Wave Offering

Exodus 29:24 reads:

And thou shalt put all in the hands of Aaron, and in the hands of his sons; and shalt wave them [for] a wave offering before the LORD.

As I heard the message last night about the wave offering, I tried to picture the scene of wave offering: Israelites placed the fat, right shoulder, breast of the ram, or the first fruits of barley and wheaten bread in the hands of the priest and waved them before the Lord.

Nowadays I do not see the wave offering or other kinds of offering such as burnt offering. When I think about offering, I think about money: bills and coins or money sent to the church from my checking account via bill payment.

In the time of Old Testaments people brought the offering and waved them before the Lord. They offered ram and barley waving them before the Lord but they must have felt that they were offering themselves as they waved the offering in a solemn ceremony.

Numbers 8:12-15 in NIV read:

After the Levites lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, use the one for a sin offering to the LORD and the other for a burnt offering, to make atonement for the Levites. Have the Levites stand in front of Aaron and his sons and then present them as a wave offering to the LORD . In this way you are to set the Levites apart from the other Israelites, and the Levites will be mine.

After you have purified the Levites and presented them as a wave offering, they are to come to do their work at the Tent of Meeting.

Not only the Israelites offered ram and barley as a wave offering, they also offered people - Levites - as a wave offering. God explains in Numbers 8:16-18 why the Levites were to be offered to him:

For they [are] wholly given unto me from among the children of Israel; instead of such as open every womb, [even instead of] the firstborn of all the children of Israel, have I taken them unto me. For all the firstborn of the children of Israel [are] mine, [both] man and beast: on the day that I smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for myself. And I have taken the Levites for all the firstborn of the children of Israel.

The Levites belonged to God instead of the firstborn of all the children of Israel. All the firstborn of the children of Israel were God's because God spared their lives in the very first Passover. I too was to die of my sins but Jesus died for me as my Pascal Lamb. The same principle applies to me as well.

Romans 12:1 reads:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service.

As I pray to God, praise Him, and serve Him, I am offering wave offerings before God. As I offer wave offerings before God, I need to be aware of the solemn and holy ceremony in the presence of God. I should realize that I am offering myself as a wave offering as I offer other things as my wave offerings.