Exodus 39

The Priest's Crown

And they made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote upon it a writing, like the engravings of a signet, HOLY TO THE LORD Exodus 39:30.

The first crown we read about in the Bible is the holy crown which the high priest carried on his forehead. On his head the high priest wore a sort of turban formed of several yards of pure linen wound round and round. Over this turban the crown was fastened. It consisted of a narrow plate of gold on which were engraved the words “holy to the lord.” Attached to the plate was a band or lace of blue material which was passed round the head and knotted behind. The band kept the plate in place.

The interesting bit about the priest's crown was the inscription “holy to the lord.” That word “holy” just means “set apart.” The high priest was “set apart” for God's service just as the Sabbath day was “set apart” for God's worship. He stood for the people before God.

Now you know that we no longer need any earthly high priest. Jesus has become our great High Priest once for all. He has offered Himself up a Sacrifice for us all and He pleads our cause with God our

Father. Still, each of us may wear the high priest's crown, and I think that crown is placed on our foreheads at three different times.

1. First of all it is placed on our heads when we are given to God in baptism. I wonder if you boys and girls have ever thought of that. You are all “HOLY TO THE LORD.” When you were very tiny, too tiny and helpless to be able to speak or think, your parents gave you to God. And so you really belong to Him, you are His boys and girls, set apart for Him. I think if we remembered that more often it would help to keep us straight when we are tempted to do things that are mean, or unworthy, or spiteful.

2. But it is not enough to let our parents put this crown on our head. God wants each of us to put it on with our own hands. There comes a time when we are able to think and choose for ourselves, and then we have to make up our minds whether we are to wear the crown for life or throw it away; whether we are to be God's servants, helping to make the world brighter, and braver, and better, and more beautiful, or just nothing at all.

Now a great many people who have tried to wear this crown have failed to understand the inscription. There were the monks and hermits of old, who thought that to be set apart for God meant to be set apart from the world. And some of them shut themselves up in cells and lived their days saying prayers and reading good books. Of course these were both very good things to do, but outside their cells the great weary world ached and sorrowed, and they did nothing to soothe its pain or comfort its sorrow. The little flowers lifted their bright faces to the sunshine, the little birds sang their songs of praise and joy, but these men were too busy trying to make themselves holy to have time to brighten the world that Jesus came to help and heal. Of course there were good monks, too, whose names live still for their deeds of charity and blessing, but these are not the ones we are thinking about.

Then there were other people who thought that to be holy meant that you must torture your body. Such a man was St. Simeon Stylites, who lived for many years on the top of a pillar and who at last was found dead there of starvation and exhaustion.

And there were others (perhaps some of them are still with us) who imagined that to be holy meant to pull a long face, or pretend that they were much better than anybody else.

Now in none of these things does holiness consist. God does not ask you to shut yourself away from the world, He does not ask you to torture your body, He does not expect you to look solemn and sad. Being “set apart” for God means that you are to make the very best of yourself, that you are to use your hands, and your feet, and your tongues, and your brains, and your laughter to serve God and help other people.

3. But last of all God puts this crown on our heads.

In the last chapter of the Bible there is a beautiful verse which describes God's servants in heaven, and this is what it says: “And they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their foreheads.” And that means not only that we shall belong to God but that we shall be like Him.

There is a beautiful legend which has come down to us of how once, when Jesus was here among men, He sat with His disciples round a fire in an open street. And John, the beloved disciple, took a piece of charcoal and traced the outline of his Master's shadow where it was thrown on the wall of a house.

Next day many people stopped to look at the outline on the wall, and various were the conjectures as to whom it represented. One man was certain it was the picture of a shoemaker and he pointed to the crooked back. But his neighbor contradicted him. “Nay,” he said, “it is the likeness of a fruit-vendor though the basket has been left out. Look at the parted lips. He is crying his wares.”

Then an educated Pharisee came past. “Ah,” he said, “what a fine brow this man has, the brow of a thinker! I believe someone has been trying to make a portrait of me. Yes, I'm sure that is my likeness.”

At length a man passed that way a humble man with a strong, tender face, with kind eyes, and a beautiful smile. And he, too, stopped to look: at the picture. He marked the noble brow, the meekness of the figure; then he spoke aloud: “Oh, if only one could come to look like that; but that would be impossible!”

And as he stood there a hush fell on the crowd and they drew back, pointing to him. For, without knowing it, the stranger had resembled the picture. He had lived a Christ-like life, and so he had come to look like Jesus.

Boys and girls, if we try to live like Jesus and that is the only truly holy life then not only His name, but His likeness shall be printed on our foreheads, and God will perfect that likeness when we see Him face to face. (The texts of the other sermons in this series are 2 Kings 11:12, Joh 19:2, 1 Corinthians 9:25.)