DAY 46

JESUS DIES

Leviticus 17 & 18 and Matthew 27: 27-50

Are we desensitized? Have you and I read so often of the death of Jesus that we can read about it and not be shocked, or not be sad? I remember when Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ aired I had to close my eyes, I could not look at it. So I am sitting here thinking about it, about the entire thing.

Beyond the abject horror, pain and brutality of it, what I am really struck by is just how far God goes for us. The point of the Cross is to make the way for you and me to be forever with God. It pays the debt. It is the full and perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It is finished! To what further extreme could God go?

I have written a number of “posts” where I have pointed out how serious God and God’s plan is. You might remember the Plague-Exodus sequence. God is not capricious. He goes to extremes to free the people He is choosing. He kills the first born of all Egypt.

In return God wants us to take seriously our relationship, dare I say, our Covenant with Him. We have been seeing the precision that God has been prescribing in Leviticus. I have tried in prior posts to get at the principles behind the detailed rules.

The first principle is that God wants us to be different, to be holy. We have seen this before, but again God states this in the first 5 verses of chapter 18 of Leviticus.

He also wants us to have integrity: if we say, “God I will follow you” then He expects we will. Consider the situation of having the “right sacrificial offering”, but “offering it in the wrong place.” Isn’t that the basic situation in Leviticus 17:1-9? Why would you? To cut corners; to not be bothered with following through on your word to God? Assuming you knew the proper manner, then that is probably the best spin you could put on it.

There is an even worse possibility. That is to say to God, “I will approach You the way I want.” To do that would be to make yourself into a god. You are the one giving the orders. I meet people who don’t want to accept any variety of Jesus’ Words such as “…all who come to the Father come through me” (John 14:6). In this instance that is exactly what is going on.

God is very serious about the principle of integrity; if you say you will follow Him, then He will expect it. He is also very serious about you uniquely being His People. In the Old Testament, coming to Him and being distinctive for Him through these rituals [and in the New Testament through Jesus His Son.]

This distinctiveness is very specific and is offered in contrast to the pagan cultures of the day.

Pagan customs of that day often revolved around fertility rituals; rituals that sought to promote the earth and its inhabitants to “give life.” [When a new crop comes up that is the earth “giving life”.] These rituals involved consuming blood. Why; because it contains the “life” of the creature. God wants us neither to try and manipulate life, nor denigrate it. God wants us to be confronted with the cost, the cost of a sacrifice, the cost of the loss of life. To drink blood is to denigrate life and disregard its divinely intended purpose. It is to be like all the pagan cultures around you.

The next set of law in Leviticus 18 is similar. It might be helpful to know the basic Jewish household structure. People lived in their father’s house, often with 3-5 generations living in close proximity. The eldest son would take over as the father lost strength. If a brother’s house got large then he would/could set up his own “father’s house.” Either way there could be up to 50-100 people from multiple generations in “the house.”

Again, I must emphasize that there is the temptation to follow Pagan/Egyptian customs, and they may have been enamored by them. They may envy some of the practices of the Canaanites so much that they would imitate them. The customs in view are cultic practices rooted in fertility rites and alternative patterns of family relationships.

When Israel entered the land of Canaan, they found a people whose ways and beliefs are deplorable, but it was not too long before those ways became their ways. Sexual intimacy is part of the institution ordained by God at Creation. Any acts that cross the sexual barriers not only desecrate what is holy but also bring chaos and confusion into this human divine law, and those who willfully rebel against it condemn themselves.

We see this every day. The world provides an overwhelming powerful threat; whether we are talking the ancient culture of Leviticus, or ours of today. What is truly amazing is that although the moral impurity of the world is perverse and detestable by any simple assessment, the more it is tolerated the more acceptable and appealing it becomes to people around it. 100 years ago people use to talk about sex before marriage and even adultery in very negative terms: it was sin! Now it is largely accepted. What are talking about today the way people use to talk about premarital sex? The answer is sex with children; that ought to give us pause.

God wants us to follow Him. What is the way of the Lord – the way of purity (Isaiah 48:17-18).

People often pick the one verse out of this text that has to do with homosexual relations. First of all the text does not condemn homosexual orientation,; it is much broader than that. The text clearly defines sexual purity in family relationships and specific relationships and acts are referred to. Consider its scope. There must never be any kind of sexual relationship between …

     -    Children and their mother or any of their father’s wives (vs. 6-8)

-    Siblings (vs. 9)

-    Grandchildren and grandparents (vs. 10-11)

-    Nephews/nieces and uncles/aunts (vs. 12-14)

-    Sons/daughters and fathers/mothers-in-law (vs. 15)

-    Siblings and siblings-in-law (vs. 16)

-    Close relatives (vs. 17-18)

-    Husband and wife during his wife’s monthly period (vs. 19)

-    A man/woman and his/her neighbor’s wife/husband (vs. 20)

-    Children and a deity (vs. 21)

-    A man and a man, a woman and a woman (vs. 22)

-    A person and an animal (vs. 23)

God desires us to have the best possible relationships and to live in ways that glorify Him. He knows we will fail. He desires we come to him, seeking forgiveness, with a desire to repent.

Which is why Jesus comes into the world and it gives us great joy. Yet it is joy that has come at a cost; the most extreme cost. Jesus dies. God desires we be grateful in receiving the free gift of His Son. I believe He also wants us to be serious about being a unique people, a holy people, a people who live in a way that leads others to Him.