BrittMerrick

Okay, thanx for the encouragement friends. Here is that last excerpt continued:

We read in Exodus 29:22-24 concerning the ordination of Aaron and his sons:

“You shall also take the fat from the ram and the fat tail, and the fat that covers the entrails and the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them and the right thigh (for it is a ram of ordination), and one cake of bread and one cake of bread mixed with oil and one wafer from the basket of unleavened bread which is set before the LORD; and you shall put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and shall wave them as a wave offering before the LORD.”

The word ‘ordination’ used in this text literally means ‘to fill the hands of’; idiomatically it meant to delegate authority, responsibility, care, and dominion. The rich inward parts of the ram of ordination and bread were to be put together and placed into (thus filling) the hands of the priests. The rich inward parts are a picture of the Deity of Christ and the bread is a picture of the Humanity of Christ. Here we see a potent and powerful Old Testament picture that those who are ordained to and assume the responsibility of the ministry are to have their ‘hands full’ of the Person of Christ.

No doubt, we who are in the ministry often feel as though we do indeed have our hands full, but they are to be full of Christ Himself and not simply the busyness of ministry. Though this is the picture and warning of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation the sincere minister seems to daily struggle with the praxis of the theology of nearness, and to succumb to the seduction of busyness, which is a dangerous compromise. Correspondingly, Eugene Peterson in addressing busy modern ministers asserts, “The word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to characterize a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.” Peterson recognizes in his words the seductive nature of pastoral busyness when he compares it to the sins of adultery and embezzlement, and also betrays the destructive force of it.

Perhaps busyness is so seductive to the pastor because it appeals to the carnal need to feel important and ‘in-demand’. It may also be that the minister is seduced by busyness because it is so much easier to do tasks than to cultivate a real relationship with Christ, which takes time and spiritual discipline. (NEED FURTHER UNPACKING HERE, OR RELATE TO MARTHA AND MARY).

 A final reason why clergy are so easily beset by busyness is because behind the wall of a full schedule and hurried pace one can hide from the searching eye of God upon one’s heart and the relentless demands of God’s people upon that same heart. If the pastor can just stay busy enough he secretly imagines that he will never have to deal with that nagging Holy Spirit who is calling him to deeper prayer or that persistent widow who is in so much need of help and encouragement, but whose intense need causes the pastor to shrink in his feelings of inadequacy and inability to deal with the depravity and brokenness of the very humanity to which he has been called.

This picture of having our hands full of the person of Christ is reminiscent of the Apostle John’s words about his contact with Christ in 1 John 1:1, “… what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld and our hands handled.” It is interesting to note that John is often referred to as the Apostle of Love, and that he wrote what is sometimes called the Epistle of Love (I John), and that he is the disciple that reclined on the bosom of Christ at the last supper who refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:20). What is even more intriguing, and what we believe to be a direct result of John’s priority of intimacy of relationship with Christ, are the facts that he was the disciple who had the longest ministry and received the greatest amount of divine revelation (i.e. the book of Revelation). Is it fair to assume that there is a connection between being continually near to Christ relationally and one’s potency and longevity in ministry? We believe so. The goal is to do ministry from an overflow. The overflow of a meaningful, vibrant, love affair with Jesus is the most potent ministry. That overflow is what the world needs to see. It has had enough of dead religion and pious routines. Jesus came to give life and the life of Christ should overflow our lives and manifest itself in loving service to others.

            What the priests in Exodus 29 were to do next as they held the representative sacrifice of Christ in their hands further paints a profound picture for those of us in the ministry. They were to, “wave them as a wave offering before the Lord.” There was a certain way that this wave offering was handled. It was only done one way and that way is profound in its implications for our journey as ministers. The Hebrew priests would wave the offering back and forth between them and the alter, thereby signifying that the sacrifice was to always be between them and the place of ministry. The alter, of course, being the primary place of ministerial work for the Jewish priests. It was their place of ministry! From the very beginning of ordinal history we observe the necessity of keeping the sacrifice, who is Jesus Christ, between us and the ministry. This is a rich lesson to be gleaned form this intriguing historical act which took place at the first ordination ceremony.

It would seem that for these men who were entering full time, vocational ministry that their office would keep them near to God. That does not seem to be automatic. In fact, we find that the ministry has this weird way of interfering with intimacy. The great pulipteer and pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon lamented this truth in the very helpful book Lectures to My Students when he says: “Brethren, it is eminently hard to keep to this. Our office instead of helping our piety, as some assert, is through the evil of our natures turned into one of its most serious hindrances; at least, I find it so.”