They were set apart. Special garments were placed on Aaron as high priest. Anointed with oil. Animal sacrifices. Blood on the altar. Blood on the right ear lobes, right thumbs and right big toes.
All this was to signify the importance and uniqueness of this ministry.
It's a familiar account.
But this is the same Aaron, who, less than a few months earlier at the foot of the same mountain where this ordination was taking place, made the golden calf (Exodus 32).
He called the people to give him their gold. He fashioned it into a calf and said, "Here are your gods that brought you out of Egypt!"
And now he's being set apart as THE high priest over all of Israel? The primary connection between God and His people was leading them in idolatry a few months earlier?
Really?
What was God thinking? Didn't Aaron need to go through some kind of ministry rehab?
Start him back down at the bottom of the totem pole until he proved himself faithful in small tasks?
I suppose by now, some of you have started to think of a New Testament parallel.
Peter denied that he knew Christ in the hours before the crucifixion.
Not once. But three times.
After the resurrection and before the ascension of Christ, Jesus came to Peter and commanded him, "Feed My sheep."
Not once. But three times.
And we see in Acts, which continues the account less than two months after the crucifixion, that Peter is the leader in the church.
He's the one who stands up and explains what is happening on the day of Pentecost.
He's the one who preaches and gets thrown in jail.
He's the one who heals a lame man.
He's the one who stands before the Jews and says, "We must obey God rather than man."
Aren't those two men, Aaron and Peter, amazing accounts of God's grace at restoring to ministry?
They still made mistakes after getting back into the saddle. But God didn't leave them on the bleachers because of their horrific sins.
He picked them up and used them for His glory.
And He can do the same with those of us who have fallen.
"Fallen" is not the end of the story.
