A Holy Week Ramble on Sacrifice

Chapel Message—Holy Week 2016

Gen 15:9-18a  The Lord told [Abram], “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”¹⁰ So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side; he did not, however, cut the birds in half. ¹¹ Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. ¹⁵ (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) ¹⁶ After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”

¹⁷ After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses.¹⁸ So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants.

The Covenant whispers back further than this, but here the voice of God gains volume. The plan He’d created before Creation weaves itself into the mangled tapestry of a fallen world, retying threads and uniting colors. Redeeming the tangled web humanity had woven. Patiently sorting out the pattern from the chaos as we continue to mess up His handiwork.

Abram, as you all know, didn’t walk between these animal halves, through the trench of blood. He didn’t say in the covenant way, “If I fail in my faithfulness, may this happen to me.” God walked through the warm, sticky path of death Himself. “When you fail in your faithfulness, may this happen to Me.” It was more than a promise of land to his progeny. It was a promise of provision. Of presence. For all people in the end.

Exodus 12:1-3, 5-8, 11-14 While the Israelites were still in the land of Egypt, the Lord gave the following instructions to Moses and Aaron: ² “From now on, this month will be the first month of the year for you. ³ Announce to the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each family must choose a lamb or a young goat for a sacrifice, one animal for each household…

 ⁵ The animal you select must be a one-year-old male, either a sheep or a goat, with no defects. ⁶ “Take special care of this chosen animal until the evening of the fourteenth day of this first month. Then the whole assembly of the community of Israel must slaughter their lamb or young goat at twilight.⁷ They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the sides and top of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the animal. ⁸ That same night they must roast the meat over a fire and eat it along with bitter salad greens and bread made without yeast...

¹¹ “These are your instructions for eating this meal: Be fully dressed,^[a]wear your sandals, and carry your walking stick in your hand. Eat the meal with urgency, for this is the Lord’s Passover. ¹² On that night I will pass through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn son and firstborn male animal in the land of Egypt. I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt, for I am the Lord! ¹³ But the blood on your doorposts will serve as a sign, marking the houses where you are staying. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. This plague of death will not touch you when I strike the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ “This is a day to remember. Each year, from generation to generation, you must celebrate it as a special festival to the Lord. This is a law for all time. 

Have you ever stopped to think of how cultic this was? The ASPCA would have a field day with this. Killing animals and spreading their blood on things tends to happen at the hands of possessed people in horror movies.

But it was a tangible, powerful reminder—neither the first nor the last—of the principle of a life for a life. The angel of death was indiscriminate. He came for the firstborn of Israel and Egypt. The only way for Israel to avoid the wailing experienced by Egypt was by the substitution of a lamb’s blood for their own. The angel smelled death at the door already. Justice and fairness were satisfied. He passed over.

Lev 4:13-21 “If the entire Israelite community sins by violating one of the Lord’s commands, but the people don’t realize it, they are still guilty. ¹⁴ When they become aware of their sin, the people must bring a young bull as an offering for their sin and present it before the Tabernacle. ¹⁵ The elders of the community must then lay their hands on the bull’s head and slaughter it before the Lord. ¹⁶ The high priest will then take some of the bull’s blood into the Tabernacle, ¹⁷ dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord in front of the inner curtain. ¹⁸ He will then put some of the blood on the horns of the altar for fragrant incense that stands in the Lord’s presence inside the Tabernacle. He will pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar for burnt offerings at the entrance of the Tabernacle. ¹⁹ Then the priest must remove all the animal’s fat and burn it on the altar, ²⁰ just as he does with the bull offered as a sin offering for the high priest. Through this process, the priest will purify the people, making them right with the Lord,^[c] and they will be forgiven. ²¹ Then the priest must take what is left of the bull and carry it outside the camp and burn it there, just as is done with the sin offering for the high priest. This offering is for the sin of the entire congregation of Israel.

I was struck this time, as I waded through Leviticus through Numbers in our church’s Bible reading plan, with the sensory experience of sacrifice. Through the tedium and repetitive nature of the sacrificial system, there was no escaping the reality of the cost of sin. Animals bellowing, shrieking, struggling against the impending knife. The spurting and gushing of the warm, coppery blood, red and staining everything. Never quite cleaned up all the way. Leaving edges of rust as evidence of where it flowed and splattered. The pervasive smell of cooking meat, bread, and incense constantly wafting over the camp, hanging in the hot desert air. Burning animal hair and cow dung. Salivation at the thought of a nice, roasted lamb or steak as you ate your umpteenth manna and quail Hot Pocket. The slippery feel as the priests separated organs and fat from the rest of the animal. Up to their elbows in guts for God’s glory.

We’re not inundated with these reminders. We lapse into thinking that we die because we are bad. We forget that we die because we are already dead, that we’ve exhaled the life of God in us. That to live forever in our unchanged, self-obsessed state would be hell. And that that is hell.

But animal sacrifice—although not effective in truly atoning for sin—kept that truth in front of God’s people. The wages of sin is death. The bloody pouring out of what keeps our hearts beating until they beat no more. The undeniable tie between our body and spirit.

Lev 16:20-22 “When Aaron has finished purifying the Most Holy Place and the Tabernacle and the altar, he must present the live goat. ²¹ He will lay both of his hands on the goat’s head and confess over it all the wickedness, rebellion, and sins of the people of Israel. In this way, he will transfer the people’s sins to the head of the goat. Then a man specially chosen for the task will drive the goat into the wilderness. ²² As the goat goes into the wilderness, it will carry all the people’s sins upon itself into a desolate land.

Isaiah 53:3-12
³ He was despised and rejected—
    a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
    He was despised, and we did not care.

⁴ Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
    it was our sorrows^[a] that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
    a punishment for his own sins!
⁵ But he was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.
⁶ All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and treated harshly,
    yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
    And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
    he did not open his mouth.
⁸ Unjustly condemned,
    he was led away.^[b]
No one cared that he died without descendants,
    that his life was cut short in midstream.^[c]
But he was struck down
    for the rebellion of my people.
⁹ He had done no wrong
    and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
    he was put in a rich man’s grave.

¹⁰ But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
    and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
    he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
    and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
¹¹ When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
    he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
    my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
    for he will bear all their sins.
¹² I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
    because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
    He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

The death I was born having earned. My own birthright of doom. Owned only by me. The sin that curved my heart hopelessly inward. The offer to place it on the head of another.

Not just any other. The head of my perfect big brother. Who didn’t have his own sin to die for. He became it for me. He took it on himself and walked it outside the camp. Outside the city wall. He lost it for me in the wilderness. He took it to a desolate land, never to grip me again.

How much clearer can the imagery be? The consequence of death was absorbed into the Creator and Sustainer of life. It’s not as if God wanted a punching bag for His wrath, someone to take it out on because He’s mad. He absorbed the death and sin and darkness into His light like some sort of holy reverse black hole. He took it all into Himself and it became nothingness when it encountered the holy.

Heb 9:18-28 ¹⁸ That is why even the first covenant was put into effect with the blood of an animal. ¹⁹ For after Moses had read each of God’s commandments to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats,^[i] along with water, and sprinkled both the book of God’s law and all the people, using hyssop branches and scarlet wool. ²⁰ Then he said, “This blood confirms the covenant God has made with you.”^[j] 21 And in the same way, he sprinkled blood on the Tabernacle and on everything used for worship.²² In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

²³ 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.

²⁴ 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 now before God on our behalf. ²⁵ 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. ²⁶ 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^[k] to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice.

²⁷ And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, ²⁸ so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice 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 are eagerly waiting for him.

1 Cor 11:23b-26 On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread ²⁴ and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you.^[f] Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.”²⁶ For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.

The sensory reminder of sin, death, and sacrifice returns. The smell of bread. The substance of it in your palm. The bright color of the juice (if you’re Wesleyan). The tang as it goes down. The presence of Christ in me. Becoming a part of my cells. Giving me life and absorbing my death.

A life for a life. This time efficacious for the sins of all. The bread broken in two like Abram’s animals. And God Himself walked through the river of blood once and for all. His blood in on my heart. The angel of death passes over me. My sins are confessed onto the head of another. The darkness and death that overpowered me are absorbed by the Light. The only truly perfect Lamb has been sacrificed in my place.

Let’s leave it there for now if it’s okay with you, brothers and sisters. Our God has climbed up onto the altar for us. We can’t begin to grasp the wonder of Easter without the grief of the cross. Come and mourn with me a while. Feel the weight of this week. And on Sunday, feel once again the joy of life restored.