The Priest: Aaron (20 page)

Moses fell silent. Aaron raised his head enough to peer up at his brother standing, arms still outstretched, palms up. After a long while, Moses’ arms lowered to his sides and he let out a long, deep sigh. The glorious Presence came down once again and rested within the Tabernacle.

Aaron stood, slowly. “What did the Lord say?”

The only two men standing near were Caleb and Joshua, silent, terrified.

“Have the people gather, Aaron. I can only bear to say it once.”

The people came quietly, tense and afraid, for all had seen the glorious Presence standing above, and had felt the heat of wrath. They remembered too late how easily God could take the lives of those who rebelled against Him.

And the Lord’s anger was in Moses’ voice as he spoke God’s Word to the people. “The Lord will do to you the very things you said against Him. You will all die here in this wilderness! Because you complained against Him, none of you who are twenty years old or older and were counted in the census will enter the land the Lord swore to give you. The only exceptions will be Caleb and Joshua.

“You said your children would be taken captive. And the Lord says He will bring
them
safely into the land, and
they
will enjoy what you have despised! But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness! And your children will be like shepherds, wandering in the wilderness forty years. In this way,
they
will pay for your faithlessness, until the last one of you lies dead in the wilderness! Because the men who explored the land were there for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years! One year for each day, suffering the consequences of your sins. You will discover what it is like to have the Lord for your enemy! Tomorrow we are to set out for the wilderness.”

The people wailed.

The twelve men who had gone into the land to explore it were standing in the front lines of people. Ten of them groaned in pain and fell to their knees. Rolling in agony, they died where all could see them, near the entrance to the great tent that held the Tabernacle of the Lord. Only Caleb and Joshua remained standing.

Aaron wept in his tent, feeling he had somehow failed again. Would things have been different if he had stood with Joshua and Caleb? Was the Lord saying even he and Moses would never see the land promised? When Miriam and his sons tried to console him, he left them and went out to sit with Moses.

“So close.” Moses’ voice was filled with sorrow. “They were so close to all they have ever dreamed of having.”

“Fear is the enemy.”

“Fear of the Lord would have been their greatest strength. In Him is the victory.”

Eleazar ran into the tent early the next morning. “Father! Father, come quickly. Some of the men are leaving camp.”

“Leaving?” Aaron went cold. Did these people never learn?

“They say they are going into Canaan. They say they’re sorry they sinned, but now they’re ready to take the land God promised them.”

Aaron hurried out, but Moses was already there, crying out at them to stop. “It’s too late! Why are you now disobeying the Lord’s orders to return to the wilderness? It won’t work. Do not go into the land now. You will only be crushed by your enemies because the Lord is not with you!” Joshua and Caleb and others faithful had joined them, trying to block their way.

“The Lord is with us! We are the sons of Abraham! The Lord said the land is ours!” Heads high, they turned their backs on Moses and headed for Canaan.

Moses cried out one last time in warning. “The Lord will abandon you because you have abandoned the Lord!” When none turned away from certain disaster, Moses sighed wearily. “Prepare the camp. Go about your duties as the Lord has assigned. We’re leaving today.”

The Lord was taking them back to the place where they thought they had left Egypt behind: the Red Sea.

The people had not traveled a day when they started grumbling. Aaron saw the scowls and resentful looks. Wherever he walked, cold silence fell around him. The people did not trust him. After all, he was Moses’ brother and had taken part in the decision to turn back the way they had come. Back to the hardship. Back to fear and despair. The Lord had issued the order because of their disobedience, but now the people sought a scapegoat.

As they continued to rebel against the Lord, Aaron felt the mounting weight of their sins being loaded onto his back. Conquering his fear, Aaron walked among the people and tried to fulfill the thankless responsibilities the Lord had given him to perform for their sake.

Stragglers returned from Canaan. Most had been killed. Those who had survived were driven back as far as Hormah.

“Those ten spies were telling the truth! Those people are too strong for us!”

Aaron knew trouble was ahead, and did not know how to turn these people’s hearts toward God. If only they could see that it was their stubborn refusal to believe what God said that brought continued disaster on them.

They headed back because of their sin, but God continued to extend His hand to His people through Moses. When Aaron sat with his brother and heard the Word of the Lord, it flowed over him clearly and was so full of purpose and love. Every law given was meant to protect, to uphold, to sustain, to guide, to fix the people’s hope on the Lord.

Even the offerings were meant to serve a purpose and build a relationship with Him. The burnt offerings made payment for sins and showed devotion to God. The grain offerings gave honor and respect to the Lord who provided for them. The peace offerings were to be given in gratitude for the peace and fellowship the Lord offered. The sin offerings made payment for unintentional sins and restored the sinner to fellowship with God, and the guilt offerings made payment for sins against God and others, providing compensation for those injured.

Every festival was a reminder of God’s intended place in their lives. Passover reminded the people of God’s deliverance from Egypt. The seven-day Festival of Unleavened Bread reminded them of leaving slavery behind and beginning a new way of life. The Festival of Firstfruits reminded them how God provided for them with Pentecost at the end of the barley harvest and beginning of the wheat harvest to show their joy and thanksgiving over God’s provision. The Festival of Trumpets was to release joy and thanksgiving to God and the beginning of a new year with Him as Lord over all. The Day of Atonement removed sin from the people and the nation and restored fellowship with God while the seven-day Festival of Shelters was intended to remind future generations of the protection and guidance God provided in the wilderness and instruct them to continue to trust in the Lord in the years ahead.

Sometimes Aaron despaired. There was so much to remember. So many laws. So many feast days. Every day was governed by the Lord. Aaron was glad of that, but afraid that he would fail again as he had failed thrice before. How could he ever forget the molten calf, the deaths of two of his sons, and Miriam’s leprosy?

I am weak, Lord. Make me strong in faith like Moses. Give me the ears to hear and eyes to see Your will. You have made me Your high priest over these people. Give me the wisdom and strength to do what pleases You!

He was all too aware of the pattern of faith. He would witness a miracle and follow God in abject sorrow and repentance. God would seem to hide for a time and the doubts would begin. The people would start grumbling. Skepticism would spread. It seemed faith was strong when it suited the people’s purposes, but waned quickly under the stress of hardship. God’s divine presence was overhead in the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, promising to carry them through defeat to victory, but the people grew angry because it wasn’t soon enough to suit them.

Had any nation ever heard the voice of God speaking from fire as they had and survived? Had any other god taken one nation for Himself by rescuing it through means of trials, miraculous signs, wonders, war, awesome power, and terrifying acts? Yet that is what the Lord had done for them right before their eyes!

And still they complained!

It would take a bigger miracle than plagues and parting the Red Sea to change the hearts of these people. Not an outside miracle like raining manna from heaven or water from a rock, but something inside.

Oh, Lord, You’ve written the Law on stone tablets, and Moses has written Your Word on scrolls. Will it ever be written into our hearts so that we might not sin against You? Transform me, Lord. Change me because I’m hot and tired and irritated by everyone around me, by my circumstances. I hate the dust and the thirst and the hollow ache inside me because You seem so far away
.

It was not the war ahead that threatened to defeat Aaron, but the daily step-by-step journey in the wilderness. Every day had its challenges. Every day had its tedium.

We’ve been this way before, Lord. Will we ever get it right?

Aaron sat in Moses’ tent, resting in the congenial company of his brother. There would be no work today. No reading scrolls and going over instructions. No traveling. No gathering of manna. Aaron had been waiting for six days to have this one day of peace.

And now there was a commotion in the camp. He heard his name shouted. “What now?” He groaned as he rose. It was the Sabbath. Everyone was to rest. Surely, the people could leave him and Moses alone for one day out of the week!

Moses rose with him, tight-lipped and tense.

A gathering of men stood outside. One man was held between two others. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” He tried to jerk free, but was held firmly.

“This man was found gathering wood.”

“How do you expect me to make a cook fire and feed my family without wood?”

“You should have gathered wood yesterday!”

“We were walking yesterday! Remember?”

“Today is the Sabbath! The Lord said not to work on the Sabbath!”

“I wasn’t
working
. I was
gathering.”

Aaron knew the Law was clear, but he didn’t want to be the one to pronounce judgment on the man. He looked to Moses, hoping he would have a ready and just answer that would also be merciful. Moses’ eyes were shut, his face tight. His shoulders slumped and he looked at the man in custody.

“The Lord says the man must die. The whole community must stone him outside the camp.”

The man tried to fight free. “How do you know what the Lord says? Does God speak to you when none of us can hear Him?” He looked at the three men pulling and pushing him. “I didn’t do anything wrong! Are you going to listen to that old man? He’ll kill all of you before he’s through!”

Aaron walked beside Moses. He didn’t question what the Lord had said. He knew the Ten Commandments.
Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days a week are set apart for your daily duties and regular work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God.

The people gathered around the man. “Help me, brothers! Mama, don’t let them do this to me! I didn’t do anything wrong, I tell you!”

Moses took up a stone. Aaron bent to take up another. He felt sick. He knew he had committed greater sins than this man. “Now!” Moses commanded. The man tried to block the stones, but they came hard and fast from all directions. One hit him in the side of the head, another squarely between the eyes. He fell to his knees, blood streaming down his face as he screamed for mercy. Another stone silenced him. He fell face first into the dust and lay still.

The people surrounded him, crying out and weeping as they threw harder. It was his defiance that had brought them to this, his sin, his insistence that he do as he wanted when he wanted. If anyone turned away, they would be siding with him, siding with doing whatever they pleased in the face of God. Everyone must participate in the judgment. Everyone must know the cost of sin.

The man was dead, and still the stones came, one from each member of the assembly—men, women, children—until the body was covered over with stones.

Moses sighed heavily. “We must stand on higher ground.”

Aaron knew the Lord had given his brother words to say. He walked with him and stood beside him. Raising his hands, Aaron called out. “Come, everyone. Listen and hear the Word of the Lord.” He stepped aside as the people came and stood before Moses, their faces bleak. Children wept and clung to their mothers. Men looked less sure of themselves. God would not compromise with sin. Living had become a hazard.

Moses spread his hands. “The Lord says, ‘Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach the tassels at each corner with a blue cord. The tassels will remind you of the commands of the Lord, and that you are to obey His commands instead of following your own desires and going your own ways, as you are prone to do. The tassels will help you remember that you must obey all My commands and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that I might be your God. I am the Lord your God!’”

The people moved off slowly, heads down.

Aaron saw the strain in Moses’ face, the anger and the tears brimming as the people walked away in silence. Aaron wanted to comfort him. “The people hear the Word, Moses. They just don’t yet understand it.”

Moses shook his head. “No, Aaron. They understand and defy God anyway.” He lifted his head and closed his eyes. “Are we not called Israel? We are people who contend with God!”

“And still, He chose us.”

“Don’t become proud on that account, my brother. God could have made these rocks into men and probably had better luck with them. Our hearts are hard as stone, and we’re more stubborn than any mule. No, Aaron. God chose people beneath the heel of man’s power to show the nations that God is all-powerful. It is by and through Him we live. He is taking a multitude of slaves and making them into a nation of freemen under God so that the nations around will know
He is God
. And when they know, they can choose.”

Choose what?
“Are you saying He is not just
our
God?”

“The Lord is the
only
God. Didn’t He prove that to you in Egypt?”

“Yes, but . . . ” Did that mean anyone could come to Him and become part of Israel?

“All who crossed the Red Sea with us are part of our community, Aaron. And the Lord has said that we are to have the same rules for Israelite and foreigner. One God. One covenant. One law that applies to all.”

“But I thought He meant only to deliver us and give us a land that would belong to us. That’s all we want—a place where we can work and live in peace.”

“Yes, Aaron, and the land God has promised us is at the crossroads of every major trade route, surrounded by powerful nations, filled with people stronger than we are. Why do you suppose God would put us there?”

It was not a question that lightened Aaron’s burdened heart. “To watch us.”

“To see God at work in us.”

And then to say God was not God would be to deny and defy the power that had created the heavens and the earth.

Every day seemed to get worse, until Aaron found himself with Moses standing before an angry delegation formed by Korah, one of their own relatives! Korah wasn’t content to stand against them by himself, but had brought Dathan and Abiram, leaders of the Reubenite tribe as his allies, together with two hundred and fifty leaders well-known to Aaron, men who had been appointed to the council to help Moses shoulder the load of leadership. And now, they wanted more power!

“You have gone too far!” Korah stood in front of his allies, speaking for all of them. “Everyone in Israel has been set apart by the Lord, and He is with all of us. What right do you have to act as though you are greater than anyone else among all these people of the Lord?”

Moses fell face to the ground before them, and Aaron threw himself flat on the ground beside him. He knew what these people wanted, and he was powerless against them. Even more terrifying was what the Lord might do in the face of their rebellion. Aaron did not intend to defend his position when he knew his faith was weak and his mistakes so many!