DAY 38

PERSPECTIVE

Leviticus 1, 2 & 3 and Matthew 24:1 - 28

Here we are – about to “wade into” Leviticus! Some people may be groaning because they know what is coming – the Law.

I have titled today “Perspective” because the approach you read and study Leviticus, in fact all of the Old Testament with, will dramatically determine how you receive (or reject) all that we are about to read.

My perspective starts with Jesus. You might think that I am jumping to the New Testament. Jesus has “come to fulfill the Law” we read in Matthew 5:17. Therefore when Jesus goes to the Cross, that act is not some arbitrary event, rather it is rooted in the Law. Why do I make this assertion? Quite simply Jesus was Jewish! I know that is not a great revelation, but what we have read (Genesis & Exodus) and what we are about to read (Leviticus) was (and is) His Book. As a Jew, as a Rabbi, (as its Author) He knew it inside and out, and His actions flowed from it.

I will try therefore to not get too bogged down in details, but rather try and highlight the point of various sacrifices and rules as I understand them. My remarks are highly influenced by several theologians: NT Wright and Allen Ross. It is from Allen Ross that I directly quote below.

“The law of Moses was given to a redeemed people (for the most part), to the community of faithful people who assembled to worship at Mount Sinai. They had cried out to the Lord for help in their bondage, and when they responded with faith to the word of the Lord and put blood on the doorposts of their homes in Egypt, the Lord delivered them from bondage. They were already the people of God when they came to Sinai; but at Sinai they cut the covenant and entered a formal relationship as the nation.

Paul says that the law was a pedagogue—a tutor or child trainer; he does not say the law was a midwife. The Israelites were already the people of God; the law was given to guide them to maturity in the faith and to the fulfillment of the promises. This observation is important because many people think that in the Old Testament people were redeemed by keeping the law, whereas Christians are saved by grace. No one has ever been redeemed by keeping the law or by doing any works; salvation has always been by the grace of God through faith. The law, then, was given as a gracious provision to a redeemed people to make them a holy nation and prepare them to be a kingdom of priests.”

That last line deeply informs me. People were not keeping the Law to try and earn God’s love. Rather, people were trying to be shaped into a holy nation and a royal priesthood. Jesus called them, “the Light of the World.”

In Leviticus 1, 2 & 3 we have three sacrifices. What is the point of each?

In the first chapter we read of the “burnt offering”. It is a sacrifice for sin (verse 4 – atonement). Its aroma is pleasing to the Lord. The principle here is that our sin, our not being that “holy nation” is being atoned for through the shedding of blood. We do that by offering to God something this is a great value, something without blemish. In other words we come to God “sorry” for what we have done. We come to Him secure in His love for us. We are not trying to buy his forgiveness. We are saying that we sincerely are remorseful. He is saying that He, God, knows it is hard. We need to work on becoming holy. There needs to be a real cost to us. We may have the best intentions, but if it, our sin, doesn’t in some way impact us, then we are not likely to change. Why is it done so much? Because we are “works in progress”. Our being made holy, our sanctification, is a lifelong process. The principle – atonement through the sacrifice of blood – is not an overly popular one today. If however we do not accept it, then we will find ourselves dismissing much of the Old Testament, and indeed the Cross.

In the second chapter we read of the “grain offering”. It is a food offering, a meal if you will. Think back to the elders on the mountain with God when the made the Covenant. They were sprinkled with blood and had a meal; two ancient rituals of being bonded together. The meal is to be of the choicest flour, no leaven (I read no hidden motives). It is to be mixed with oil which indicates joy. It is to be mixed with incense for it is offered as prayer. It is a meal with God celebrating their dedication to God.

In the third chapter we read of the “peace offering”. The peace offering celebrated the sense of well being enjoyed by the worshipers as a result of the forgiveness their sins accompanied by the acceptance of the Lord, and the dedication of their life to him. Specifically the peace offering follow worshiper’s having first met the requirements of expiation (through a sin or guilt offering) and dedication (through burnt and grain offerings).

As with the burnt and grain offerings each person was free to choose the kind of offering except that it ‘must have no physical defects.’ (vs.1). It could be ‘from the herd’ (vs. 1), ‘from the flock’ (vs. 6), or ‘a goat’ (vs. 12). The way the presentation of the offering was conducted was also similar to that of the burnt and grain offerings. But there was another aspect to the peace offering in that it. It took the form of a communal meal. I know we are not there yet but in Leviticus 7:15 we will read, “The animal’s meat must be eaten on the same day it is offered”. (Leviticus 7:15). Allen Ross writes…”Leviticus 7 will emphasize that the worshiper and the congregation ate part of the sacrifice; so this sacrifice, the celebration of being at peace with God, was considered a communal meal eaten in the presence of the Lord.”

All of this ritual was one of the greatest expressions of communion with God. That the communal meal was received from the sacrifice is striking. In almost all other sacrifices it was the offerer giving to God; but here it is as if God was returning a portion of the sacrifice for the faithful to eat in his presence. This indicates the Lord’s gracious bounty to his people and the peaceful relationship that existed within the covenant.

I realize this was a longer post, but I felt I needed to set the stage (or maybe I should say table) for what lies ahead. Leviticus is a great book. What is contained in it, all the rituals, shape God’s people. The more we can understand the reasons, the more we will be able to appreciate God and all He has done through Christ Jesus – including His superseding the Temple which he foretells in the New Testament in today’s reading.  

DAY 37

A DAY OF CONTRASTS

 Exodus 39 & 40 and Matthew 23:23-38

Sometimes our readings from the Old and New Testaments line up, sometimes they don’t, and occasionally they are diametrically opposed – today we are in the latter category.  

The culmination of the Book of Exodus is God coming to dwell with His people. It has been a long road. You have worked hard to read it; they worked hard to live it. It started with the struggle to get free of Pharaoh. It moved to the struggle to trust and follow God. It continued with the struggle to create all he had commanded. They have done it! It is a good day in the camp of the Israelites as…the glory of the Lord fills the Tabernacle, 40:34.

In contrast it is not a good day in the Temple. Jesus is continuing what is often referred to as the Seven Woes. It seems as if it is a tirade. I don’t often picture Jesus behaving this way. In fact I have never pictured him this way. It seems to me as I read this today he is in one, a tirade. In culminates in him lamenting over Jerusalem. He loves this city. He cried when he entered it just a few days ago. It is His city, and yet the city that is the most religious city in the world has forgotten God.

The point today that is “smacking me in the head” is that following God is work, it can be a struggle, and there will be days I will get it right and days I won’t. Yet God is faithful; he will dwell with me, with us, if we seek him. The point is also that if I, if we, do not want him, and if we, who call ourselves His people, pervert Him, then He will hold us accountable – even as He laments.   

DAY 36

WORSHIP GONE AWRY

 Exodus 36, 37 & 38 and Matthew 23:1-22

Wow, look at all this activity! In addition to the activity, the people provided more materials then were needed (v. 36:5). Look also at how by the time of Jesus the Pharisees and Sadducees have undone all that God intended as Jesus judges them for the way they sit on the mercy seat. They add heavy burdens to the people.

In Moses day, he Moses and the other priests interceded for the people – offering prayer and making atonement – lightening the load for the people. Recall that Moses father-in-law, Jethro, was concerned that Moses was working too hard. The Priesthood, and the Tent of Meeting that we see nearing completion in today’s reading, is about providing a place of beauty where God may dwell with his people, and a place where priests interceded for the people – lightening their load before God.

Jesus of course points out things have gotten off track. The religious of the day show off in public, with large phylacteries (little boxes that have copies of the Law in them and they would wear them on their heads and hands, see Deuteronomy 6:8 & 11:18). They would also have elaborate robes with broad fringes, and they would take the best seats in the house. We also read “Call no one father.”

The two main thrusts of my comments today center on “worship” and “the priesthood”: first worship. Jesus is rightly critical of what the Temple (the successor to the Tent of Meeting) has become. It might be easy to be an “arm chair” theologian and criticize the religious and people of this day. Before I do I am pondering just how hard these folks worked on their place of worship. Imagine how beautiful it was. Might it be the most beautiful thing in their lives? When you pour yourself into something, when you give something or someone time, you are inherently giving it value (giving it worth) – when you give a lot you are worshipping it.

We don’t do this on purpose, but it happens. Consider: we try and lose weight, so we watch what we eat, we exercise, we weigh ourselves, etc. At the end of the week you pause and add up all the time and energy you have spent on it. Might it have occupied a disproportionate amount of your focus? Could you envision that you thought about and worked more on this than anything else? Do you know people that really “worship their body and the way they look”?

It can be tricky. Walking the line between appropriate focus and genuine healthy care for or about someone and something…and idolatry. Pick any subject. We can become overly focused on anything to the point where “it” – even Church – displaces God.

The Temple is the place where God is to dwell; it is a place of great beauty. The Temple had become a place that was so important it replaced God. The Temple was a place that took so many resources to operate that it became a business. The Temple was a place where the priests earned their living (a good one) and the power and prestige went to their head. It was their idol.

Which brings me to my second point: priests.  Jesus is critical of them. (I am using the term priest generically to refer to the religious of Jesus’ day.) This is a little personal as I, a priest and a priest at a grand Cathedral, write this blog.

The Church is a place of great beauty. It takes a lot of resources to operate a Church. I earn my living at through the Church. People are generally nice to me and in fact show me some degree of respect. Have I (and we) slipped down the slippery slope – am I worshiping it – have I corrupted it and myself – am I adding heavy burdens to people or lightening their load?

Some might be quick to point out that today we are all “priests” and that each of our hearts is the place “where God dwells – temples”. True enough. However for me to use that line of discussion with respect to these passages of Jesus would seem as if I was avoiding the point Jesus is making. To write this blog is to look into Jesus’ eyes as he offered the words of Matthew 23.

These questions need to be before me and us. The question is not “is the fringe on my robe too fancy” and it is not “are people calling me father”. (There are many places in the New Testament where Peter and Paul use the term, see 1 Corinthians 4:14). The question/point is the condition of my heart. The questions/point of the passage is, “Am I serving the people, or has it gotten upside down and they are now serving me and the business of the Church?”

Tough question. Important question. We all need to ask it of ourselves. Worshiping something other than God is idolatry. Idols do not give life, even if the idol is the Church. Today I am asking myself “So Father Collum, are you lightening the load, or increasing it – what are you worshiping, father?” 

DAY 35

ROUND TWO – “A DO-OVER”

Exodus 34 & 35 and Matthew 22:23-46

As you have been reading the Bible in this one year plan have you thought, “There is too much to take in a day?” If you have, then I have good news. From this point in Exodus to the end you are going to read what you have mostly already read. “Why” would be a reasonable question to ask.

The answer is because God is restoring, of if you prefer “making again” the Covenant with Israel. He repeats the Covenant, how he will drive out the inhabitants of the land, how they need to keep the three feasts, and how they must not worship other gods. They are reminded again of the Sabbath and they are instructed on how to build the Tent of Meeting with all its furnishings – and this time they build it apparently.

We know this is “new” because in 35:10 we read the present tense, “I am making…” God says.

Because we are “reading this again” I want to delve into just a few things. First I love the way God describes himself in 34:6-7. And when God passes before Moses in these verses and says “the Lord, the Lord” scholars tell us this repetition is meant to communicate intimacy and Douglas Stuart in his commentary suggests you could actually translate that as “your dear Yahweh” or “your dear friend”.

You might wonder, is it necessary for God to say all these things again. I think the point is we need to understand the seriousness of the “golden calf” event. They really turned away. To think they worshipped this idol and even proclaimed it delivered them out of Egypt – ouch! One way to understand the dynamics is to study how many times Moses pleads with God for the people. He, Moses, presses God to forgive sin and for God to remain in presence. God does and says He will, and so we are off to “redo” all again the establishment of this Covenant.

Now this is a little text, the bit about not boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk (the second half of verse 26 in the 34^th chapter (34:26b)). I mentioned on the January 30^th blog that I would share my thoughts in the future and that time has come. W short glance at it reveals what seems to be a weird text. I have written earlier that it is important to not “write off” and ignore these texts, but rather to try and understand them. That attitude is necessary if we to take the entire Bible seriously.

We know that the Canaanites did this, they boiled baby goats in the mother’s milk. We also know that the Canaanites surrounded the Israelites, so this cultural norm was everywhere. It is hard to appreciate how much the Canaanites, and others, were super Idolatrous. There were idols all over. The point of the Most High God is that idols wont’ save you; I, Yahweh will.

Back to the question: why did the Canaanites do it, and why should Israel not? To answer this question requires describing a form of religion, magic really. It can be called “sympathetic magic”. Voodoo is a form of it. In theory I can make a little doll of the Dean, say the right prayers, and then stick a pin in it which will yield a result in the actual Dean. Sympathetic magic is manipulating something in the real world to cause a reflection of it somewhere else in that same world.

Here is the situation: The ancient Canaanites and everyone except the Israelites believed something we would call “procreation creation”. It means everything is “born”. There is somewhere a mother-goddess giving birth to everything: your crops, your animals, your children – everything. You want this to continue. You want crops, you want your livestock to multiply, and you want to have children. So you practice “sympathetic magic/religion”. You link a mother to its offspring by the mother’s milk; this is done in a way that symbolizes the birth circle (the mother’s milk). The action is intended to stimulate the powers of nature, so that other goats would be born. (And yes the do something similar with children, think back to the almost sacrifice of Isaac).

Here we are with a long list of laws that I said earlier were about shaping a society. God is saying to Moses, “just a reminder one more time”, those Canaanite practices are not proper. They won’t lead to your rescue and they certainly won’t help your relationship to me.

I want to be your God and I want you to be my people. I want to walk with you in the cool of the evening in the Garden, I want to dwell, to tent, to tabernacle with you! God is imploring them, and us, be My People.

Jesus (in our reading today) of course is still “fighting for his life” as it were (even though he is within days of offering it to the Father). He sums up the Law beautifully. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself. He is of course quoting Deuteronomy 6. We will have time in the future to examine this more. For now, as God in Exodus is giving the details, Jesus sums it up. In the end it is all about the same thing – God desires us to be his people – and He even gives “do-overs.”

DAY 34

 RENEGING ON AN INVITATION

Exodus 31, 32 & 33 and Matthew 22:1-22

The readings today seem like a bit of a blur; so much to take in. I feel like delving deep into any one of these episodes, and as I push through there is so much there. As I read through it I feel like I am on a “see-saw” or “teeter-tooter”.

Consider that God is intimately involved in the creation of the Tent of Meeting with all its contents. He has been giving direction, and now we read that He has appointed craftsmen (Oholiab and Bezalel). Not only appointed, but anointed! God has filled them with His Spirit, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship…I would say that is a high point.

Not only that, but God gets even more involved by writing out the tablets. How God did this I have no idea. I think the point of the language is to communicate what we read back in Genesis 2. In that book and chapter God formed man out of the dust. He figuratively “got his hands dirty”. In this reading God is similarly involved.

Then of course things change as the people make a golden calf. The sentence that jumped out at me was Aaron being right in the middle of it, and he even is quoted as saying, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” I am thinking, “You have got to be kidding me, Aaron!” Although they seem to be able to “throw together” this idol and worship rather quickly.

The situation continues to go downhill quickly. While Moses bargains with God to save this people, he also breaks the tablets, destroys the calf, grinds the gold into dust making them drink it, and then 3,000 people are killed. Remarkably Moses asks God for forgiveness on the behalf of the people. Stripped of their ornaments, they move on, plus they have a plague on them.

The readings then turn upward. Moses has an amazing interaction with God: not only interceding for them, but seeing God’s glory.

Jesus has a similar yet much shorter story; in fact a parable. It starts with a similar highpoint, a king giving a wedding. It goes downhill rapidly with the servants being killed and then the king retaliating and killing the perpetrators in return. The joyous wedding feast begins. However someone is found improperly dressed and ends up bound and thrown out. Talk about up and down.

A short word about wedding invitations: In our day and age people are invited to a wedding on the exact date and time. In Jesus’ day people are notified of the impending wedding and invited. They don’t know the exact day and time, but they have accepted the invitation. When preparations are complete, servants and friends are sent out to notify people to come. So in this parable we read that people, all of them, have seemingly reneged on a previously accepted invitation. [The king then sends out his servant to the main road – this is like going out in our day and age to the Interstate – read this parable as the King (God) is rejected by those who had accepted his invitation (the Jewish people) and so he goes and invites others.]

It seems as if in both the Old and New Testaments people are reneging on their invitation. God has invited the people of Israel to follow him. He will be their God and they his people. In fact, Moses when he debates with God points out to God that they are His (God’s) people. He constantly says, “Your people.” A few chapters earlier the people shouted out they would follow God and Moses sprinkled them with blood – they have accepted the invitation.

We should understand our position in all of this. If you are reading this blog, then there is a reasonable probability that you “have accepted God’s invitation”. Which is great! The point in these reading today might be, pay attention to it, don’t take it for granted that God has  extended it, and He takes your accepting it very seriously.

DAY 33

BALANCE AND PURPOSE

Balance In & Purpose Of - Holiness

Exodus 29 & 30 and Matthew 21:23-46

Today Jesus returns to the Temple, and the Temple authorities are not happy. Yesterday he overturned tables disrupting their day and their worship. If you attend church think about what the parallel moment would look like in your House of Worship!

Why does He do it? I’ve written of this before, the answer is quite simply. They have perverted the purpose of the Temple and compromised on the vows they have made to the Most High God – serious stuff.

These two parables of Jesus are not shrouded, not hard to understand. Those who were sent to lead God’s people have perverted the call.

The Old Testament again reinforces this point of Temple and today especially the Priesthood as we read of the elaborate consecration ceremony.

I could certainly comment on the shortcomings of the priesthood in our own day; indeed my shortcomings with regards to holiness.

I feel compelled however to comment on having balance. We are immersed in the early stages of God re-revealing himself to a people. Think about it for a moment. The Israelites in Egypt did not really know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in an intimate way. We are reading the story of God re-introducing himself. His “otherness” and his “holiness” come through in these stories.

Yet I know that this can go awry for us. We can become like the Temple priests of Jesus day, feeling special, feeling better, or worse, exploiting our position. We can also feel apart, very far separated from God. We can feel there is this holy God somewhere and we are not good enough to be with him.

Which brings me to having balance when it comes to how we view God: think of the images we have in these few 33 days.

v  Almighty God of Creation, the Flood, and of the Exodus

v  Holy God of the Burning Bush and of the Mountain

v  God the Protector who cares for Hagar and who parts the Red Sea

v  Approachable God who comes to us as a baby

v  Compassionate God who heals the sick and eats with sinners

v  Patient God who waits

God is all this and more. I am sure you could make a list of your own. The challenge for us is to not see God in only one dimension. Maybe I am feeling that I am caught up in the “holiness” part of God with the readings of the last few days which is why I am writing these comments. God is holy and we are to be holy unto God, not for our glory though, but for his – it is serious stuff.

It is why Jesus is upset with the Temple authorities. Are those folks holy? Outwardly I doubt you would find a holier looking group. Yet inwardly they are not. In Exodus 27:43 God again tells us why all the fuss: There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be a sanctified for my glory.

Furthermore their behavior is not bringing people to God, it is not giving God glory. In verse 45 we read I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. In this period of Jesus God is not dwelling with his people. The elitism of the Temple is yielding quite the opposite. Amazingly the point of the Tent of Meeting and the Temple is God’s desire to dwell with us.

Dwelling with a holy God, a mighty God, a God who is at once just and merciful. How do we hold all these images in balance? How do we gain a perspective of what this God looks like? The answer is Jesus. As we have come to this point in Matthew he has not only been compassionate. He has been a Creator God; that is what the feeding of the 5,000 demonstrates. He has been a Mighty God; calming seas. He has demonstrated dominion over not just the physical realm, but the spiritual; even the demons obey. I could go on, but I imagine you are getting the point.

The purpose of trying to be holy (literally set apart for God) is so that we may dwell with Him and reveal His Glory. Ultimately it is Jesus who will make us holy, but we still have to be willing. What God is seeking in the Old Testament is the same that Jesus is seeking as He walks the Temple floors. May we be holy.

DAY 32

TENTS, TEMPLES, TREES

Exodus 27 & 28 and Matthew 21:1-22

Exodus 27-28: Have you ever furnished an apartment or built a home? There are many details. Today the details continue. Along each step of the way, as each detail is added a picture emerges; a picture of something very special. It is so special that a lamp will always burn. Beyond building and furnishing the Tent of the Meeting, there is what the priests will wear.

Matthew 21:1-22 marks Jesus arrival at Jerusalem. I noted a few posts ago that this day is Lamb Selection Day. This day traditionally all Israelite households will select their Passover Lamb, and on this day Jesus was selected. The cries of Son of David go up again. There is more in our reading. Yes Jesus has come to Jerusalem to offer himself as the atoning sacrifice for the world. Before He does however much will take place; he begins by cleansing the Temple.

He we are laboring through the construction of the Tent of the Meeting, the predecessor of the Temple, in our Old Testament reading, and we come to Jesus cleansing the Temple. “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it…” After he cleanses the Temple, he then returns to the true Kingdom work; he heals the blind and the lame.

Don’t let the Fig Tree throw you off. It is Jesus reinforcing the Temple situation. Trees are metaphors for the Kingdom and the Fig Tree is used to signify the good of the natural order. Here is the Temple, not just a metaphor for the Kingdom of God, but the location for the very presence of God. That is if the Temple remains holy. Think back to all we have read in the Old Testament. Think about how God is specifying the importance, the unique specialness of this Tent of Meeting. To profane it brings serious consequences.

Jesus’ actions show that it has been profaned. He, God, has come to Jerusalem, the center of all, to make it right. To make Atonement for sins of all the world, and to make a New Temple. We need to hear the rest of the story, to make sure we don’t only hear half of the story. It is coming, the rest of the story that is, but not yet. For today what I am taking away from the readings is just how important the place that God will dwell is to Him.