“So I have a younger brother and he’s super cool- he has awesome grades, and is a great athlete. Everyone always brags that he’s going to be the next Michael Jordan or whatever. However, nobody remembers me, or at least it doesn’t seem like it. I hated all the people from my high school, but it still hurts that I wasn’t really that popular at school. If someone did know me, it was because I helped them with their homework or I helped maintain the rules at school, or I was a good student who did everything the teacher would say- a teacher’s pet. By the time I got to be a senior at the school (my brother was a freshman), people were asking me already if I was related to my brother instead of if my brother was related to me.”This is part of a letter written by a college freshman!
Some of us know what it is like growing up in the shadow of an older sibling, but can you imagine what it would be like growing up in the shadow of a younger sibling? That is exactly what life was like for Aaron. He was Moses’ older brother. While Moses is one of the leading candidates to receive the award for “Best Lead Role in Biblical History”, Aaron couldn’t even scrounge up enough votes for “Best Supporting Role.”
When we hear the name Moses, we immediately think of the incredible encounter with the burning bush, the spectacular parting of the Red Sea, and the dramatic declaration of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments). When we hear the name Aaron, we scratch our heads and say, “Uh, I know he did something in the Bible, but I can’t remember what it was!”
Well, today I would like for us to learn something about the life Aaron and something from the life of Aaron!
Aaron’s Golden Tongue (Exodus 4:14-17; 6:28-7:13)
When Moses received his calling from the Lord to lead the Israelites out of slavery, he protested on the basis that he had a speech impediment and was a poor public speaker. He said, “I am slow of speech and tongue.” He was afraid that Pharaoh would not listen to him, so he asked God to send someone else to do it.
God is never impressed with excuses and he wasn’t going to let Moses off the hook. He said to Moses, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? He is a gifted speaker! I have given him a golden tongue! And he is already on his way here to meet you. You will tell him what to say, and he will speak the words. I will help both of you!”
So, God used the golden tongued Aaron to become Moses’ mouthpiece, and the two of them confronted Pharaoh together. Aaron commanded Pharaoh to free the Israelites, but God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not listen to him. When Pharaoh challenged them to perform a miracle, Aaron threw his staff on the ground and it turned into a snake. His staff ate up the staffs of the Egyptian sorcerers. God also used Aaron to announce and execute the first three plagues on Egypt.
Aaron’s golden tongue reminds us how God gives people special talents and abilities to use for his glory. When we think about the Exodus story, who is the main character that comes to mind? Moses! But think about where Moses would have been without Aaron? Sure, Moses had the gifts of discernment and leadership, but Aaron had the gift of public speech! Moses couldn’t have accomplished what he did without Aaron.
This is the way it is in God’s church today. Nobody is talented in every area, but everyone is talented in some area. Like Moses and Aaron, God gives each of us a special ability to serve him. Our different gifts and roles are designed to complement each other.
What gifts and abilities has God given you? Discernment and leadership like Moses? Public speaking like Aaron? Teaching? Cooking? Listening? Building? Aaron used his talent of public speaking to glorify God and advance his plan, how about you?
Aaron and Hur Support Moses’ Hands (Exodus 17:8-15)
In Exodus 17, there is another episode that gives us a glimpse of the significance of Aaron’s life and ministry. As the Israelites continued their journey out of Egypt, they crossed the Desert of Sin and camped in the region of Rephidim. There they were attacked by the Amalekites, a godless tribe that descended from Esau.
Moses told Joshua, his aid, to gather up some men and fight against the Amalekites. He told him, “Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.” As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. After a while, Moses arms got so tired that he couldn’t hold them up any longer, but Aaron and another man named Hur came along and held Moses’ arms up for him. They did this the whole way until sunset, until Joshua and the Israelites won the battle.
This episode shows us that supporting ministry roles are just as important as leadership roles. Aaron was not called to be Israel’s leader, Moses was! Aaron was not called to be the general of Israel’s army, Joshua was. But God called Aaron to support these men. Moses and Joshua would have failed if it hadn’t been for Aaron and Hur. You wouldn’t think that holding up someone’s arms would be a very important ministry, but if they hadn’t played their part, the Israelites would have been wiped out.
I learned this same lesson when I was in college preparing for the ministry. I attended Parkview Presbyterian Church in Oak Park, IL, the first suburb west of Chicago. It was a small struggling church, but our pastor, Dr. Hassell Bullock, preached the gospel faithfully. About the same time I started attending Parkview, a group of students from Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College started attending too. Over the next few years, the church became fruitful again. Every time I see Dr. Bullock, he tells me, “You were like Aaron and Hur holding up my arms in the desert. I wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been for your support!”
Pastor Vawn and I have been called to lead this church community, but we could not do what we do if you didn’t do what you do. Whether you are in a leadership role or supporting role, I want to thank all of you for your faithful service to the Lord. As we continue to work together (some holding up the staff, others holding up the arms) we will win the battle against sin and the devil!
Aaron’s Golden Calf (Exodus 32:1-6)
Well, so far Aaron has been cast in a positive light, but we begin to see some weakness in his character in Exodus 32. After the Israelites left the region of Rephidim, they entered the Sinai desert and camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Moses went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets with the law and commandments on it and he stayed there for forty days and forty nights.
People always grow fearful when their leader isn’t visible, and even though God performed many miracles through Moses, the Israelites’ patients grew thin with him. Their faith was still weak and many of them wished that they were still slaves. They gathered around Aaron and put pressure on him by saying, “Come, make us gods like we worshipped in Egypt! As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what happened to him.”
Aaron was forced to make a difficult decision. Would he persevere through the pressure and remain faithful to God and his brother Moses? Or would he succumb to the pressure, turn his back on the one true God, and do what the people wanted?
Well, Aaron fell hard! He told them to give him all of their gold earrings and he melted them down and fashioned it into a golden calf. The people had the audacity of crediting the calf with leading them out of Egypt.
When Aaron saw that the people were pleased with the calf, he built an altar in front of the calf and declared that tomorrow would be a day of partying. So, the people worshipped the sacred cow by sacrificing burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. They celebrated their idolatry by feasting on the manna that God had provided and they indulged themselves in such drunken decadence and sexual perversion that it made Woodstock look like a birthday party.
We are put in similar positions all the time. There will always be people who put pressure on us to do what is evil in God’s sight. They want to drag us down to the pit of sin and give us all sorts of reasons why it is OK.
Like Aaron, sometimes this pressure comes from unlikely people. It is hard to imagine that the Israelites, who just experienced all of these miracles and were delivered by God, would so quickly turn their backs on him and put pressure on Aaron to do the same. Has a fellow Christian ever pressured you to do something wrong? Has your spouse ever pressured you to put them or something else before God? How about one of your parents, children, a sibling, a coworker, a classmate, a boyfriend, a girlfriend!
The question for us is: What will you do? Will you stand firm under to the pressure or will you cave into the pressure? Will you please God or will you please the people?
Aaron’s Excuses and Moses’ Intercession (Exodus 32:7-35)
While Aaron and the Israelites were indulging in revelry, Moses was still on the mountain receiving the tablets from the Lord. He told Moses all about the golden calf and the people’s corruption and threatened to destroy them. But Moses interceded for them and begged not to spare their lives. In one of the most interesting conversations in the Bible, Moses reminded God of the covenant he made with their forefathers and persuaded him to spare their lives.
When Moses and Joshua descended the mountain, they heard the people singing and saw them dancing around the calf. Moses became so angry that he took the stone tablets which God wrote with his own finger, and he hurled them at the people and they broke into pieces. Then he took the calf, burned it, ground it into powder, scattered it in the water, and made the people drink it.
When Moses confronted Aaron about his sin, Aaron shifted the blame onto the people by saying, “You know how prone these people are to evil” (22) and made ridiculous excuses for his actions by saying “Then they gave me their gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” (24)
The next day Moses went back to the Lord and made intercession once again. He forced the people to reckon with their sin and confessed their sin to God and begged him to forgive them.
This episode teaches us two lessons: the outrageous nature of excuses and the importance of intercession. We have all followed Aaron into the arena of excuses. When we are confronted with our sinful attitudes and actions, our natural instinct is to abrogate our personal responsibility with ridiculous reasons. We justify our own behavior by shifting the blame to others. The fact is that there is never a good excuse for our sin, and the faster we own up to it, the faster it can be forgiven.
Also, if Moses hadn’t interceded for the people, God would have destroyed them. If Moses hadn’t confessed their sin for them and try to make atonement, it would have been the end of them. Even though God did send a plague to punish them for their sin, he did not pour out the fullness of his fury.
This should evoke feelings of gratitude in our own hearts today. You see, we have an even better mediator than Moses. Jesus Christ died on the cross to satisfy God’s anger and grant us forgiveness for our sins. Jesus paid the ultimate price for us so that can receive full atonement.
Like Aaron, we have all sinned! Like Aaron, we are all guilty of caving into the pressure! Like Aaron, we all guilty of moral lapses! Like Aaron, we are all guilty of worshipping something visible over the invisible God! Like Aaron, we are all guilty of pleasing people over pleasing the Lord! But thank God, Jesus has interceded for us!
Well, I know that Aaron will never live up to the legacy of his younger brother, but I hope that you have not only learned something about him; I hope that you have learned something from him today!