Numbers 19:9 –
Then someone who is ceremonially clean will gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them in a purified place outside the camp. They will be kept there for the community of Israel to use in the water for the purification ceremony. This ceremony is performed for the removal of sin.
When I first started reading this it sounded like the start of baptisms, but as you read it’s not that at all. As I read through all these ceremonies I often wonder why go through all this? Is this really necessary for a proper relationship with God? Are Christians missing out on something or are the Jewish people getting too legalistic? Every time I read rituals I don’t get in the Law I often wonder if these are things we should be following.
Initially one looks at this as a long drawn out process to become spiritually clean before God, but what if that’s not the purpose at all. This ritual is performed when handling dead animals and needs to be performed to become ceremonially clean. Now you think “ceremonially” would imply being clean before God, but these sacrifices are performed in the presence of God. I wonder if these ceremonies are performed to cleanse the person so they can interact with others without the risk of spreading disease.
During the 14th century the plague or “Black Death” infected and killed about a third of the population of Europe. The Christians were dying and the Jews were not, which spread a “conspiracy theory” that the Jews were trying to poison the Christians. If you were to look at this scientifically one would notice the health benefits that the cleaning rituals and food laws provide. Many of these legalistic rituals were not to make it more difficult to be with God, but enabled the people to be healthy and serve God better. So when looking at these Laws which make little sense to us today, think about it through the prism of God trying to keep His people healthy.