew another set of tablets.  Moses ascended to the mountain a third time for God to inscribe the commandments.  Over the next 40 days God inscribed the commandments and told Moses that He had forgiven the children of Israel.   As Moses stood on the mountain with the commandments in his hands God taught Moses how the people could make atonement for their sins through repentance and prayer.  God proclaimed thirteen attributes for the people to recite in the days of their repentance.  These are a story unto themselves, but you can read of them in Exodus 34:6-7. 

After all of this Moses invited God to go before them and to use them as His people again.  God promised a covenant to Moses.  On the tenth day of the month of Tishrei (Yom Kippur) Moses returned to the camp and brought the commandments and told the people of God’s covenant with them.   God had promised them many blessings and miracles.  Moses’ face shinned so bright that the people were frightened and looked at him in awe.  Moses veiled himself and proceeded to teach the children of Israel the Torah.

Well……I tried to make that explanation as brief as possible, but you can’t leave much out and have the whole story.  Getting back to the reason for the Red Heifer, can you see how this ritual would signify the reversal of the sin of the golden calf? 

There are many mysteries surrounding the thought and ritual of The Red Heifer.  It was originally used to purify the people, especially from the contamination of death.  Death was considered the worst impurity of all impurities, life was considered the most sacred of all pure.  Sin had brought the death of three thousand people.  Think of the form of sin here.  They let others in the culture persuade them of untruth.  Can you see that around us today?  They didn’t just get up one day and decide to be disobedient to God, it seeped in on them from worldly influences.  Are you getting a picture of this now?  Could we in the United States of America be guilty of the sin of idolatry too?  The answer is not hard.  Do we too need to be made pure from the water and ashes of a red heifer?  Well, it did happen.  Just like God was merciful to the People of Israel who followed Him, He has looked down on us today and provided a way for us to be cleansed of the impurity of death from association with the ways of our current culture.  Our Red Heifer came in the form of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. 

After years and years of God teaching His people the story in a million different ways, God sent His Only Begotten Son.  The Son of God lived out the story in every aspect of His life on earth.  Can we not look upon His life and see that He was our sacrifice, our salvation, our only hope?  The church stands like Moses and says, you who believe in God come to my side.  Take a stand and live out what you believe no matter how hard the turn may be for you.  You may have to give up some things that are dear to you in order to come out of the world.  The answer though, on the other side of the cross, is life!  Life is worth it all. Eternal life is the final gift of God to His people.  Jesus died that we may live forever.  It is a pardox, much like the paradox of the Red Heifer.

Those who administered the ashes of the Red Heifer had to contaminate themselves outside the camp with the death of the cow.  This made them impure.  In taking on these impurities from death though, they were able to cleanse the people that they served. 

In considering this I think of the people today who have willingly made the sacrifice in risking their own lives to give medical help to those who have possibly fatal diseases, such as the doctors and nurses who have recently been in the news for treating cases of ebola.  I have noted that those who know God and have gone to their jobs with the backing of prayer and the heart of a servant of God have fared much better.  Is this a coincidence?  

Such was the case with our dear Jesus who took on our sins before God on the cross.  Sin is the greatest disease there is.  He took on all of our sin.  He was pure, but he became impure for a time  with our sins on the cross in order to cleanse us from the sin we have brought on ourselves.  

The priests of the temple went through the same ironic service year after year, always teaching in their actions the mercy and justice of God.  Mercy and justice existing together are yet another form of paradox we must consider in this story.

This is only a small sampling of the stories behind the mystery of The Red Heifer.  It is said that the whole Torah can be explained just from this one story.  It contains so much more than man can even begin to understand.  It is all about being obedient and faithful to God even when you do not know or understand what is going on in your circumstances.

The amazing story of The Red Heifer is a wonderful thing to consider as we make our way through a pagan world. 

COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 60 - THE LORD WILL PROVIDE THE LAMB

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

It was the third day of their journey and Abraham walked on in faith, straight up the mountain that God showed him with his son Isaac by his side. 

Abraham carried the knife and the fire and Isaac carried the wood.

Not a word was heard from Abraham.  It was Isaac who broke the silence.  Isaac called out to Abraham; “My Father.”  “Here I am, my son” Abraham answered. 

Isaac noted that he saw the fire and the wood but asked where is the lamb for the burnt offering?  Abraham answered:  “God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering my son.”  

We read in the midrash that when Abraham answered these words Isaac put his head between his hands and wept, then asked Abraham if this was from the Torah that he had heard Abraham discuss with Sarah.  The midrash speaks of Abraham weeping at this point and mentions that Isaac sought to comfort him and a conversation took place where Isaac gave his father permission to fulfill God’s will through him.  Isaac states that he wished for his blood to provide atonement for the Jewish people.  Both the Torah and the Midrash state that the father and son walked on together in agreement.  

It seems that Isaac, probably in his mid to late thirties now, understood and went willingly to a sacrificial death, Abraham leading him there and willingly giving him over to God.

Have you ever had to “walk on?”  Sometimes walking on is a very hard thing to do.  Sometimes we are asked to do very hard things, like carry wood and fire and a knife.  Everything feels like a struggle of the will.  Life is full of sacrifices that must be made.  They usually come through the things we cherish and the ones that we love the most.  

Walking on takes great courage, but more than that; walking on takes great love.  Abraham and Isaac walked on completely submitted to God’s will because of the great love they both shared for God and each other.  The story of the Akadah is the first place in the bible where we hear of the Hebrew word for love.  There is no greater love than this, that a man would lay down his life for his brothers or that a father would give his son in exchange for other people’s lives. 

So they came to the designated place that God showed them.  Most believe this was the very same place that Adam had offered sacrifices to God, a place that had been destroyed during the great flood.  After the flood Noah had rebuilt the place of the altar and offered up offerings to God there with his family.  Nimrod had destroyed this place after the fall of the tower of Babel, and now Abraham rebuilt the altar in this exact same spot.  He laid the wood in order.  As Abraham built, Isaac had every opportunity to escape and run away.  He stayed, submitted and humble, ready to do his Father’s will, believing that God would save them both through this offering. 

Abraham bound a submitted and willing Isaac who laid himself down on top of the wood.  It is very significant that Isaac laid himself down on top of the wood.  We know of many years later when another Son would come from another Father and willingly lay himself down on top of the wood of a tree,  just as Isaac laid atop this altar of wood that his  father built.

In offering the sacrifice it was important for the throat of the sacrifice to be slit quickly.  The scriptures say Isaac set his face like a flint to fulfill God’s will.  Isaac lay with his eyes directed toward heaven.   Abraham stretched out his hand to make the cut.  For a few seconds Abraham examined the knife to be sure it was ritually fit for the cut.  It was in that very moment that The Angel of the LORD called his name from heaven!  “Abraham! Abraham!” 

The Angel of The LORD told Abraham not to lay a hand on the boy and not to harm him.  “For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

With joy Abraham immediately released Isaac and recited the prayer of blessing:  “Blessed are You LORD, who revives the dead!”

Abraham lifted his eyes from the prayer and beheld a ram caught by the horns in the thicket.    Abraham took the ram and offered it up on the altar in the place of his son.  With the thought in mind of a substitute offering, Abraham prayed while sacrificing the ram that God would regard the offering as though it were his son.  God accepted Abraham’s offering in place of Isaac. 

It is said in the midrash that Abraham, after making the sacrifice, prayed to God and mentioned that he had not questioned or argued when God had made the request of him, but that he had willingly offered up his son until God stopped the action.  Abraham requested that God remember this each time one of the sons of his later generations sinned and Abraham requested that God would have mercy on their sins because of this and always forgive them.  Many of Abraham’s descendants can be very thankful for that prayer. 

The Talmud mentions that God asked Abraham to sound the sound of the rams horn before him each year so that He would remember the binding of Isaac and count it as mercy toward the children of Abraham forever.  This is why we blow the shofar at Rosh Hashanah, to remind God to be merciful to His children who are doing their best to be faithful.  Each year at the sound of the shofar, God is reminded of the prayer of blessing from Abraham.

This place where God had called for the sacrifice of Isaac is a very sacred place.  Abraham called it Adonai Yireh which means “The LORD will provide” because God had provided a ram in place of Isaac.    

Moriah comes from the verb “ra’ah,” which means “to see.”  It was said on Mt. Moriah that the LORD saw the need of the people and made provision for a substitute sacrifice that would save them. 

Mt. Moriah, which is called Zion has been the place for many, many sacred events ever since.  Many years later Jacob,  the son of Isaac dreamed here of a ladder that reached up to heaven.  Years after that, the Temple was built on the very spot where Isaac was bound and Jacob dreamed of Heaven. 

It was in this very place where another Son, the true Son of God, the perfect lamb, was eventually sacrificed on a cross of wood for all of the sins of mankind.  Isaac, as brave and courageous as he was, is only a shadow of the great and awesome love of Jesus Christ for His people.  He died for us all right in this very same spot on Mt. Moriah. 

On The Mountain of The Lord God truly provided a lamb.

      

PEN ART - THE REFLECTION OF CHRIST IN NEHEMIAH - PART THREE

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

 In Nehemiah's day, the beginning of all the building started  in a spot that was deemed the most important place in the wall.  The place was known as  the wall around the Sheep Gate.  This gate represents Jesus, our Good Shepherd. 

This is the gate mentioned in John 5:2,  the gate beside the pool of Bethesda.  It is the gate beside the pool with five porches, which could easily stand for five types of ministry. 

This is the gate where the sheep were washed and brought into the temple for sacrifice.  Here we are washed of our sins, just like the sheep in Nehemiah's day.  The priest who offered up the sacrifices were required to live in this area.  They had to live next to The Sheep Gate.

  At the time of Nehemiah the High Priest's name was Eliashib.  "El" means "God."  "Yashib" means "to go back."  Reading backwards as the Hebrews do - we can hear a message even in the name of the high priest who worked at this gate.  The message says "go back to God" - or REPENT.

So it is recorded by Nehemiah that the wall around the Sheep Gate was built by one whose names meant "repent."  This gate is the perfect Old Testament picture of the New Testament sacrifice of The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.  This gate shows us the cross. 

We are lead to think immediately of the prophet Isaiah's great words about Jesus, "as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth."  (Isa. 53:7).   At the Sheep Gate of our lives there is a principle of death at work.  It is the death of the natural self.  It is the way we come to our own cross.  We are called to obey Christ, to follow Him and to walk with Him.  That means that some of our desires, some of our natural longings must be put to death.  That is the principle of the cross.  This is a gate that must be kept in repair if we want to grow into a strong Christian.

 A gate is an opening.  The cross symbolized by this Sheep Gate, is an opening to God.  A beginning.

 On each side of the Sheep gate the walls lead to two towers, one tower in each direction.  The first tower is named "Meah."  "Meah" means "Hundred."  The second tower is called The Tower of Hananeel - which means - "God is gracious and merciful."  "Hanan" means "gracious and merciful."  "El" means "God."  Reading backwards we have "God is gracious and merciful."

 Reading the gate and the wall by the meaning of the names of the places in the wall we come to see an Old Testament message with a New Testament meaning:  "The walls of Salvation built by one named "repentance" stands between two tall towers that say "God is gracious and merciful to hundreds."

 In the Old Testament, in the story of Nehemiah, there is a gate of sacrifice in the middle of a wall of salvation called The Sheep Gate that opens the way to God for mankind.  This beautiful picture that God has painted for those with eyes to see, just like a thousand other Old Testament pictures of Christ, brings us hope.  It is a reason to hold on to our belief in God and to cling to our faith in all circumstances, even when we appear to be as broken as Nehemiah's walls.