You are to bring the Levites before the LORD, and the Israelites are to lay their hands on them. – Number 8:10

Today's Scripture Reading (January 18, 2025): Numbers 8

The youth were heading out for a mission trip. The teens were excited and, I believe, a little scared. The concept was that they would travel through the surrounding area, making stops at several small churches and offering to do some work for these congregations. They would also put on some services and drama presentations. This would be the last Sunday before the trip, and somehow, I wanted to impress on this group of young men and women the importance of their task. So, at the end of the morning worship service, I had the mission team come and kneel at the altar at the front of the church. Then, I asked the congregation to approach and place their hands on the teens and their leaders and pray. But among a congregation comfortable with praying silently to their God, I wanted them to pray out loud and all at once.

I heard a speaker many years ago who distinguished between audible and inaudible prayer. He argued that only the audible version was really prayer; the inaudible version carried a different name, which we call thinking. That definition has never been my belief. Whether you speak your prayers aloud or just say them in your mind, I believe that God hears the words that you direct toward him. However, on this morning, my request that the congregation pray for the teens with audible prayers had nothing to do with God being able to hear them. My request was for the benefit of this youth mission team. When things started to go wrong, and I knew on the week-long trip there would be times when things wouldn't go perfectly, in those moments, I wanted the mission team to remember this time of prayer and that a church back home was continuing to support them, holding them up before God.

God instructs that the Levites be brought together. Maybe they knelt around the Tent of Meeting, I don't know. But then the rest of the Tribes, the congregation, were instructed to come and lay their hands on them. The ceremony shares an image with the instructions for the slaughter of an animal that was being sacrificed to God. In that case, the worshipers placed their hands on the animal as the priest slits the throat of the sacrifice, killing the animal. In the ritual, there was a recognition that this animal was dying because of the worshipper's sin. Here, the worshipers recognize that the members of the Tribe of Levi are a sacrifice for them. No, they wouldn't be killed, but just as the lamb took the place of the worshipper on the altar, this Tribe of Levites had been chosen to take the place of the people at the Tabernacle. They would work before God on behalf of all the Tribes of Israel. A fact that both sides needed to recognize. And this moment was one way of illustrating that reality to the gathered people of Israel.

This symbology remained intact as my congregation laid hands on the youth mission team. We weren't all traveling on this mission trip with them, but these teens would take our place at all the churches where they would stop. And we were authorizing all of their ministry on our behalf.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Numbers 9