I'm going to share another 'mystery' this week! This one involves the color purple! In fact, it's called "The Purple Mystery".
The Teacher was holding a purple cloth and running it through his
fingers as if inspecting it. He then placed it in my hands.
"The color
purple," he said. "It was woven throughout the Tabernacle, on the
veils and curtains, even in the garments of the priests. Now look at the cloth
I gave you. It's purple. It should be made up of purple threads but it's not.
If you look closely, you won't find any."
So I examined it. And as he
had said, I was unable to find in the cloth a single purple thread. Instead, it
was made up of tiny blue and red threads finely woven together.
"Purple is the joining
of blue and red. And if you looked at the veils of the Tabernacle, you would
find the colors blue, purple, and red. The colors appear in the instructions
for building the Tabernacle over and over, the same three colors and in the
same order 'blue, purple, and scarlet.'"
"Why?"
"The Tent of Meeting
was the place of the joining, the reconciliation, the meeting of two realities,
God and man."
"And so the colors
represented God and man?"
"Blue is the color of
the sky, the heavens ... representing the heavenly, God. So the blue is
first."
"And the color red ...
scarlet?"
"In Hebrew, the word
for man is adam. Adam comes from the Hebrew word for red. Red is the color of
the Middle Eastern earth from which man came. And scarlet red is the symbol of
sin and guilt. Red is the color of man ... So then what is purple? Purple is the
joining of blue and red. And so it speaks of the joining of God to man, heaven
joined to earth. But for there to be purple, it must be a total joining ... the
joining of all that is holy to all that is not, all of God to all that is us
... to all that is you ... so totally joined that God will appear as sin. And as
that total joining drew near, the Heavenly One was beaten and mocked and made
to wear a crown of thorns ... And then He was covered with a robe. And do you
know what kind of robe it was? It was a purple robe ... a purple robe to over
the One in whom heaven and earth, God and man, blue and red ... become
completely one ... purple."
The Mission: Today, join all that is red to all that is blue. Join all that is ungodly to God and God to the ungodly - so much so, it becomes purple.
I have always loved the color purple! Long before becoming a Vikings fan. This just makes that more special to me! There is so much symbolism in the Word of God that people are unaware of! When the soldiers dress JESUS in that purple robe, THEY thought they were mocking Him! In fact, they were showing forth exactly Who He was! He WAS and IS the KING of all kings! Royalty! But, more importantly for US, He was the complete joining of God and man! The PERFECT sacrifice! The PURPLE! OUR purple! I LOVE that! Here is an older song from Hillsong called "Saviour King":
Love and Shalom from the Swoveys!
