Matins Devotion: April 29, 2024

Leviticus 21

God loves the lowly of this world. He loves the blind and the lame, the deformed and the mutilated and the blemished. But, as we heard in our reading from Leviticus 21, he forbade such men from carrying out the priestly functions. Why? Why couldn’t Levite men with deformities still serve as full priests? Why couldn’t the deformed sons of Aaron enter the veil and perform the holiest work God had commanded?

Well, the answer is found in verse 22 of our reading, where God says that such men may eat the priestly bread but they may not offer it before God. In other words, they may receive the gifts but not offer the gifts because the priest who served in the presence of God was called to be a type of Christ, a foreshadowing of the Savior who is without sin, the perfect Savior who has the right to enter the presence of His perfect Father to intercede for us. Because priests were called to serve as a promise of Christ, they were to represent physically what Christ would be spiritually.

So in His death, Jesus Christ brought His perfect obedience into the presence of God. He presented the bread of His broken body, the wine of His spilled blood to His Father as a sacrifice to take away our sins, to give us peace with Him. Our sinless, undeformed Lord won salvation for us in His death and resurrection. And now He has come to feed corrupted sinners with that salvation. Now He has brought the bread of life to His royal priesthood. And with that bread, He has healed our afflictions. With that bread of life, He’s given sight to the blind, strength to the lame, healing to the deformed and mutilated and blemished. Every sin that corrupted your flesh and soul and heart has been drowned and destroyed by your great High Priest, Jesus Christ. And because of His mercy, then there are no more lowly sinners in Christ Jesus. There are no more deformed Levites. There are only cleansed and restored priests who have the right to enter the holy of holies, who have the right to enter the presence of God, and rejoice in their Father forever.