The altar fire

The fire must never go out, so put wood on it each morning. After this, you are to lay an animal on the altar next to the fat that you sacrifice to ask my blessing. Then send it all up in smoke to me. The altar fire must always be kept burning—it must never go out. (Leviticus 6:12-13) 

The Old Testament can be a bit hard to read through, especially since it seems like there are a lot of blood wars, blood sacrifices, bad things happening, and a whole lot of sinning going on! I see regular people, struggling to make a way in a regular world, and meeting with regular issues we all have to encounter. So, instead of slugging through, I look for the hidden truths and things we might otherwise overlook if we were just reading these chapters as "historical content". In the Book of Leviticus, much instruction was given to the priests on how they were to conduct their daily business in the offering of sacrifices.  In the instructions given to Moses for the priests, various sacrifices, dedicated holy days, and special feast days, we can find rich meaning pointing us toward the one who would become the ultimate blood sacrifice, making ultimate atonement once and for all for all of mankind's sins.  

As Moses is receiving some of these instructions from the Lord and passing them onto the Tribe of Levi (the Levite priests), we see the instruction to "tend the fire" of the altar - something which was never to go out. I don't know about you, but I have tended some fires in my day, and it was hard to keep it so that it never went out. You'd have to gather the wood, keep enough alongside the fire to tend it even when bad weather made it hard to do so, and then you'd have to stir the embers frequently enough to infuse the fire with that "stoking" heat it often needed to ignite afresh. I don't think this is too different from what has to happen in our own spiritual lives each and every day if we are to have a continual "burning" within our spirit which keeps us "on fire" in our relationship with Jesus.

The altar fire must never go out. It was to be tended - never left unattended. It had to be stoked - not left to burn down to ashes. It had to be able to consume what was placed upon the altar - so it had to burn hot. It had to be "mobile" or easily moved - as the Israelites were a "nomadic" people for quite a while until they settled into the land of Canaan. All of these important facts could easily be glossed over in this accounting of how the sacrifices were to be prepared and offered - but without fire, all the sacrifices would be nothing more than a rotting pile of flesh, putrid in the odor which it would give off, and festering with all manner of parasites and disease. I think this also speaks to the importance of fire - it had to be able to consume and turn what would otherwise be a rotting pile of mess into a savory delight.

God's fire must be ignited within us, but it must always be maintained. It isn't a 'purposeless' fire, though. It is the 'altar fire' - the place where our lives are transformed by the power of that fire. Just sayin!