Red Heifers, Dirty Laundry, & Ceremonial Uncleanness

The great American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, most known for His work, The Scarlet Letter, as his wife was away on a journey once wrote,

“The washing of dishes does seem to me the most absurd and unsatisfactory business that I ever undertook. If, when once washed, they would remain clean for ever and ever (which they ought in all reason to do, considering how much trouble it is), there would be less occasion to grumble; but no sooner is it done, than it requires to be done again. On the whole, I have come to the resolution not to use more than one dish at each meal.”

Anyone who has spent any length of time bearing the weight of housekeeping can readily identify. Hawthorne was right, the constant cycle of laundry, and dishes, and mowing, and vacuuming is “most absurd and unsatisfactory business.” It’s not a spectacle beheld by only certain classes of society either. Laundry doesn’t care if your black or white or rich or poor, it is an equal opportunity offender. My wife and I chuckled yesterday as we sauntered through the walls of plaques at Hobby Lobby dedicated expressly to this phenomenon. Some of them were heartfelt. Axioms such as “this house if filled with endless love and laundry.” Some were downright Hallmark worthy. One read, “if you are still in the process of raising children, be aware the endless piles and piles of laundry will disappear all too soon, and that you will, to your surprise miss them profoundly.” Perhaps, my favorite was, “I finished your laundry and the ashes are in the fireplace!” It is absolute madness, even now as I write, I sit encompassed about with piles of laundry waiting to be folded and put away, only to be worn, tossed in the dirty clothes hamper, washed, dried, and folded again. Then there’s that one garment that no matter how many times you wash it, you can’t that stain to come out. Come one, you know the one I’m talking about. That favorite shirt or blouse that you put on every Tuesday hoping that somehow the stain won’t be as noticeable as the last time you tossed it aside in disgust.

So what can laundry teach us about God? Well, the problem is we are dirty creatures. Every morning we awake to a world filled with germs and bacteria, and even the most germaphobic of people find themselves incessantly cleansing their hands of the dirt and grime of life. This was no clearer to me than in recent days. I have a good friend who stayed with us for a while who works on cars for a living. He would slave for hours in the heat, neck deep in grease, and sweat, and grime. For all of his valiant efforts to keep clean (even wearing surgical gloves for each job), at least 2 to 3 times a day, I would find him at the sink laboring feverishly to remove the grease and grime from his hands and nails. It just happens, dirt and germs find us as we move through throughout our lives. Germs lie in wait for us in every corner, on every hand, on every light switch, dish, and instrument. I have another friend that cleans surgical instruments for a living. When germs find their way into open wounds, problems escalate even more. I sat and listened in amazement as he outlined the special precautions he has to execute take to make sure that every instrument is cleansed thoroughly and completely and uniquely stored in a germ free packaging. The frustrating part of all this washing and cleaning is that it has to be done over, and over, and over again.

In Numbers 19, we find God’s unique instructions for ceremonial cleansing of an individual who has touched or come in contact with a human corpse. The instructions, as one would expect after having read Leviticus and Numbers, are quite thorough and complete. These were God’s people, set apart and made holy by God and He would have nothing but complete cleansing from the priests if they were to stand in His presence. The instructions meticulously required the Israelites to take a red heifer without spot or blemish and take it outside the camp and slay it in the presence of the priest. The priest was then to dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times over the tent of meeting. They would place the heifer on the altar as a sacrifice to the Lord and then they were to add cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool onto the altar with the heifer in sacrifice to God. What is so interesting about this, is that the man who offered the sacrifice and the priest were both contaminated by the sacrifice, they were both ceremonially unclean until evening. With the dawn of a new day, they were clean again and able to go about the work of the kingdom. The ashes would then be gathered and mixed with water and stored outside the camp in a ceremonially clean place. Whenever an individual came in contact with a corpse, the priest would take him outside the camp, take a hyssop branch, and sprinkle him on the third and seventh day from the time he touched the corpse. After that sprinkling on the seventh day, the man would be made clean again.

At first glance, the narrative seems a bit excessive. I mean really, I got up this morning, in the hopes that God would encourage me as I read the Scriptures, and instead I was met with red heifers, corpses, and ceremonial uncleanness. It wasn’t the most stimulating of passages with which to start my day. But then God began to open up this passage for me, and show me some pretty astounding truths.

One of the great disappointments of my spiritual learning was seeing the Old Testament as nothing more than stories that taught moral truths. My Sunday school lessons were filled with great stories of people who were nothing more than true Aesop’s fables designed to remind me to be a good, little boy. While I’m grateful for the morals that those stories taught me, there is a infinitely, greater purpose to these stories, they aren’t meant to teach me morals as much as they are to teach me about Jesus. When the gospel becomes the lens through which we look at the Old Testament, these stories gloriously transform from history to HIS-STORY. It is no longer narration to teach morals, it is an invitation to behold Jesus on every page.

This is the lens through which we must view Numbers 19. See much like our clothes and dishes, we accumulate dirt, and grime, and germs. The Bible calls it sin. This sin has found its way through the wounds of our life into our bloodstream, causing eventual death. This is why God required cleansing of anyone who had come into contact with a corpse. Death is the product, the result of sin in our lives spiritually. Once again the physical is the analogy of the spiritual. God required complete cleansing of anyone who had come in contact with death, both spiritually and physically.

Behold the beauty of the gospel as it unfolds for us in Numbers 19. The priest was to slay a red heifer, complete with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet wool outside of the camp. The common denominator in all of those items is their color; scarlet wool, red cedar, and a red heifer. The hyssop was a type of branch used to sprinkle blood on the altar of sacrifice. God’s cleansing agent for the temporary stain of their sin and death was the permanent stain of the blood of the sacrifice. It covered their stain.

The blood was sprinkled seven times on the tent of meeting. The tent of meeting was where they would interact with their God. The God who had covenanted to be with them in the wilderness between their bondage and their promised homeland. It was this blood that was foundational to their communion with their God. He had redeemed them from bondage in Egypt. He had promised to lead them into the land He had prepared for them, and He had promised to go with them every step in the wilderness in between. The number seven stands for completion (as with creation), and the blood sprinkled on the tent of meeting meant that God had completely covered their sin, and that access had been granted, fellowship had been restored, God could commune with them all because of the sacrifice.

But that sacrifice came with a price, it meant that the priest would have to sacrifice not only the heifer but his own ceremonial cleanness for it to occur. This is absolutely astounding when we consider that the book of Hebrews tells us Jesus is our High Priest. See Jesus was not only the sacrifice slain outside the city (camp), but the High Priest who offered it for us. This sacrifice meant that His ceremonial cleanness and perfection was at least temporary violated as He took upon Himself the grime and dirt and sin of our lives. Though He was still perfectly spotless and sinless, He voluntarily contaminated Himself to allow us to be cleansed by the washing of His blood over our lives. Take some time today to consider this story. It should motivate us to worship our Savior who endured so much to make restitution for our sins.

Once the sacrifice had been offered it was mixed with water, literally “living” water in Hebrew and sprinkled over the one who had come in contact with death. He would have to be sprinkled with this water on the third and seventh day and would be cleansed. So there was one sacrifice that was applied multiple times for cleansing.

What does all this mean for us? We come to God dirty because of our sin, the grease of guilt on our faces. We approach the heavenly hospital with the septic consequence of our sin, coursing through our veins. We have contracted this deadly disease, and without the gospel medicine, what awaits us is death, the painful punishment of our sinful situation. The cost off our cleansing being much too high to pay, our heavenly Physician, our High Priest, was willing to sacrifice Himself outside the camp and contaminate His holiness by taking on our sin. Now He offers His blood as the divine detergent for our sin. He gathers each drop of blood and sprinkles it seven times over the tent of meeting, allowing us complete and perfect communion once again with the God who has promised to take us orphans in and care for us, to rescue us from the bondage of our sin and to take us to the promised land He has prepared for us, and has promised to walk alongside us every step as we recover in this wilderness journey between. This perscriptionary perfection is then mixed with the water of the word and continually sprinkled over our lives, so that we may no longer experience the symptoms of our sinful seduction.. What an incredible picture of the gospel displayed in Numbers 19.

So the next time you find yourself at the sink scrubbing a pot polluted with grease, or scrubbing a stain from your favorite shirt, or exasperated by the futile folding of laundry, remember this story of a God who was willing to take the grime and dirt of sin found incessantly in our lives and sacrifice everything including Himself to remove that stain. Now every time we come back to Him and confess our sin, the ashes of His sacrifice and the water of the Word await our arrival to cleanse us once again of every sin.

1 John 1:9 (ESV) - “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”