Between the Living and the Dead

“And he stood between the dead and the living and the plague was stopped.”—Numbers 16:48

This is an incredible passage. The Israelites sinned against God and a plague broke out among them. Moses told his brother Aaron to take his censer and carry it quickly out among the midst of the people where a plague was already breaking out. People were dying, but in the middle of it was Aaron, holding up the censor of fire, making atonement for the people in the midst of death. There is urgency to the passage, Aaron running with his censer in his hands, running through and around people dying of a plague.

What Aaron did in the Old Testament, Christ did in the New, and is commanding us to do now. He has already made atonement for sins and our job is to take it out amongst the living and the dead. We live among the living and the dead. The Scripture says that we were “dead in the trespasses and sins” and were “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air,” (v. 2), and “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind”—Ephesians 2:1,2.

We were dead to God’s love and enemies of the cross of Christ! But God intervened,  

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ”—Ephesians 2:4-5.

It was because of Christ that we who were dead are now alive. Apart from Him we have no life at all (John 3:36). And we have been given a task. To “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Our job is to stand up, lifting up Christ and what He has done in the midst of our world. We are to lift Christ up in the midst of our families, in the midst of our work, in the midst of our school, and in the midst of society at large. We too, like Aaron, are standing between the dead and the living with a task of greater magnitude than we can ever imagine. So, dear one, take heart today. Lift up Christ. Ask our Lord to give you strength to lift Him up by the words we say, the actions we do, and the lives that we live. Amen.