A tale of powerful intercession

Over the past few weeks, I have been working through a very practical preaching series on the problems associated with prayer. We have considered how it only comes unnaturally to us, how praying with others can sometimes be a challenge, and how readily we are both distracted and overwhelmed. The thing is, we just have to do it -because the need is so great. I started with the description of a distinctly uncomfortable session of TV viewing:

All I was doing was watching television. Well, not so much watching as staring really. And as I stared, they must have found their way in through an open window or door -two huge vultures, their wings making a chill draft as they beat- one settling on each shoulder as I watched.As scene after scene of starving children, bombed houses and black Isis flags played out before me, they dug their claws in deeper and deeper to my shoulders.The one the left was called “fascination”, and the one on the right, “helplessness”. They weren’t exactly pets, but they’d been to the house before. They had watched with gimlet eyes as human need and misery flowed through the living room.What could I do? Something, surely I could do something? We never invite them in, these grim creatures with their sharp eyes and sharper talons – but still they come. Whatever can we do to shoo them away?

From there we made our way to Numbers 16 v.41 – 50, and one of the most powerful descriptions of intercession ever recorded in scripture. At this point tens of thousands of people are in mortal danger, with punishment about to fall from the heavens as it had done the previous day. This great tide of needy humanity laps at the feet of Moses and Aaron – like King Canute’s tide of old. Just like the legendary king, they cannot command it to go.  Straight away, Aaron is dispatched to the tabernacle to fill a censer with hot coals and incense and then to hold it aloft to stem the plague as it spreads.  Standing  there in the gap it is tempting to see him as looking a bit like Evelyin Venable – the actress who supplied the voice of the Blue Fairy in Disney’s Pinocchio, and who then featured in the Columbia Pictures emblem:

Image: timeentertainmentfiles

The thing is, it is much more serious than that. In the time it takes Aaron to run from the entrance of the tent, to the incense altar, fill a censer and then run out into the crowd – 14,700 people have died. In the end he stands there, censer aloft, between the dead and those who are terrified of dying. Like the boy on the burning deck – he is the last man standing in the gap. This is intercession.

If we wanted an actual picture, Evelyn Venable won’t do. Perhaps something like Turner’s Field of Waterloo might be better. Next time you feel like saying you can ‘only’ pray – take a long hard look at it and remember Aaron – the archetypal intercessor, standing in the gap.

Image: farm4.static.flickr.com