Every Assignment Has a Purpose, Every Life Has a Redemption

The Mishmeret Principle — God Distributed the Tasks

The first section of Parashat Nasso continues the census of the Levitical families — each family assigned to its specific Mishmeret, from the Hebrew root meaning to guard, protect, watch over. Some carry the curtains of the tabernacle. Others carry the screen of the door of the gate. Others carry the wooden poles. Others carry the Ark of the Covenant. It was an elaborate, holy affair — and when the pillar of cloud rose up by day and Israel moved, everything had to be carried.

The apostle Paul sees a direct application of this to the body of the Messiah, and makes it an ordinance for all the churches. The principle extends far beyond the Levitical division of labor:

There is no room for competition between those who carry the Ark of the Covenant and those who carry the tent and its cover. Nothing will work if everyone becomes jealous, saying: "Why should I carry the acacia wood beams of the Tabernacle while you get to carry the Ark of the Covenant?" or "Why should I carry the Ark, with this heavy responsibility, while all you folks carry are the cooking utensils and the spices for the incense?"

The lesson extends to identity. If you were called as a Jew, don't try to become a Gentile. If you were called as a Gentile, don't circumcise yourself. If you're Korean or Japanese, don't have plastic surgery to look European. If you're Black, don't try to bleach yourself. If you're White, don't try to make yourself something else. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. What really matters is that each one keeps the commandments which God has given. If you are a slave and you have a chance to become free, take it — because in Christ you are already free, bought at a price: the blood of Yeshua. But don't choose to remain a slave when freedom is available.

I didn't choose to be born in Bulgaria, and I didn't choose at the age of one for my parents to bring me to Israel. And the children of Israel that were in Egypt for a couple hundred years as slaves didn't choose to be slaves. And God delivered them from slavery and gave them the law of freedom — the perfect law of liberty that James in his letter speaks about — to liberate us from the shackles of our past.

I don't believe the doctrine of John Calvin at all. The calling that God has for us is not to secure our salvation, but it is to direct our lives to the direction where the best qualifications of life can and ought to be used. We learn from Samson's story that in the end, our mission for God's plan has to be fulfilled. We can do it willingly and enjoy God's blessing — or with pain and suffering we will still be used and get the mission accomplished. We can run, but we can't hide from God's calling.

Every Life Will Be Redeemed

There is another principle in Parashat Nasso that most Christians entirely overlook. The purpose of the census of the Levites is explained in Numbers 3:11-13:

What we have here is extremely important and extremely ignored by most Christians. The tenth plague killed all the firstborn of Egypt — innocent people — in order to deliver the children of Israel from slavery, because of the hardness of Pharaoh's heart. Now, God wants to redeem those firstborn of Egypt by sanctifying the Levites and priests from the tribe of Levi — the tribe of Moses and Aaron. The Lord does this by taking away the personal choice and freedom of the sons of Aaron and the tribe of Levi, and making them servants in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple in Jerusalem.

This is also the reason why every firstborn male child in Israel has to be redeemed with five shekels of silver even to this very day. God doesn't suffer injustice and innocent death even when this death was necessary to free Israel from Egyptian slavery. Every injustice and every innocent wronged will be redeemed by a life in exchange. The Lord is the God of justice — even when that justice requires restructuring the very fabric of a nation's priestly calling. In God’s justice, every life is remembered and every debt redeemed.