Reading: Exodus 29, Corinthians 3
“And
Moses examined all the work and behold, they had done it; just as the Lord had
commanded, this they had done. So Moses blessed them.” -Ex. 29:43
In
Exodus 39 we read of the construction of the priestly garments and the
tabernacle. And to no one's surprise, the priestly garments and the tabernacle
were made according to the specifications that God had given to Moses earlier
in Exodus. God commits a large portion of the Torah to laying out the
blueprints for how the children of Israel were to worship, dress, eat, work and
live. Just like His pattern for the tabernacle and the priestly garments, God's
instructions for life were to be done “just as the Lord commanded.”
As an
architect, God is fairly inflexible. This is a great frustration to us creative
genius types. We don't want to be micro-managed. We want to be free to take
God's blueprint for living and tweak it to work for us. I have no artistic
skill or sense of esthetic but I am sure that if I was building the tabernacle
or the priestly clothes I would want to have a little wiggle-room to get
creative or “have fun with it.” (Maybe instead of pomegranate, bell,
pomegranate, bell, pomegranate, etc . . . we could throw in a couple of
rainbows or a sea horse.) Yet despite God entrusting the job to skillful
artisans, He seemed to orchestrate the process so as to create exactly what He
wanted.
When
God created the world, He did so independently. He didn't outsource the job to
mother nature or skillful artisans, but rather made the heavens and earth by
His own “hand” and according to His own pattern. Untold years later human
beings are still studying this earth and attempting to unlock the meaning of
the universe.
The
other day my two year old son and I were playing with play-dough together. We
collaborated together on some turtles before I realized that if I wanted to
make anything that could be described as more than “a wad” I was going to have
to do it independently. I could understand why God may wish to do His own
decorating for His earthly dwelling place, the tabernacle. Or why God may wish
to be in charge of determining how his priests are to dress or His people
behave or His universe function. What I find especially fascinating is that
God, who has very particular preferences about everything, would allow His
people any opportunity at all to participate in His creative process.
Why do
you think that God “outsourced” these jobs to Israel? Is He like a Father,
taking pleasure in the scribblings of His children? Then why does He make rules
for how His children are to scribble? Or is it that the real work that God was
doing was not building an earthly tabernacle to live in, but rather creating an
obedient heart that would be His tabernacle? What does it say about our God
that He could make something so amazing and specific using such naturally
contrary hands? What divine truths are hidden in God's incredibly specific
patterns?
Tradition indicates that Moses's blessing was partly written down in his Psalm (Ps 90).
ReplyDelete"Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
Let the favor (KJV says "beauty") of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands." Ps 90:16-17
I don't know if we always intertwine God's work with our work. We want to separate it so as to reduce the risk of soiling God's reputation. But if we do a careful and informed job how can God NOT be glorified?