I’ve been spending a lot of time this month in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. It’s often hard to find yourself excited to read these chapters. It’s kind of like trudging through waist high snow drifts in the bleak midwinter, it’s hard work and it leaves you a little weary. But resting confident in the fact that “ALL Scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (1 TIM 3:16-17), I put on my smart wool socks and snow boots and trudged onward. And wouldn’t you know, God has revealed all kinds of new (to me) truths!
Probably the biggest thing I’ll take from this month is the concept of sacrifice.
Both of these Mosaic books spend a great deal of time talking about the spotless young male goat and the undefiled dove and what parts of the animal to wash before offering to the Lord and before when I’ve read these things I’ve felt really disconnected from them. The age old , narcissistic “what does this have to do with me” question. But let me tell you, folks- it has everything to do with us.
In the Old Testament, under the Old Covenant, this was God’s way of showing the people the great chasm of sin that separated them from Him. Hebrews 10:1 describes the old way as “only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come”. And the only reason our serving the Lord doesn’t look like this is because Christ became that spotless Lamb, offered once and for all. Let that sink in a minute…ONCE and FOR ALL.
This month (July), four of our teams are together doing ministry, so on Sundays, we figured the “divide and conquer” method was most efficient for church-going. My team went to “Game-Stop Assembly” where we led the village children in songs, games, and skits about Jesus. Some other teams went to churches they had gone to the previous week. But two other teams ended up going to this new “church” that a worker at our campgrounds told us about.
When the teams arrived, they were surprised to see rows of people lying on the ground in a substance induced stupor. Already, this was certainly unlike any church they’d ever been to.
Then they took a look inside the hut and saw the local witchdoctor, flanked by an animal sacrifice and blood splatter.
Naturally, it was rather shocking to my squad mates. It’s such a foreign concept to us. Almost barbaric.
But in that moment when my friend was recounting the story, it came crashing into my Leviticus reading. People sitting in a hut in Africa get it, but we don’t. Not that we should sacrifice animals, I’m not advocating divination.
What they understand though, is this idea that sin, evil, requires recompense.
But in my comfortable, Westernized Christianity, sacrifice is giving up some of my free time to do a service project or giving a little extra toward the church building fund.
Images began to flood my mind of this gruesome practice of payment in blood.
In Israel, the people bringing the sacrifice would have to lay their hand on the head of the animal and watch as it was slaughtered. Can you animal lovers imagine the weight of that? Knowing that this animal was literally a “scapegoat” for your sins. That because of your corruption, a life was lost and blood was shed.
And there are all different kinds of sacrifices, some that symbolize God’s worthiness, some that symbolize peace between God and man, some for sins, some for guilt…it goes on and on.
But we forget all that because we are under the New Covenant and we wear that title like it means we’re the “favorite child”. However, Christ said he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. So this stuff that we read isn’t irrelevant, it’s a glaring reminder of the ugliness and demands of our sin that have been fulfilled by Christ.
Do you realize the brevity of this? Because Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God has come and shed HIS blood, we no longer have to offer these animal sacrifices, again and again to receive atonement. Here’s the Biblical account found in Hebrews 9:
“That is why the Tabernacle and everything in it, which were copies of things in heaven, had to be purified by the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven had to be purified with far better sacrifices than the blood of animals. For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear before God on our behalf. And he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal. If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice. And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ died once for all time to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who eagerly waiting for him.”
So here I stand, in a humble kitchen in Coffee Bay, South Africa, under one of the only outlets around so I can charge my computer, completely floored anew at this sacrifice. And the cavalier way I treated my misdeeds and my sinful heart, previously detached from the consequences of them in my mind has been exposed leaving a raw awareness of “my” righteousness and a new awareness and appreciation , of UTTER DEPENDENCY on God. Because I cannot get there on my own.
