Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Saturday, January 20, 2018 | Reading: Exodus 33:1-11, Exodus 4, Gen 3:1-21
Topic: The Tabernacle of God 336
Scripture: But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say not of this building. (Heb 9:11)
Note: 2Cor 5:1, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” The Jewish customary way of preparing the dead for burial is very elaborate. All the processes involved are well intended and with definite purpose. The materials involved include the spices and grave clothes comprising a bandage for tying a corpse after it had been swathed in linen. These are winding sheets of linen, including the napkin that was used for covering the head and face region.
The nature of the grave clothes is basically suited to absorb sweat or bodily fluid. Corpses don’t sweat but emit bodily fluid. Hence the combination of strong spices and absorbent material helps in neutralizing the body odour and the fluid from the dead. The swathing of the body is so effectively done that every portion and orifice of the body that could release bodily fluid are properly covered. The nose and mouth are not spared either, as they’re direct sources of releasing fluid. However, the embalming process effectively closes any avenue of a possible comeback from the dead, as the person would have been effectively asphyxiated through the grave clothes covering and application of strong spices, were the person to have miraculously woken up from the dead.
Lazarus’ death and resurrection aptly demonstrated the power and significance of grave clothes in our spiritual life. In John 11:43-44, after Jesus had cried out with a loud voice for Lazarus to come forth, he that was dead came forth bound, hand and foot with grave clothes. The physical immobilization of Lazarus made it practically impossible to have arisen from a lying horizontal position to a vertical position in the tomb, as he had been bound hand and foot. The only possibility therefore available to Lazarus was a spiritual act of transport of his body from a helpless and completely immobilized, horizontal position by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, to a vertical position.
Grave clothes are institutional hindrances to our spiritual life. They morph up in our spiritual walk with Jesus in the form of religious, cultural and social norms that look more logical, more sensible and a more acceptable way of doing things. Yet silently, these are spiritual roadblocks in our life meant to immobilize and kill us, requiring the power of God to break their hold on our life. Grave clothes stink in nature just like sin. Because man has been blinded by the power of sin, it takes the resurrection power of Jesus Christ to release man from his bondage and spiritual blindness, raising him back to life everlasting.
Food for thought: Grave clothes belong to the dead and the grave, not for those that are alive in Christ Jesus.
Declaration: And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes: his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them, “Loose him and let him go.” John 11:44
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
