Today, I am reading and commenting on   Leviticus 8-9.

Reading today’s passage about the ordination of Aaron as high priest when I came to Moses anointing Aaron it brought to mind the stories in the Gospels about a woman anointing Jesus.  One of the questions I have always had regarding those accounts was why all four Gospel writers thought it was so important.  Reading this today it struck me that the woman’s (women? the differences between the way the Gospels tell the story suggests that it may have happened more than once) anointing of Jesus represented His ordination as High Priest, which was completed by His offering of Himself as a sacrifice on the cross.  So, the Gospel writers were invoking the symbolism of the anointment portion of the priestly ordination when they wrote about the woman anointing Jesus.  So, while I see a connection, it is a connection of symbolism, not of ceremony.   Anointing someone represents setting them apart to serve God in a special way.  Here Moses anointed Aaron to set him aside to serve as high priest.  The woman who anointed Jesus was symbolically setting Him aside to serve God in ways which were probably unclear to her.  She may not have even been aware that she was doing so.  Perhaps I will explore that connection a little further when I get to those passages later in the year.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.