Outside the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law in the tent of meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps before the Lord from evening till morning, continually. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.
Leviticus 24:3 (NIV)

It was a bitterly cold night forty-four years ago last month. I was just a snot-nosed fourteen year-old kid. I was a middle-schooler for crying out loud. I walked down the aisle, knelt down, and prayed a prayer of total surrender. As did this, everyone sang,

“I have decided to follow Jesus. No going back. No going back.”

Young people, especially adolescents, make a lot of silly statements at that stage of their lives. If you had asked me then, I’d have probably told you that I was going to study Law and go into politics. Perhaps I would be President of the United States someday. That was what my yet to be fully formed brain was thinking before that night. But something happened in that prayer of surrender that penetrated far deeper than the fog of adolescent angst, dreams, and natural delusion.

“Though none go with me, still I will follow. No going back. No going back.”

Here I sit in the quiet, forty-four years later. I’m still following. The spiritual reality is that I’m following Jesus closer than ever, even though it looks very different than I could have even conceived forty-four years ago. It’s less religious and more relational. It is intensely personal and organic rather than being communal and tied to an organization. It is less sure and more real. It has grown in intimate mystery as I have slowly learned to relax my fingers clinging to human dogma. I’m loving far more, and judging far less than I ever have before. Forgiveness comes easier. So does generosity.

“I have decided to follow Jesus. No going back. No going back.”

A few days ago, in my post/podcast entitled Ritual and Spiritual, I talked about the 40-watt light-bulb inside the candleholder above the altar of the church in which I grew up. I was taught that it was “the eternal flame” that illuminated the altar always.

In today’s chapter of God’s priestly manual for the ancient Hebrews we learn where the Methodist church learned about eternal flames and altars. There were golden lamp stands that God had Moses and the Hebrews make and place outside the “Most Holy Place” of his traveling tent temple. Others stood by the altar outside the tent temple. Aaron the high priest, and his priestly sons were to tend the lamps and keep them burning around the clock. This required constant attention, making sure the wicks were trimmed and replaced and that they never ran out of oil. If they weren’t vigilant in these mundane tasks of checking, adding, replacing, and maintaining, the fire would go out.

What I once again find so profoundly simple is that God gave this metaphorical lesson to His people in the toddler stages of humanity that we humans might grow-up, mature, and learn the spiritual lesson that the metaphor had to teach us. Jesus made it clear that the lesson was not that we should replicate this practice of building altars in churches and hanging 40-watt light bulbs over them. This, by the way, requires nothing from the humans responsible for them other than telling the janitor to replace the bulb once every year-or-two to make sure it doesn’t burn out and no one notices until Sunday morning worship. That’s not quite the spiritual lesson of vigilance, discipline, and maintenance that God was giving Aaron and the boys.

The lesson of the “continuous flame” was a spiritual lesson for the day when Jesus would come, indwell, and illuminate my 14-year-old heart, mind, and soul.

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14-16 (MSG)

How do I keep the Light of the World burning within and shining out in my words, actions, and relationships for forty-four years? This is where the routine of spiritual vigilance, commitment, investigation, and mundane perpetual maintenance that God taught Aaron and the boys comes in. Being a disciple of Jesus has not been simply a process of hooking up the wires, flipping the switch, and changing the bulb every few years. Keeping the spiritual flame burning and the Light shining has required more diligence, discipline, and perseverance than that. Not that I haven’t had my own struggles to maintain it in the ebb and flow of this life journey. I’m human like everyone else. Some seasons I’ve done better than others.

Still, here I am in the quiet this morning, still tending the internal spiritual flame. Another chapter, another hour of meditation, reflection, and internal conversation with God’s Spirit. Another day on this earthly journey.

“I have decided to follow Jesus. No going back. No going back.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.