It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe.
Psalms 133:2 NIVUK
This is quite an unfamiliar picture for us. But when someone came into a home in David's day, it wasn't unknown for them to have scented oil poured on their head by their host (or by their host's servant). The reason was pretty simple. Without proper sanitation and in a country that became unbearably hot in summer, someone coming into your home would carry with them the rather unpleasant odour of sweat and whatever their feet had stepped in on the way. So as well as foot-washing, the scented oils would mask or remove the awful smell.
This is a wonderful picture of what unity can do for us. We live in a fragmented, bitterly divided culture. There are some who revel in this and seek to divide people even further in order to promote their own cause. The Bible is pretty scathing about such people:
‘If you play the fool and exalt yourself, or if you plan evil, clap your hand over your mouth! For as churning cream produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife.’
Proverbs 30:32-33 NIVUK
Do not envy the wicked, do not desire their company; for their hearts plot violence, and their lips talk about making trouble.
Proverbs 24:1-2 NIVUK
And as we saw earlier, divided families and societies and kingdoms cannot stand.
So when you see divisive personalities using hatred and suspicion and division to their own ends, ignore them and tell others to do the same. They do not deserve the oxygen of publicity. Without attention, they will wither.
But a united Body of Christ is a powerful thing. It removes from us the stench of bias and ignorance and prejudice. It replaces it with the sweet fragrance of togetherness in the Gospel.
Let me give you a prime example. One old lady in our church had swallowed without question some of the racist tropes of our day. She once ranted to me, "All those foreigners that come over here and steal our jobs... they can all go home!"
Of course, she said it without thinking, as many people do. Especially as she was ranting to me while I was preparing to go to the Philippines, get married and bring my wife - a "foreigner" - to Scotland.
Four months later and her tune had changed completely. She had seen my monthly prayer messages detailing all the hurdles we'd had to go through so my wife could come to Scotland (and it's much harder now). And she was scandalised. "That's ridiculous! You're a British citizen! You ought to be able to bring your wife here without all that nonsense!" she thundered.
Of course, maybe it hadn't yet dawned on her that my "foreign" wife might look for a job...
And that's what being a truly united fellowship does for us. It helps us see the reality of other people's lives as we laugh and cry with them. It removes the stench of societal prejudice and replaces it with the fragrance of the Gospel.
But there is even more to it than that. The anointing David discusses here is the anointing of Aaron as High Priest (Exodus 28:41, 29:21, 30:30, 40:14; Leviticus 8:30). That was a very grand and important day in the life of the people of Israel. It was the day that their religion really took shape and became something fundamentally distinctive from what had come before. The institution of its leadership was critical to their identity as a nation. And the identification and setting apart of this leadership was absolutely crucial to it.
We have similar, smaller-scale ceremonies when we set apart people from our churches as pastors, leaders or missionaries. There is something very special about standing in front of your church and having its leaders lay hands on you and pray for you. I had a ceremony like this when I was commissioned as a missionary to Romania in 1998. It was very powerful.
Unity does this for us. It marks us out as different, as distinct, as special. Unity is an anointing. But more than that, loving unity is actually our identity card. It tells the world who we truly are:
‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’
John 13:34-35 NIVUK
So when we try to assert our superiority over another, when we demand people recognise us, when we act in an unloving way and endanger the unity of the Body of.Christ, what happens?
People don't see who we are. They do not see that we are Christ's followers. We are just as bad as them. There is nothing special about us at all.
But when they see love between us for one another, despite our differences in skin colour, ethnicity, background, education, material wealth and politics, then they see something worth talking about. Then they see that we are Jesus' disciples.
Then they see Jesus.
It is interesting where this anointing oil flows. Firstly, it flows on the head. And the head is where unity begins because the head is where our preconceptions and biases and crazy ideas about other people are challenged and set right. As Paul said to the Philippians:
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2:5 NIVUK
Then it reached Aaron's beard. The way the Jews tended their beard marked them out as fundamentally different from the Gentile peoples around them (Leviticus 19:27), and even more so the priests (Leviticus 21:5).
Then it reached his garments - his garments that set him apart from the rest of the people as their High Priest (Exodus 39:1-21).
Do you see this? Do you see how the anointing oil touched the three things that set Aaron apart from his fellow Israelites?
Friends, there ought to be something 'set apart' about our churches and communities too. We ought to be special. We ought to be different. But where we have long made the mistake is that we have been distracted by the externals - by how we look and dress - or in how we think of ourselves - as morally superior to others. That horrible smugness has no place within the Christian church at all. It is driven by pride and nothing else. What place does pride have in the life of a believer?
And how can we be proud? Every true Christian who walks through the door of a church has one thing in common. We do not go to church because we are righteous. No, we go because we are sinners saved by grace, and we need that grace because none of us is good enough.
True Christian unity becomes possible when we grasp that fundamental truth and let go of absolutely everything that could possibly be an advantage for us, as Paul did:
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
Philippians 3:7-9 NIVUK
We live in a world that ranks human beings against each other from the cradle to the grave. As Christians we know that there is something fundamentally nonsensical, and worse, immoral, about this. The career ladder, 'keeping up with the Joneses', 'fear of missing out', placing our self worth on the basis of the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the neighbourhood we live in, the school we go to, the car we drive, the job we have or don't have, the colour of our skin - for us this is absolutely distasteful and completely wrong. It has no place in the church!
Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Colossians 3:11 NIVUK
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:26-28 NIVUK
When we truly understand and apply this fundamental Gospel truth then we are truly united. When we are truly united, the world will see something different about us, something truly holy, something truly sacred, something truly anointed, and they will see Jesus in us.
This is why unity for the church is so critically important.
Having seen that unity is wellbeing and anointing, we lastly see that UNITY IS BLESSING.
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