The God of Less than Perfect Conditions

What do you do when life leads to places where you cannot be all God expects you to be?

The answer lies in Numbers 9.

Israel is about to celebrate the Passover for the first time since it's origination in Egypt. This is the meal that would define them as a people and ultimately point to Christ as the final Passover Lamb of God. The passover meal taught Israel how God was their hope in bitter circumstances, how they had been spared by God's elective grace from His wrath. The Passover was also a time to gather in homes and share a meal, learning to be a community of love in the care of their God and one another. The Passover was the most important meal of the year. But what about those who could not celebrate Passover because of less than perfect conditions?

Numbers 9:6–8 (ESV) And there were certain men who were unclean through touching a dead body, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day, and they came before Moses and Aaron on that day. 7 And those men said to him, “We are unclean through touching a dead body. Why are we kept from bringing the LORD’s offering at its appointed time among the people of Israel?” 8 And Moses said to them, “Wait, that I may hear what the LORD will command concerning you.”

We don't know the precise details of these men's uncleanness but we know this: they came eager for the Passover even though they weren't properly prepared for it. Did they intentionally touch a dead body? Was it an accident? We don't know. What we do know is that despite their problem, they wanted to participate.

Moses does what good leaders should do. He tells them to wait as he seeks the Lord. Very soon after he comes back with the LORD's instructions.

Numbers 9:9–12 (ESV) The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If any one of you or of your descendants is unclean through touching a dead body, or is on a long journey, he shall still keep the Passover to the LORD. 11 In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight they shall keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 12 They shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break any of its bones; according to all the statute for the Passover they shall keep it.

In an incredible amount of mercy, God allows those who are unclean to wait a full month before participating in the Passover. They must follow all the regulations of the real thing, just one month later. God makes provision for less than perfect conditions. There is hope for those who hunger for God and do not live in the right kind of environment to meet Him.

For instance, some may be married to a non believer. Some may be raised by very unbelieving parents and told all their life there is no God. Some may be living with a disease they didn't ask for OR even a disease they got from their own bad habits. The point is, when God sees people who desire Him, He is willing to bend the rules to make a way to meet them. 

Think of Jesus with Zacchaeus. He went to the home of a man who had defrauded and cheated his neighbors. Zacchaeus did not live a good life and earn Jesus' meeting. But he did LONG to see Jesus... and Jesus broke with the standards of the day to come and break bread with Zacchaeus. God is always willing to make a way for people to find their way back to Him. 

The chapter isn't over. God stipulates secondary conditions concerning those who may miss Passover:

Numbers 9:13 (ESV) But if anyone who is clean and is not on a journey fails to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from his people because he did not bring the LORD’s offering at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.

God holds accountable those who take lightly the Passover meal and disregard it without any excuse. Why this strong reaction from God? Because the Passover was teaching God's people about Who He was and His Mercy soon to come in Christ Jesus Himself. Christians must learn from this passage that will hold accountable anyone who cheapens the Cross of Christ. The entire book of Hebrews is a warning to those who may be in the Church but neglecting the necessity of the Cross. 

Hebrews 10:29 (ESV) How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

We see in Numbers 9 the God who longs to bring people to Himself - even when they don't deserve it. But we also see a God who holds accountable those He has saved. The justice and mercy of God cannot be divorced. Let us come boldly, thankfully, and humbly. 

Amen.