After that, the priest must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water. He may then come into the camp, but he will be ceremonially unclean till evening. – Numbers 19:7

Today's Scripture Reading (December 13, 2021): Numbers 19

According to the myth, King Louis XIV of France took a grand total of three baths during his lifetime. Many believe that this was an exaggeration, but there was actually a good reason for the King's reticence to get clean. Doctors of that day thought that bathing too often opened the pores of the skin, inviting infection into the body. So, the King fought against disease by skipping the bathtub. With his Queen following his example, the King struggled with the inevitable body odor that resulted from not bathing by wearing strong perfumes, which resulted in another problem. Apparently, the King was also at least slightly allergic to the perfumes. But allergy symptoms beat bodily infections, and so, the King's court remained a stinky place.

Today, we know differently. Living life invites dirt. There is no way that we can avoid it. Physically, we get dirty. If we are active, or even just living in a warm place, our sweat cakes on our skin. But we also get dirty from the things we do and the places we go. And that is why we bathe, in some form, frequently; most of us bathe in some way multiple times a week. (I had a roommate in college who once argued that I bathed numerous times a day, but that was based on one particularly bad and frustrating day.)

But getting physically dirty is not the only way to be declared unclean. Our relationships can contaminate us. I have often argued that there is no such thing as "objective news coverage." Regardless of where you get your information, it is necessarily biased, and therefore it will contaminate you. And that is true for all transfers of data. Every time we do anything in life, we are infected.

And this is something of which the Mosaic Law tried to remind us. The sacrifice of the Red Heifer was a purification ritual. The heifer would be sacrificed and then burned, and the ashes of the heifer would then be used by the community in the "water of cleansing" ritual. But what is significant is that, even in the sacrifice of the heifer, the process would make the priest and others involved in the process unclean. They would be required to wash their clothes, but even after the clothes and body were cleaned up, the priest still remained ceremoniously unclean for the rest of the day. The priest and the community were once again shown that living life, and even the process of doing good things, can make us unclean.

As we approach Christmas, maybe it is a good reminder that this baby in the manger would one take the sins of the world on his shoulders; "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). This child in the manger would become unclean on our behalf so that we could become clean. He is our priest. And we can daily come to him so that we can once again become clean.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Numbers 20