Still, it is a concept we use in our day. As parents we sacrifice for our kids, relinquishing certain personal pleasures for them. This becomes all the more acute as we become very aware of the sacrifices required to provide higher education. We have chosen to forego or postpone certain things in order to provide for their needs. As for children of aging parents - the idea of sacrifice too comes into play as we consider what we may need to do differently to honor them as they are growing older. As Christians we speak of sacrifices in our lives as we do without some legitimate pleasure or activity for the sake of helping someone in need. It is sacrificial because it is costly. The language of sacrifice is part of our common vocabulary. In baseball we hear the language of sacrifice. With a runner on first base, with no outs, it’s probable that the hitter will attempt a sacrifice bunt to advance the runner to second. In war we speak of the ultimate sacrifice of someone who gives his life for his country. Sacrifice is something we do for another. Moving stories of sacrifice help illustrate that reality of what some may do for others. The sacrifice of Maximilliam Kolbe, the Franscisan priest well illustrates the beauty of self-sacrifice. In February 1941, Kolbe was incarcerated at Auschwitz. In the harshness of the slaughterhouse he maintained the gentleness of Christ. He shared his food. He gave up his bunk. He prayed for his captors. He was soon given the nickname 'Saint of Auschwitz.' But it is not for those acts of kindness for which he is best known, but how in July of 1941 he voluntarily took the place of another prisoner randomly selected to be punished with starvation. The ultimate sacrifice: giving of one’s life for another. On the human plane such sacrifices are heroic and legendary. On the horizontal we memorialize such courage. But what kind of sacrifice does God expect from us? What must we give to sacrifice to God? I recently heard a sermon on tape which well typified the fuzzy thinking which mistakenly understands what sacrifice is all about. In this sermon the pastor, after picturing the sorry state of our present culture with regard to the disintegration of the family, pictured God as one who is on a search. “God is looking for men and women and children who have hearts fully devoted to Him. He’s seeking over the world on a search for people who will be committed to him, who will get rid of all the obstacles to be fully His. Christianity is a love relationship between us and God.” But, he says, our hearts often drift from God and become cold and ritualistic. He then went on to describe how his own heart grew cold and casual. He went through the motions as a Christian, but the fire was gone. That is a common problem we all face, but how he dealt with it typifies the mistaken notions we often have. "Three things I had to do to get back on track, three things I had to do to return to my first love: First thing I did was I went to the Lord and repented of my sin. Let’s call sin sin, not gloss over it, belittle it, but call it what it is. We need the courage to share it with the Lord and turn from it. Second thing I had to do is to make a renewed commitment to the spiritual disciplines. The spiritual disciplines are any activity undertaken to connect us with God and his kingdom. The spiritual disciplines are those activities that put us in a place where we can be taught by God, touched by God and transformed by God. They are Bible study, prayer, devotion, service, worship, journaling, solitude. Taking time to be with Jesus and connect with him, to renew our journey into his heart and mind, to renew that love relationship with him. To be with him. I had to renew my commitment to the spiritual disciplines. The third thing I had to do is I had to connect with other men. Christianity is not a solo sport, we can’t live it alone." Unfortunately, as noble as the sentiment may be, as valuable as it may appear, such efforts miss the mark. To imagine that my efforts are ever sufficient to please God, that my sacrifice is sufficiently efficacious is to believe wrongly about my sin and God’s demands for perfection. I mention that sermon for it unfortunately typifies how we view our problem and consequently the solution that is offered is far from helpful. Like a doctor who misdiagnoses the problem - the medicine may become poison. What is my condition? The Bible paints a rather bleak picture of our ability. Adam’s sin in the Garden was sufficient to condemn us all. For this reason David says in Psalm 51, “I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” "Born to be Wild" is not just a song from my youth, but is made explicit in God’s Word when we are told that there is no one who does good (Romans 3:10-12), we are slaves to sin (Romans 7:14), enemies of God (Romans 5:10); corrupted in both mind and conscience (Titus 1:15) and dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1). Each and every one of us deserves God’s wrath. What if we try to be good? Isaiah reminds us that even our righteous deeds are as filthy rags. While we may be socially upstanding our status before God is no different than the child pornographer or the serial killer. In my heart, there are not temporary lapses into sins, but those sins are an indication of my utter sinfulness. My heart has done things my hands haven’t gotten around to yet. But we mistakenly create a dual standard for sin: The small mistakes of judgments that I make and the reprehensible crimes against God and nature which others do. This dichotomy was well illustrated this past week when a leading pro-life leader left her toddler in her car for a half hour while she shopped at Steins. At what could be a supreme opportunity to demonstrate God’s mercy despite our sinfulness, her actions were placed in a different category by a local Christian conservative radio personality who said the Journal Sentinel was like a "piranha" attacking "someone for making a mistake in judgment." "There's a big difference when someone intentionally slaughters a child through abortion, or someone makes a mistake in judgment because of a thermal condition -- and I agree it was a bad decision to make," Eliason said. "I don't think you can in any way parallel this as a lack of love for the child or to parallel it with child abuse, especially the kind of abuse that comes from killing a child and tearing its body apart." To err is human, to deny responsibility is as old as our first parents. Adam blamed Eve; Eve blamed the serpent. Today we blame society or our parents’ upbringing or our economic condition. It is popular to allow sin for such extreme cases as Hitler and Stalin. That puts the responsibility far off. But the problem of sin is not just reserved for the worst, it is intrinsic in our very lives. C.S. Lewis well understood this problem and the deadly trap we all fall into when we imagine our light sins are far safer than those more reprehensible. In his Screwtape Letters, Screwtape says to his junior tempter, “The only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to hell is the gradual one.” A weak view of sin requires a weak sacrifice. If our sins are external to us, are minor inconveniences which I can atone for, then if we are nice people, we will set our lives on a track of self-justification. But when we understand the problem of sin is far worse than we imagine, that we know that we are separated from God and that only He can save us, then our view of sacrifice for sin radically changes. That is message of the book of Leviticus and especially the first chapter. By way of this long introduction we set the scene for what takes place in the OT sacrificial system. We see here that sacrifice is not about what I need to do, but what I need. 1. The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting. He said, 2. "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: `When any of you brings an offering to the LORD, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock. 3. "`If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the LORD. 4. He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. 5. He is to slaughter the young bull before the LORD, and then Aaron's sons the priests shall bring the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 6. He is to skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. 7. The sons of Aaron the priest are to put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. 8. Then Aaron's sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, including the head and the fat, on the burning wood that is on the altar. 9. He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the LORD. The book and our passage begins with God calling Moses, giving him instructions as to how we are to approach Him. There is an assumption when any of you brings an offering: In order to approach God one needed to bring an offering. Not as a means of a bribe or payoff of an irate deity nor a means to show our true intent despite our sinful actions. Rather the word offering (korban) means “to approach or have access.” To have a relationship with God demanded a go between, an intermediary. Sacrifice was the first act in the relationship one was to have with God. As we look at the sacrifice the worshiper was to bring we see that it was not a gift to placate God’s anger, but, taking seriously that sin separates us from God, was to typify how God’s righteous anger would be poured out. IT MUST BE A PERFECT SACRIFICE When we look closely at the sacrifices given we will erase from our minds the idea of a sacrifice as something I do. They did not show the good intentions of the people who offered them. The Old Testament sacrifices rather pointed to what they did not possess, but that they trusted God to provide one who would fulfill the demands illustrated here. Notice how this sacrifice points to Christ. It was taken from among them; Levitical law did not allow wild or untamed animals, nor any that ate meat. It was to be from their own herds or flock. It was to be tamed and peaceful. In the same way God’s Son came to us in the form of a peaceful servant, from among His own people. It was to be a male. This was not due to pragmatic reasons of not decreasing the female populations so as to diminish the reproductive opportunities. The male animal symbolized strength and power. It also points to the fact that as the result of one trespass sin entered the world and so all were condemned, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. It was to be without defect. The sacrifice offered had what the one offering did not have - perfection. The animal to be sacrificed was a picture of what the one offering the animal did not have, but desperately needed. In this way, the animal again points to Christ. The prophet Isaiah pictured this as he described the coming Messiah as just such a sacrifice when he said: "Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth." Isaiah 53:4-9 Paul says the same thing when he writes that “He who knew no sin, became sin for us." 2 Corinthians 5:21 Peter points to Christ as the spotless lamb sacrificed for us when he says, "knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ." 1 Peter 1:18-19 Such requirements show us that the sacrifice was not acceptable because the person gave something valuable as a sign of his or her love for God. Rather, the sacrifice offered was a perfect sacrifice. IT MUST BE A SUBSTITUTE SACRIFICE It is not enough just to bring the animal, but physically demonstrate solidarity with the sacrifice, to acknowledge that while the animal is perfect, he is not. This is seen by placing hands on the animal. Laying on of hands is not just patting the bull like a puppy. The word means to exert pressure, to lean, to brace oneself on the animal, to find support in the animal. In that rite the person made the animal his successor; it came to stand in his place. The animal, though doing nothing wrong, is reckoned as now possessing the sin of the person who desires to come before God. In this simple act of transference we have the very essence of what we are to do. The animal pictures Christ and onto Him we place all the burden of all our guilt. We are not called to casually consider His death in our place, but fully find our rest on Him. We find our support in Christ when we look to Him to be our substitute, when we consider His death in our place. When in faith we confess Jesus as our Savior - we look to Him as the one on whom we transfer our sins to, and He then pays the penalty. We live in an age when transference is simple and removed. With technology we can transfer vast amounts of money with a push of button. We don’t see the stack of cash floating away. But with this sacrifice we see and feel the one who will suffer. An American naval vessel, the USS Pueblo, was hijacked a number of years ago by the North Korean military. For a couple of months the diplomatic situation was very tense while 82 crew members were held in captivity. Their guards tortured them in various ways. In one incident, 13 of the men were forced to sit in assigned chairs without moving for hours on end. Finally, the door burst open and a North Korean soldier stepped in and began to beat the man in the first chair with the butt of his rifle. The next day each man took his assigned place and sat rigidly for several hours. Again the guard threw open the door and brutalized the man in the first chair. The same sequence of events was repeated on the third day--the same man was beaten. On the fourth day, a young sailor, realizing that the man would not live through another beating, sat in the first chair in his place. At last the door swung open. The cruel guard came in and beat this new victim until he was almost unconscious. It went on this way for weeks. Each day a different man would volunteer to take his turn in that first chair, fully aware of what would happen. While Christ’s death is vastly different and greater, I wonder what it would be like to look at the face of the one who willingly took the chair for you. That is what God has done for us in Christ. The cross is the point at which our sins were heaped upon Him, and God the Son, willingly and lovingly suffered and died in our place. "My numerous sins transferr’d to Him, Shall never more be found, Lost in His blood’s atoning stream, Where every crime is drown’d!” (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening April 13th) The animal then is slaughtered. This was not done by the priest, but by the one who brought the animal. It was his sins which were placed on the animal and it was his knife which drained the blood. The importance of blood in the Old Testament points to the life and death nature of the atonement. In order for us to be reconciled to God there must be death. Your sin can not be so easily removed by reading the Bible more, by praying harder or by eradicating sinful thoughts from your mind. The pastor who said that to get right with God necessitated you to act completely misunderstands that your sin deserves death. Someone must die. The blood was then sprinkled round about upon the altar, the picture of final forfeiture, of one life poured out for another. The body was then skinned and dismembered, washed and arranged to be burned. With a complete dissection it became obvious to the worshipper that covering afforded by the skin was gone and everything was laid open and could be seen. The protective skin was gone with a cut of the knife in the same way our righteousness, our surface goodness is so easily moved and we are seen for what we are. Not only is beauty skin deep, so is our righteousness. This imitates the first sacrifice when God took animal skins and covered our first parents with them. It pictures our need for covering, that our coverings are as ineffective as fig leaves. But, God who is rich in mercy, clothes us with his own Son. The cutting into pieces would at last leave the sacrifice a mangled mass of flesh and bones. The body is then burned: a faint representation of that everlasting misery which we all deserve, but which our Lord bore in His body and in His soul, when he died under the load of our sin. The burnt offering is called is a holah - referring to that which is complete burned, annihilated. The Greek transliterates that as holocaust, a term with special meaning in the 20th century. The victim is all disfigured, and has become a mass of disjointed bones and mangled flesh, because thus shall it be in the case of the lost in hell. What once was is now gone forever - no lover or friend would ever be able to recognize that lost one. As if even all this were not expressive enough, that mangled mass is committed to the flames, and in the consuming flame, every remaining mark of its former state disappears. All is ashes. So complete is the doom of the lost - as testified on this altar, and fulfilled by Jesus when he took the sinner’s place. That smoke attests that God’s righteousness is fully satisfied in the suffering victim. His blood, his soul is poured out and the flame of divine wrath burns up the suffering one! The smoke ascends - a sweet savor to the Lord. IT MUST BE A PLEASING SACRIFICE It is then and only then that God’s pleasure is pronounced - it is an aroma pleasing to the Lord. How different that is from what was spoken a few years back at the infamous Re-Imaging Conference in Minneapolis where the biblical doctrine of the atonement was ridiculed. Feminist theologian Dolores Williams said: "I don't think we need a theory of atonement at all.... I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff." But it is the centrality of the cross that is so clearly portrayed in these archaic rituals. We no longer sacrifice like this, not because we have matured beyond such bloody rituals, but because those rites were meant to point to the Christ who was to come. He has come and the cross is the constant reminder that his death is sufficient for us. This is the central tenet of our faith, the work of Christ on the cross. The types and shadows are important in that they remind us again of Christ. They tell us the central issue of life: the good news we have to believe and proclaim is not how to attain inner peace, mental health or an adjusted and balanced life. Rather the central message is that we are sinners in need of forgiveness and that God’s love is demonstrated toward us in that while we were still sinners, enemies, Christ died for us. This is what the author of Hebrews tells us in It is for this reason that Paul says in Ephesians 5:2, "and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." Paul links the right understanding of the doctrine of the atonement with a godly walk. Walking in love and purity is the fruit of correct doctrine and Paul connects the doctrine of Christ’s atonement with that walk and purity. The atonement, the burnt offering is not what we do to make God happy with us; it is that we have placed our faith in that one complete and final sacrifice for our sins. It is only then that we may understand how we, in response to that truth, be ourselves living sacrifices. (Romans 12) In light of God’s sacrifice for us, we out of gratitude give of our lives to Him. In that process we find our minds renewed, ceasing from the old pattern of trying to please Him by our sacrifices, and looking to Christ alone as the only will for our lives we need to know. The sacrifices typified Christ; they also shadowed out the believer’s duty, character, privilege, and communion with God. When we hear the word sacrifice, we wince - not because of an aversion to of the bloody nature of animal sacrifices nor because it is to be our sacrifice which creates or maintains a relationship with God. Rather, it is Christ’s death as God’s Son on the cross for our sins which should cause us to respond always in light of that sacrifice with lives given over to serve Him. |
