Friday, 6 March 2020

Regular sacrifices and meetings

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"Through all your generations this is to be the regular burnt offering at the entrance to the tent of meeting before ADONAI. There is where I will meet with you to speak with you." Exodus 29:42 (CJB)

This verse comes near the end of Tetzaveh, the Torah portion for this week, after the descriptions of the splendid robes that were to be made for Aaron and how he and his sons were to be consecrated over the course of a week. Now we come to this, the burnt offerings that were to be offered every single day. The second half of the verse particularly stands out to me: "There is where I will meet with you to speak with you."

It's relatively easy to make a large effort as a one-off to study a knotty doctrinal topic, but to keep up a commitment to regularly study Scripture and pray can take more commitment. We can get spasmodic, say we'll do better next week, tomorrow we will have more time, we'll catch when we get home from work ... and maybe a week has gone by and we have hardly spent more than five minutes in prayer.

Baruch HaShem, our contact with G-d is not limited to our "quiet times", but maybe we should consider if we are called to times of regular "burnt offerings" and if we are missing out on a special time of meeting with Him? One of the New Covenant passages for this week reminds us that this should be natural - and more than just a one off:

"Through [Yeshua], therefore, let us offer G-d a sacrifice of praise continually. For this is the natural product of lips that acknowledge His name." Hebrews 13:15 (CJB)