Blood and Water (Denim Faith #2)

JP Bohanan -

2015/08/16
Christ Church, Mountain Top
Series:
Denim
Faith: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Lunch Pail Crowd, and Leviticus
Call
to Worship, Psalm 133
Children, Mark 4.21-23 (kids, parable of the light on a
stand)
Message,
Leviticus 8.1-36
Nitty
Gritty Dirt Band song, “Will the
Circle Be Unbroken”
Particular
      Great detail around ordination to
priesthood
      Song: specifics of the one we have lost –
Mother Maybelle’s songs
Analogical
      Part for the whole
      Song: one person the entire “circle”,
experienced at
            Funerals
            New members
      Book of Hebrews – analogy by contrast,
Aaron vs. Jesus
      Other Scripture, both OT and NT, analogy
by part/whole
Romans
11:16   If the part of the dough
offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; and if the root
is holy, then the branches also are holy.
Exodus
19:6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation (NIV)
Well
is the church named ecclesia
[“assembly”], because it calls forth and assembles all men, as the Lord says in
Leviticus: “Then assemble the whole community at the entrance of the meeting
tent.” It is worthy of note that this word assemble
is used in the Scriptures for the first time [in the Greek translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures, the “Septuagint”] in the passage when the Lord established
Aaron in the high priesthood.
      Cyril
      Representative

      Leviticus tradition – analogy by common
ritual
            With the sacrifice
            With the Tabernacle and its
furnishings
            With the entire people, the
“assembly”
            With God, the holy LORD
            With the excluded
Unity of the vulnerable
      Not the unity of the same; share something
in common
      Vulnerable
to God
      Before Aaron can put on the ephod, with
the names of all tribes:
            Stripped (traditionally behind a
sheet)
            Washed
      Sacrifices washed and, some, skinned or
“flayed”
            Paterius, ACCS OT III,  163: “remove
the illusion of virtue”
      Eustace, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
            Shed his skin as a dragon to become,
again, a boy
            Only possible with the touch of God
(Aslan), and PAIN
      Vulnerable
in our pain
      My ordination: the miscarriage
      Unity
and Anointing (Psalm 133)
      Behold how good and pleasant it is when
kindred life together in unity!
      It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
            On the beard of Aaron, running down
over the collar of his robes
      Anointed with the Spirit when united
Holiness of the excluded
      Turban: “Holy to the LORD” (Ex 39.30)
      Ordination separates you from others;
clergy loneliness
      A function of holiness is separation
            Consecrated to something;
consecrated from something
            “Are you determined to employ all
your time in the work of God?”
                  (Wesley’s historic questions
for those to be ordained)
      Blood
on the right lobe, thumb, big toe
            Word
            Work
            Way
      Same
ritual to cleanse lepers! (Leviticus 14.14)
            Like the priests, excluded from
typical society
            Transformation of holiness
categories by this “unification”
            Expanded mission to welcoming
outsiders

Baptism