Washing by water and fire

You shall purify for yourselves every garment...and you shall wash your clothes on the seventh day and be clean, and afterward you may enter the camp. Numbers 31:20 & 24

The laundry is in the machine as I type this. There is one thing about clothing...it gets dirty. It is amazing how body oils and dead skin contaminate clothing, as well as dust, rubbing against things, and dropped food and stains can make clothes that were clean in the morning in need of a good washing by the end of the day. We have explored washing in a previous blog. God calls us to clean our clothes. He doesn't like dirt. He constantly tells His people to wash their clothes, their hands, their feet, and more importantly, their hearts.

This context in Numbers has us cleaning for a different reason, and there is more than one cleaning agent being used in the whole of the passage.

They have just taken their revenge on the Midianites and are coming back from war. Now we all know that war back then was not pretty. It was a bloody, ghastly scene. The clothes that they were talking about here were those worn by those who killed anyone, or had physical contact with any of the slain. And it wasn't just the clothes that were to be cleaned, but everything they had brought back from the war, including the spoils like gold and silver, tin and bronze. Whatever came back from the battle, including the men themselves, were to be purified by one of 2 means – water and fire. If it could pass through the fire to be cleansed, then it was passed through the fire, and then washed. If, like a garment, it could not pass through the fire, then water alone was used. Nothing that had not been made clean in this way could come back into the camp, their living quarters. No impure thing could come in to contaminate the women, children, and homes of the Israelites. A massive clean up operation was to take place outside the camp for 6 days, and on the seventh day they could come back home.

If you have traveled anywhere in the world, you will realize that cleanliness is not held in high regard in some cultures, and diseases spread easily, killing many needlessly. In areas where the Judao-Christian culture has set down roots, there is far less disease spread. God is a God of order and commands things for the good of the people. They didn't understand germs, but God did. They washed because they were told to, not because they understood the purpose of it. That is how a lot of God's word works...if we would just obey it, knowing it comes from the hand of a Loving Father instead of questioning it, we would find that His commands saved us from a LOT of misery...a lot of unnecessary harm.

But there were 2 methods of cleansing. The water we understand. The fire is the other. Scriptures say that our God is a consuming fire, and Revelations describes Jesus as having eyes of fire and His feet glowed like metal in a furnace. Our works are tried by fire in 1 Corinthians 3. God consumes all of the evil and impurity and sends it all to hell to be destroyed forever. If we do not choose to let the fire of His cleansing and testing purify us here, we will suffer it eternally in the world to come. The eyes of God see everything, and nothing is hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do. (Hebrews 4:13). All things are judged, and the impurities are brought out. But the hope of all this is that when the furnace rages and the impurities rise to the top, they will be dredged off by the Savior and we will be purified, like gold. (Job 23:10) The more the furnace rages, the more the impurities are separated from the true metal. They are burnt off, scraped into the scrap heap, leaving pure, costly gold worthy of great price.

But even when the gold is purified, once cooled, it is washed, polished, and used. Washing of the Water of the Word (Ephesians 5: 25) done by Christ Himself brings us to Him pure and unspotted. When we come out of the battlefield of this world, we will be cleansed from all of its pollutants, all remnants of the impurities that we were exposed to just by being in contact with the defilement of this world. The blood of the war, the oils and soils of the daily grind, and the rubbing elbows with those not of the True Camp of God's people will be washed away so that we can be presented acceptable into God's presence without bringing our contamination into the Holy Place.

So if the heat is on, the battle raging, remember that if we endure the process, we will be more purified, washed clean, and presented before the throne without spot or blemish, with nothing to hide! The fellowship with God will be sweet and pure and holy. Only He can clean us by the fire and the water to make us acceptable in His sight. And that is a good thing, for there may come out of my laundry tub an unseen, untreated stain that may defile the cloth and make it unacceptable. He never washes and leaves a stain behind...

Who is on display?

There were hangings of fine white and violet linen held by cords of fine purple linen on rings of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement...according to the king's bounty...Esther 1: 6-7

It's almost that time of the year here in the US...the holidays are upon us. I looked on this passage and thought about the banners streaming in towns across the fruited plain. Iowa City has banners placed along Dubuque Street and Park for people to see as they come into town. They celebrate all sorts of occasions throughout the year, announcing events, holidays, and celebrating people of the area. And now it will be too cold and wet for them. The banners will go away until spring, I assume. The weather would just be too hard on them over the winter...but wait! Christmas decorations will be going up... the lights, the ornaments, the spectacle that has become the holidays will be upon us, and they still do the same thing. They are displayed according to the city's bounty. What they do in Rockefeller Center in NYC is far more extravagant than what we can even dream of here in a town of less than 3000. But it puts their bounty on display.

Cloth can celebrate all kinds of events...there are the banners for birthdays and weddings and special events, there are napkins folded like Christmas trees. There are table runners and candle mats to remind us of the seasons or holidays. There is abundance flowing out of cloth cornucopias, and pumpkins and corn and grapes and apples for Thanksgiving. There are stockings on mantles for Christmas. There is celebration in cloth where ever we look.

And some of it is good, and some misses the mark.

Mind you, I have made all of the family Christmas stockings...cross stitched or embroidered, they are there for the filling every year. There is the cloth Nativity, and the cross stitched Praying Santa. Some hit the mark, and some miss it. The teddy bear theme runs through the kid's stockings. They have no real significance to the real meaning of Christmas, and that is the miss. The Nativity and the Praying Santa have everything to do with it. The lights and the tree can mean something if you know what to think about...the concept of Christ bringing eternal life and being the Light of the World can strike the bullseye dead center or miss it completely.

And do you know the Scripture's word for missing the mark? It is called SIN. Wow.

I will not even go on my diatribe about a world that wants Christmas only so it can sell stuff while denying us the “privilege” of saying the WORD Christmas because it might offend someone. We want all the trappings without any of the meaning. We celebrate sales figures instead of the God who gives us the strength to work, the resources to use, and the time to live here on his good earth.

That is what Xerxes did...he celebrated himself for 180 days...he “displayed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of his great majesty.” He sinned. He missed the mark. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His majesty...that is what many of the Psalms and Prophets tell us to do. Look on His gloriousness. Look at His bountiful provision with gratitude, not arrogance. Look at the gift of His Son as the reason to give on the Day of His first appearing on the earth. That is hitting the bullseye.

I won't be a party pooper and tell the world not to decorate, but I will still cringe at St. Nicholas being turned into a cartoon character and used as a means to get kids to behave for a couple of months. I will enjoy the colorful lights, the choosing of gifts for loved ones because we love and appreciate them, and the stuffing of stockings because the little things like giving your future son-in-law a filled stocking when he didn't expect it creates a memory. This time of year is the season of giving if we want it to be, or the season of running around fretting, working, and driving ourselves into hating the holidays. If we keep the love of God in our hearts, we can display signs of His coming to earth to save us with pure hearts and great joy. We can watch the Charlie Brown Christmas and remember that we are not the only ones who forget why we are doing this all in the first place. We can look back on the year with gratitude for the good times, and gratefulness for being held in God's hand through the rough times.

As we enter into the holiday season, let's caution our hearts against being like Xerxes and Chevy Chase and Tim Allen, putting ourselves on display. Let us seek to put Christ on display this year, and as long as we live on this earth. Then there will be peace in our hearts whether or not there is peace on earth. The one who deserve the praise will receive it and our hearts will rejoice more and more in His splendor.