Offering a Sacrifice

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Offering a Sacrifice"

Theodore Perkins
5 years ago
Views:

1 Richard Davenport December 23, th Sunday of Advent Text: Hebrews 10:5-10 (NIV) Offering a Sacrifice 5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7 Then I said, Here I am it is written about me in the scroll I have come to do your will, my God. [a] 8 First he said, Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them though they were offered in accordance with the law. 9 Then he said, Here I am, I have come to do your will. He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Footnotes: a. Hebrews 10:7 Psalm 40:6-8 (see Septuagint) I don t have a lot of experience with farming, specifically raising the animals. I mentioned before that my vicarage was off in a rural part of Missouri and one family threatened to invite me over for the annual hog slaughter, but it never happened. I wasn t super enthusiastic about the prospect, but I d never been a part of that kind of life. I know it s an important part of our culture. Without the animals and the people to slaughter them, we wouldn t have meat to eat. I m told one of the cardinal rules of raising animals for slaughter is never to name them. Once you name them, they become personal. They start to feel more like pets or even family, than just animals awaiting slaughter. It becomes a lot harder to give them up after you ve developed a connection with them, after they ve become a part of your life. I m not sure how life was for priests in the Old Testament. They slaughtered animals on a pretty regular basis, each of them a sacrifice and offering to God. On the upside, the priests

2 wouldn t have any connection to the animals brought for sacrifice. It wouldn t take any special act of willpower to bring the animal forward for slaughter. As a priest, you could carry out your job with all of the reverence required without knowing anything about the animal except that it was intended for sacrifice. I m still not sure I d find the job especially fun, especially when you have to start pulling out the various organs for burning, but at least it would be less emotionally draining because I didn t know the animals. The people bringing the sacrifices, on the other hand, might have had a harder time. Sure, they may not have been bringing animals for sacrifice every day, but they had to pick out the animal to be given to God. You d have to go through all of your flocks or herds and find the one animal suitable. Even if that animal didn t have a name, it was still being singled out. It was the special animal who would be offered to God, perhaps as a guilt offering to be a sign of repentance, perhaps it was a thank offering giving thanks for some blessing or other. Either way, it would have a special place in your life, a place none of your other animals could claim. The changes eventually made in the operation of the temple helped people get away from some of that. The priests and Levites had animals they kept right there at the temple. People who were travelling could simply buy an animal right there on site instead of hauling it across country all the way from home. It made the whole process a lot easier and the priests could do a little quality control, making sure only acceptable animals were offered as sacrifices. It also meant people didn t have to go through the, potentially emotional, process. They wouldn t have any connection to the animal either, so offering it as a sacrifice wouldn t be so painful. Sacrifice is the main theme of the reading from Hebrews today. Isn t it a little out of place though? Christ, as the sacrificial Lamb, is something more appropriate to Lent. Holy Week recreates this Old Testament activity. Christ, as the lamb of the sacrifice, is brought to Jerusalem and slaughtered as a guilt offering. He is the fulfillment of the sacrificial system. Christ as the sacrificial lamb doesn t even make sense unless we have the system set up through the Law of Moses. The Israelites had been doing sacrifices according to the Law off and on for centuries. They probably didn t realize this was supposed to be pointing them toward the coming messiah, but they could at least look at him and put the sacrifices together

3 with the prophecies made about the messiah and see the connection. Isaiah describes the messiah by saying, He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Isaiah puts those ideas together pretty clearly. Obviously, the messiah will be a man, but one of the things he ll do is be slaughtered like one might slaughter a sheep. He ll be abused, and probably treated unjustly, but he isn t going to complain about it. All of that is a pretty solid Lenten theme. Good Friday becomes the culmination of that sacrificial work. Christ is the perfect Lamb. The gospels make a point of telling us none of his bones are broken and he is unblemished in every way, just like the Law of Moses required of sacrificial lambs. He goes to Jerusalem to die. He isn t slaughter in the temple and he isn t burned up on the altar, but the Old Testament prophecies and the accounts in the gospels want us to see the continuity, all of the animal sacrifices leading up to this one, final, perfect sacrifice. The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Finding this passage in Advent feels wrong, like we aren t ready to deal with this theme yet and there s a better, more appropriate time to talk about it. Advent and Christmas are about the joyful expectation of the savior s birth. God becoming man. The miracle of the virgin birth and the fulfillment of a promise literally thousands of years in the making. Sacrifice isn t something the gospels really deal with at this point. So why jump the gun and talk about it here? It s a little like raining on the Christmas parade. But, perhaps the author of Hebrews has some wisdom here for us. The author of Hebrews reminds us of the words of Psalm 40. King David presides over the nation of Israel, establishing it as a righteous nation that follows God. David is responsible for bringing the ark, the very seat of God, into Jerusalem. The Laws of Moses had been given long before this. The tabernacle had been built and was in use offering sacrifices to God. But David sees all this and says, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me. Behold, I have come to do your will. David sees the sacrifices and knows that isn t what earns God s favor. He has been made as God s instrument and busies himself with the work of God. God made David with love, putting him together with his own hands. David offers what he can, more than animal

4 sacrifices, he offers himself. The author of Hebrews tells us these are also the words of the Son of David. Jesus calls out to his Father, knowing animal sacrifices would never appease God s wrath against sin. He would be the sacrifice. The Father made the body for his Son, made with love, the body that would go to the cross to suffer and die. He didn t make Jesus body haphazardly, mashing it together like one might make a person out of play-doh. The Father made the body of his Son perfectly, attending to every tiny detail. A perfect little boy, born in a manger in Bethlehem. The Father makes his own Son to be a sacrifice. He doesn t give just whatever he can find around the house. He doesn t give up the cast offs or even the stuff he d like but he can still live without. His own Son, the Son he loves dearly. The Father makes him a body so he can be a sacrifice and die as an expression of his love. We think of Christmas and we think of decorations, family dinners, familiar songs, and, of course, presents. We think of the church services and the celebration of Christ s birth. The peaceful scene described in Silent Night, Mary, Joseph, and the animals all quietly passing the evening in the stable around the manger where the Son of God had just been born. You see the nativity scenes where Mary and Joseph are looking down into the manger, lovingly watching their new little boy, the boy given to them by the Father to be the perfect sacrifice, a boy born to die for the sins of the world. Our ideas of sacrifice rarely come close. The Father loves so much that he gives his own Son as a sacrifice so you may live. He gives up what he loves most in order to have something he loves even more, you. We look to Jesus as he hangs on the cross and we see what the Father was willing to give and how far short we fall from that measure. We look at Jesus on the cross, whose body was made with love so he could hang there and we ask him for forgiveness for giving the bare minimum, not even thinking about what kind of love it shows. God s love pervades everything that happens at Christmas time. Advent reflects on the Old Testament and how God guided his people in love. He took the time to prepare the perfect circumstances for his Son s arrival. Then he prepares us perfectly to receive him. God s love isn t shown through animal sacrifices and it isn t earned when we give sacrifices to him. He already loves us. He made Jesus body lovingly by hand just as he made ours. Jesus brings that

5 love to us when he goes to the cross to die for us. Christmas from our perspective can be about giving freely with no thought of gaining something in return. We are saved. We are free. We are created to give and can give freely of what we have because it is all given to us by our loving Father. Christmas is a time to celebrate what we have been given. Christmas is a time when we see the true meaning of sacrifice. Jesus gets angry at the moneychangers in the temple because they have distorted the sacrifices. People no longer understood what sacrifice meant because they didn t have to offer anything that meant something to them. The Father wants you to understand sacrifice so you understand the extent of his love for you. He is willing to give up everything he else he loves if it means getting you back safe. So share your Christmas dinners, your presents, your decorations, and your time together, and remember what God gave so you could have all of that without worry. Sing your Christmas hymns about the baby born in Bethlehem and remember what he came to do. Come celebrate tomorrow and on Christmas, hear the story of the Son of God made flesh so he could die, in order that you might live.

Invited to the Stable. A 6-Day Family Advent Devotional. Does your family have a nativity set?

Invited to the Stable. A 6-Day Family Advent Devotional. Does your family have a nativity set? Invited to the Stable A 6-Day Family Advent Devotional Does your family have a nativity set? In many Christian homes, children grow up playing with plastic figures of Mary and Joseph around Christmas time.