On His Shoulders

You shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel, six of their names on the one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth.  As a jeweler engraves signets, so shall you engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel.  You shall enclose them in settings of gold filigree.  And you shall set the two stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel.  And Aaron shall bear their names before the LORD on his two shoulders for remembrance.  You shall make settings of gold filigree, and two chains of pure gold.  twisted like cords; and you shall attach the corded chains to the settings.  Exodus 28:9-14

I tend to approach the Bible looking to crack open the passage to see how it applies to my life.  If I can't quickly see how it convicts me, I probably won't spend a ton more time in that section.  But I've been so blind; the Bible is much more than how it directly applies to my 2015 lens.  It's 66 books to the whole world for all of time.  The Lord didn't just have me in mind when He gave it to us.  The Bible is holy and directly from the Lord, the most important book ever written.  With that in mind, no matter the content, I should approach the Bible with vigor and my whole brain.  It should open me up, not the other way around.  The Bible never changes, I do.

In Exodus 25-30, the Lord is passionate about how the Tabernacle was to be built.  He was steady and clear about the nuts and bolts of what it would be like.  The priestly garments was no exception to His thoroughness.  As I've been looking at these chapters this past week, at first it's seemed totally irrelevant to me, but in the last couple of days, the Lord has opened my mind to the life and truth in this passage.

Priests imaged Jesus.  For thousands of years, they killed life to make restitution for Israel's sins.  Israel imaged Jesus' followers.  So then, when Aaron bore the people's names on his shoulders surrounded by gold chains, in the same way, Jesus bears our names on his shoulders.  He paid for our sins, my sins, not by killing a bull, but by letting Himself be killed.  One sacrifice for all sins.

He has me on His shoulder.  I'm His, and He's got my sins and stresses and struggles paid for and on the way to be righted.  How blessed are we who are His?  What more could we ask for?