By The Preacher
1. Transactional Priestly Hands
Priestly hands are not merely bodily extensions; they can be potent transactional tools. Much as hands may transmit a blessing (Genesis 48:14; Deuteronomy 34:9), they can also transmit death. Someone can contract death by the hands that come upon them. That principle abounds in the rituals of the Old Testament worship. It is not for nothing, therefore, that Paul warns that priestly hands should not be carelessly or “suddenly” laid on anyone – on “no man” – because transactions could be activated, even though it had not been intended (1 Timothy 5:22). Check the following critical cases:
… and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock. And thou shalt kill the bullock … (Exodus 29:10-11).
… and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood … (Exodus 29:15-16).
And thou shalt take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood and sprinkle it round about upon the altar (Exodus 29:19-20).
Mark that: “upon the altar.” When altars need blood, the hands of their priest may be directed upon findable innocent heads that should carry the woes through the hands that come upon them. In the cases cited above, the process was in the religious context of worship, in the premises of the house of God, “before the tabernacle of the congregation,” where safety and security should otherwise be guaranteed; yet death was being transacted upon one, for another to be safe.
Can holy priestly hands transmit death? Can lovely hands be remotely connected to blood-seeking altars? (v.16). Can holy priestly hands ever be so unsafe for some heads? Is it possible to be deceived if one should judge safety merely by the glistening garments of the layers-on of hands? Can appearances be false?
2. Who Touched Me?
Whereas the scriptures above describe a process in the service of the holy God, the principle is reversible, as in many other rites. In other words, the principle is true not only of holy priestly hands but also the hands of the opposite kind of priests; and true not only of animals but also of other entities that carry blood in their bodies. The intentional contact of a priestly hand with an innocent head may not be so ordinary after all. The contact could carry a blessing, or a curse; it could carry life, or transmit death. That the other party is unaware or did not submit voluntarily to the ongoing transactions does not diminish the transactions.
All physical contacts are not just a touch; some physical contacts have a spiritual potency. One such touch during a rowdy crowded push along the street was so spiritually draining, even on Jesus, that He stopped and promptly demanded, “Who touched me?” To the disciples bereft of spiritual understanding, that was one of the stupidest questions to ask in such a push-push public situation, and they didn’t hide their feelings. All the same, Jesus had made it clear that every touch was not just a touch (Luke 8:434-46; Mark 5:28-31).
I recall my experience as a young lad on midterm break from school. We had gone to the village for Easter. It was evening. I was out in front of the house as some young boys strolled by. They stopped, we greeted and shook hands, then they went off. My mother, who had been watching from the window, promptly came out to remind me how she had warned me about shaking hands with everybody. Strangely, in the group was a boy who had lately gone mental. I assured her that I was a Christian, and that nothing would happen to me, but although she didn’t know the Lord then, she certainly knew something about intentional physical contacts.
3. The Scapegoat Principle
A clearer illustration for the present theme would be the rituals with the scapegoat – the goat for the wandering sacrifice on the Jewish Day of Atonement.
21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness (Leviticus 16:21-22).
If you found that goat in the wilderness, it would not look any different from other goats, but it would have been carrying the huge unseen load of year-full “iniquities” and “transgressions” and “sins” of an entire population; quite a mountainous cargo of “all” the bad things of the community – on one small goat head. That the cargo was invisible to mere eyes made no difference to what that animal carried. That the head seemed too unlikely, too small to carry such a mighty cargo, also made no difference to what it carried. Some mortal heads carry spiritual cargoes, and the naked eyes do not usually see what everyone carries.
A girl preparing to be married told how her jealous friend ‘borrowed’ her wig for some event, but took it to the witch doctor. Days after, the wig was returned. The owner wore it out for an evening and began to have severe headaches thereafter. Increasingly, she felt a growing load on her head. By the next morning, her family took her to the hospital. The doctors found nothing medically wrong with her. Medical eyes could not see what load weighed so heavily on her head. A concerned Christian nurse at the hospital, sensing that there was something spiritual about the experience, referred her to her own pastor, who told the parents to fast and pray for three days. At the end of those days, she remembered that the pastor prayed, “Owners of evil load, carry your load.” That night, she slept peacefully. The load was gone. Two days later, the parents of her friend were at their house, with a confession. The weight that left one head had gone upon the head of the culprit, with a crushing, aching pain, the same night. The guilty girl was forgiven, but she died two days later, crushed to death by a load that naked eyes did not see.
Besides the scapegoat’s unseen spiritual cargo comprising compartments of national complications (iniquities, transgressions, and sins), that goat’s location in the wasteland of a wilderness also derived from the priestly hands that had come upon it, driving it from its proper place into a wandering lifestyle in the wasteland of a wilderness. What befell the scapegoat did not befall all goats. The difference between the wandering wilderness fate of one goat and the safety of other goats was the hands that came upon it during a certain religious event in a certain religious location, where strange words were spoken over it in a language that goats don’t speak.
Some wilderness location or relocation is not a mere coincidence of travelling; it may have derived from the intentional hands that came upon a head, with the words that accompanied those hands, words in a strange language that goats do not speak. All hands that come upon a head are not ordination hands, even when they are priestly hands. Some are unspoken intentional transactional hands, transferring their death and calamities onto other heads, driving them off into distant wildernesses where they may perish at a distant time in a manner that can never be traced back to the ritual hands of the past, hands otherwise hailed by many as holy hands.
4. A Prayer
Whatever wandering lifestyle may have been activated in you by strange priestly hands that came upon your head; whatever death may have been activated by evil priestly hands seeking your blood for their altar, may the blood of Jesus that speaks better things speak for you this day, and may those evil hands wither and lose their power over your life. As you place your fresh hands upon your head, or as other holy priestly hands come upon you, may there be a restoration of all that has been lost, in Jesus name. Amen.
Declare this three times, with your right hand on your head: Not my head, not my blood upon your altar, O evil priests, in Jesus name. Not my head, not my blood upon your altar, O evil priests, in Jesus name. Not my head, not my blood upon your altar, O evil priests, in Jesus name. Amen.
Shalom.
From The Preacher’s diary (www.preacherdiary.com)
