The Priest: Aaron (15 page)

The next morning, Moses assembled his people. “You have committed a terrible sin, but I will return to the Lord on the mountain. Perhaps I will be able to obtain forgiveness for you.”

Heartsick, Aaron stood in front, sons behind him, elders around them. His brother would not even look at him. Turning away, Moses headed back up the mountain. With Joshua.

Moses had only been gone a few hours when the plague hit, and more died from sickness than had died by the sword.

Aaron stood in front of the repentant multitude, watching Moses make his way down the mountain path. It had been his sin that had brought death on so many, his weakness that allowed them to stray. He fought tears, overwhelmed with relief that his brother had come back so soon. Moses came toward him, staff in hand, his face filled with compassion. Aaron’s throat closed and he hung his head.

Moses put his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “We are to leave this place, Aaron.” He stepped away and addressed the people. “We are to leave this place!”

Aaron realized then that Moses no longer needed him. Where once he had been helpful, now he had proven himself unworthy to act as spokesman. Was this the cost of his sins? To be cut off from fellowship from the one he loved most in the world? How could he bear it?

Moses stood alone before the people, Joshua at a distance, watching. “We are to go up to the land the Lord solemnly promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He told them long ago that He would give this land to their descendants. And He will send an angel before us to drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Theirs is a land flowing with milk and honey. But the Lord will not travel along with us. . . .”

Tearing his robes, Aaron fell to his knees, weeping in anguish. This, then, was the cost of his weakness. All the people would be cut off from the Lord who had delivered them from Egypt!

“The Lord will not travel along with us, for we are a stubborn, unruly people. If He did, He would be tempted to destroy us along the way.”

The people wailed and threw dust on their heads.

Moses did not weaken. “Remove your jewelry and ornaments until the Lord decides what to do with us!”

Aaron was first to strip off his earrings and gold bracelets. He rose and left them at the boundary near the foot of the mountain. The people followed his example.

Remaining in camp, Aaron grieved as he watched Moses go to the tent he had pitched at a distance. If Moses ever spoke to him again, it would be more than he deserved. Aaron watched as the cloud moved from the mountaintop and came down before the entrance of Moses’ Tent of Meeting. He stood at the entrance of his own tent with his sons and daughters-in-law, his grandchildren and Miriam, and bowed low, worshiping the Lord and giving thanks for his brother, God’s messenger and the people’s mediator. Aaron and all those who belonged to him did not leave the front of their tents until the pillar of cloud returned to the mountaintop.

And the people followed his example.

When Moses did not return to camp, Aaron gathered his courage and went out. He found his brother on his knees chiseling rock. Aaron went down on one knee beside him. “Can I help you?”

“No.”

Nor did it appear could Joshua, who stood at the entrance of the tent where Moses met with God. Even when Moses came into the camp, Joshua remained at the Tent of Meeting, as it had come to be called.

“I’m sorry, Moses.” His throat was so tight and hot he had to swallow hard before he could say more. “I’m sorry I failed you.” He had not been strong enough to serve the Lord faithfully. He had let his brother down.

Moses’ face was gaunt from days of fasting and praying on the mountaintop, but his eyes glowed with an inner fire. “We have all failed, my brother.”

My brother.
Forgiven, Aaron’s knees buckled. He knelt, head down, tears streaming. He felt Moses’ hands on his head and then his kiss.

“And could I condemn you when the tablets I threw at the people from the mountain were God’s workmanship? It is not the first time I have allowed anger to rule me, Aaron. But the Lord is merciful and gracious. He is slow to anger and rich in unfailing love and faithfulness. He shows this unfailing love to many thousands by forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion.” The weight of Moses’ hands lifted. “But even so, He does not leave sin unpunished. If He did, the people would scatter wild across the desert and do whatever was right in their own eyes.” Moses gripped Aaron’s shoulder. “Now, go back to camp and watch over the people. I must finish chiseling out these tablets by morning and carry them back up the mountain.”

Aaron wished the Lord had given him some act of penance for his sins. A whipping might make him feel better. Leaving him in charge brought the full weight of his failure down on his shoulders. Joshua was looking at him, but Aaron saw no condemnation in the younger man’s eyes.

Aaron rose and left his brother alone. He prayed that the Lord God of Israel would give Moses strength to do as the Lord commanded. For the sake of them all.

Without the Lord, the Promised Land would be an empty dream.

Eleazar ran inside the tent. “Father, Moses is coming down the mountain.”

Aaron hurried outside with his sons and hastened toward the boundary line, but when he saw Moses’ white hair and glowing face, he drew back in fear. Moses did not look like the same man who had gone up the pathway days ago. It was as though the Lord Himself was coming down that pathway, the Law He had written on two stone slabs tucked beneath His arm.

The people ran.

“Come and hear the Word of the Lord!” Moses’ voice carried across the plain.

Stomach clenched with fear, Aaron obeyed. Others followed, tentative, ready to flee at the first sign of threat.

This is my brother, Moses,
Aaron told himself in order to have the courage to stand before the mountain.
My brother, the chosen prophet of God.
Was the Shekinah glory of God inhabiting Moses? Or was this merely a reflection of the Lord? Sweat beaded and ran down the back of his neck. Aaron didn’t move. He opened his heart and mind to listen to every word Moses said, promising himself he would live by it, no matter how hard it was.

“On these tablets I have written the Word the Lord gave me, for He has made a covenant with me and with Israel.” Moses read for all to hear the Law God had handed down from Mount Sinai. He had spoken the words once, but now they were written in stone and could be kept as a perpetual reminder of God’s call on their lives.

When Moses finished speaking, he surveyed the multitude. No one spoke. Aaron knew Moses was waiting for him to come near, but he did not dare. Joshua remained at Moses’ side—a silent, solemn sentry. Moses spoke to him quietly. Joshua said something in response. Taking the thin shawl from around his shoulders, Moses veiled his face.

Aaron approached him cautiously. “Is all well now between us, Moses?”

“Don’t be afraid of me.”

“You are not the same man you were.”

“As you are changing, Aaron. When you receive and obey the Word of the Lord, you cannot help but change when you stand in His presence.”

“My face does not glow with holy fire, Moses. I will never be as you are.”

“Do you wish for my place?”

Aaron’s heart drummed. He decided on truth. “I did. And I led like a rabbit rather than a lion.” Perhaps it was because he couldn’t see his brother’s face that he felt free to confess. “I have envied Joshua.”

“Joshua has never heard the voice of God as you have, Aaron. He is close to me because he longs to be close to God and do whatever God asks of him.”

Aaron felt the envy rise. Here it was again. Another choice. He let his breath out slowly. “There is no other like him in all Israel.” Strange that in the wake of that confession, he felt affection for the younger man, and hope that he would stand firmer than his elders had.

“Joshua is wholeheartedly for God. Even I wavered.”

“Not you, Moses.”

“Even I.”

“Not as greatly as I did.”

Moses smiled faintly. “Will we compete over whose sin is greatest?” He spoke gently. “We all sin, Aaron. Did I not plead with God to send someone else? The Lord called you, too. I needed a spokesman. Don’t ever forget that.”

“You don’t need me anymore.”

“You are needed, Aaron, more than you realize. God will use you yet to serve Him and lead His people Israel.”

Before Aaron could ask how, others interrupted. He was not the only one who yearned for personal contact with the only man in the world who spoke to God like he would to a friend. To be close to Moses made them feel closer to God. Veiled, Moses moved among them, touching a shoulder here, stroking the head of a child there, speaking to everyone tenderly, and always of the Lord. “We are called to be a holy nation, set apart by God. The other nations will see and know that the Lord, He is God and there is no other.”

God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled. Israel would be a blessing to all nations, a light to the world so that all men might see there was one true God, the Lord God of heaven and earth.

Aaron walked with his brother whenever he came into camp, relishing what time they had together, listening to Moses’ every word as though the Lord Himself were speaking to him. When Moses spoke, Aaron heard the Voice come through his brother’s words.

Moses pleaded with the Lord for the people’s sake, and God stayed with them. Everyone knew it was for the sake of Moses that God changed His mind, for had the Lord left them, Moses’ gray head would have gone down to the grave in grief. God knew Moses loved the people more than he loved his own life.

Each time Moses spoke, Aaron saw the gap between the ways of God and the ways of men.
Be holy because I am holy.
Every law was aimed at removing sin from their lives. God was the potter, working them like clay and reshaping them into something new. All the things they had learned and practiced in Egypt, and still practiced in the hidden recesses of their tents and hearts, would not go unpunished. God would not allow compromise.

Every time Moses came out of the Tent of Meeting, he came with more laws: laws against the abominations of Egypt and the nations around them; rules for holy gifts, holy convocations; crimes that required death; Sabbath days and Sabbath years; Jubilee and the end of slavery; prices and tithes. Every part of their lives would be governed by God. How would they ever remember it all? The laws of God were in complete opposition to everything they had ever known and practiced in Egypt.

Through the Law, Aaron realized how deeply immersed his own family had become in practicing the ways of the people around them. He and his brother and sister were children of incest, for their father had married his aunt, sister to his own father. The Lord said Israelite men were to marry outside their immediate families, but within their own tribes to keep the inheritance He would give them from being cut apart. And never were they to take women from other nations as their wives. Aaron wondered how Moses had felt when he heard the Lord say this, for he had taken a Midianite to be his wife. Even their ancestor Joseph had broken this law, marrying an Egyptian, and Joseph’s father, Israel, had given his favorite son, Joseph, a double blessing, acknowledging Manasseh and Ephraim.