The true sacrifice in the light of the Old Testament

Under­stan­ding the Old Tes­ta­ment ani­mal sacri­fice gives us a basis to real­ly under­stand what hap­pen­ed on the cross. The Old Tes­ta­ment was only a shadow of what Jesus achie­ved with his blood. His blood seals the new coven­ant with God. Through his blood we are rede­e­med from our guilt for all time. 

When we moved to Switz­er­land two years ago, I show­ed my child­ren some You­Tube vide­os about Switz­er­land. One of them was made by an immi­grant and was cal­led «Ten things to know about Switzerland».

First­ly, Switz­er­land has a lot of laws.

Second­ly, the regu­la­ti­ons are rigo­rous­ly enforced. Yes, that’s true, in Switz­er­land we have a lot of laws, some of which are for­eign to immi­grants. I remem­ber explai­ning to peo­p­le in Cana­da that in Switz­er­land you are not allo­wed to mow the lawn over mid­day or on Sun­days. They shook their heads. But the­re are also things in Cana­da that are for­eign to us. I would like to tell such a story:

Ear­ly in child­hood I was told that boys – and con­se­quent­ly men – do not cry. This was and is part­ly pas­sed on like this until today: A real guy is strong and does­n’t cry. In my child­hood, my brot­her and I often rode our bikes side by side. Once we got too clo­se and a pedal got caught in the spo­kes of my brother’s bike. As a result, we both fell. Our bodies hurt like hell and we felt like screa­ming. Bra­ve­ly, we said to each other: «Now just don’t make a face and dri­ve on.» So we straigh­ten­ed our bent hand­le­bars, grit­ted our tee­th and con­tin­ued our ride as if not­hing had hap­pen­ed. Years later, I flew to Cana­da to work on a farm. The employ­ers, a Swiss fami­ly, went to church every Sun­day. The very first week they invi­ted me to come along. Three days befo­re that first church visit, a tra­gic traf­fic acci­dent hap­pen­ed. A mem­ber of the church was kil­led. Just befo­re we left for the ser­vice, the farmer’s son told me: «Here in Cana­da, it’s a litt­le dif­fe­rent than in Switz­er­land. Here, when sea­so­ned men go on stage and tell some­thing about the life of the decea­sed, they give free rein to their grief.«And that’s exact­ly how it was. That mor­ning I wit­nessed men going on stage and crying bit­ter tears and not being the least bit asha­med about it. It was a shock for me at the time. For­t­u­na­te­ly, a rethink has begun in Switz­er­land as well.

Today’s the­me is not about wee­ping men, but about Old Tes­ta­ment cus­toms which seem very, very stran­ge to us.

The Passover Meal 

In the 2nd Book of Moses we read how Moses met God in the form of a bur­ning bush. God cal­led Moses to lead the peo­p­le of Isra­el out of 400 years of slavery. This task pro­ved to be very dif­fi­cult, becau­se the Egyp­ti­an ruler did not want to let the peo­p­le go. God then sent nine pla­gues to chan­ge Pharaoh’s mind. But he remain­ed firm and would not let them go. This was fol­lo­wed by the last and worst pla­gue: all the first-born sons had to die. God offe­red the Israe­li­tes pro­tec­tion from this pla­gue. Every house­hold was to slaugh­ter a spot­less lamb and the Paint blood on both door­posts, this as a sign of death that it will pass by their hou­ses. The next day, a loud cry went through the land. All the first­born of the Egyp­ti­ans were dead. The sons of the Israe­li­tes, howe­ver, were spared. God com­man­ded that from then on a fes­ti­val be cele­bra­ted every year in memo­ry of his gre­at deeds. To this day, the Jewish com­mu­ni­ties cele­bra­te this fes­ti­val, it is cal­led Pas­so­ver (Pesah).

The Covenant with Israel 

With God’s help, the Israe­li­tes were able to escape the Egyp­ti­an army and rea­ched Mount Sinai. The­re God reve­a­led to him his visi­on for the peo­p­le. The Israe­li­tes are bles­sed by God so that they beco­me a bles­sing for all nati­ons. For this, HE deman­ded abso­lu­te faithful­ness from the peo­p­le of Isra­el. Through Moses, God com­mu­ni­ca­tes the com­mandments of this coven­ant. «And he took the book of the coven­ant, and read it in the ears of the peo­p­le. And they said: All that the Lord hath said we will do, and upon it we will hören. Then Moses took the blood and sprink­led it on the peo­p­le, say­ing, «Behold, this is the blood of the coven­ant which the Lord has made with you on the basis of all the­se words.»(Exodus 24:7f LUT) Through this blood sacri­fice this coven­ant was put into effect. Tru­ly a very stran­ge ritu­al for us. How would you all be ama­zed if I sud­den­ly wal­ked through the rows with a bowl fil­led with blood and wet you with it?

Yom Kippur

After the expe­ri­ence on Mount Sinai, the Israe­li­tes wan­de­red fur­ther into the desert and built a tent of wor­ship. This is also cal­led the Tent of Reve­la­ti­on, Taber­na­cle or Taber­na­cle. Then, as they move into the Pro­mi­sed Land, this is repla­ced by a temp­le. As Pas­tor Ced­ric descri­bed a few weeks ago, this temp­le has dif­fe­rent are­as. Today I would like to focus on the Holy of Holies.

At that time, only the High Priest was allo­wed to enter the Holy of Holies once a year, on Yom Kip­pur. Befo­re he was allo­wed in God’s pre­sence, he had to kill a young ani­mal and offer this blood as a sin offe­ring for his sins. Fur­ther­mo­re, a goat had to be slaugh­te­red as the sin offe­ring for the peo­p­le. With this blood he dab­bed the cei­ling of the Ark of the Coven­ant seven times so that all sins would be blot­ted out. In order for the high priest and the peo­p­le to live, ani­mals had to give their lives. We know from the Bible that Sin brings death, but the sacri­fice of ato­ne­ment brings life. If the high priest had ente­red God’s sanc­tua­ry unpu­nis­hed, he would have died. Tra­di­ti­ons report that the high priest had a rope tied to his leg. If he had not ente­red the holy of holies com­ple­te­ly clean and thus died through God’s pre­sence, he could have been pul­led out by it. No other per­son was allo­wed to enter the holy place to retrie­ve the body. Sin can­not stand in the light of God becau­se it must first be ato­ned for.

Yom Kippur (Update 2.0)

The­se three sto­ries are from the Old Tes­ta­ment. To under­stand what hap­pen­ed on the cross, we need the know­ledge from the Old Tes­ta­ment. Today is Good Fri­day and I want to bring us clo­ser to what hap­pen­ed 2000 years ago.

In the Let­ter to the Hebrews we read about a new Yom Kip­pur fes­ti­val «But now that time has daw­ned, for now Christ has come, the High Priest who brought us the true goods. He has pas­sed through a grea­ter and more per­fect tent, a tent that was not made by men and does not belong to this Schögraft gehört. And what made his way into the sanc­tua­ry öffne­te was not the blood of Böcke and cal­ves but his own blood. Once he went in, and the sal­va­ti­on of theöThe redemp­ti­on he has brought about will last fore­ver and ever.» (Hebrews 9:11,12 NGÜ). This short text is full of Old Tes­ta­ment under­stan­dings. Jesus is the true high priest, a media­tor who offers hims­elf as a sacri­fice in place of the peo­p­le. He offe­red not only the blood of goats and cal­ves, but his own blood as an ato­n­ing sacri­fice. This true sacri­fice had to be offe­red only once. His blood brought him not only into the Holy of Holies of the Temp­le, but into a much holier place. Jesus gave away every drop of his blood. He died on the cross and at that moment the curtain of the temp­le was torn in two. This was not a curtain as we know it, but rather com­pa­ra­ble to a tapestry. It was ten met­res by ten met­res and tore com­ple­te­ly from top to bot­tom. This was a sign of the effect of his blood in the spi­ri­tu­al world.

God did not want to remain locked up in the Holy of Holies. Through Jesus, he can now be ever­y­whe­re. He wants to be pre­sent in you, in your heart. He möI want you to beco­me a most holy dwel­ling place. Every drop of Jesus» blood was nee­ded for this.

The New Covenant (Update 2.0)

As men­tio­ned seve­ral times today, blood was nee­ded to con­firm a coven­ant. God made a coven­ant with Isra­el. But this was only a faint shadow of what was to come. The pro­phet Jere­mi­ah pro­phe­sied a new coven­ant. Not a coven­ant they could not keep by their own strength, but a coven­ant that would give them strength to live plea­sing to God. «The new coven­ant that I will then make with the peo­p­le of Isra­el will be com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent: I will wri­te my law in their hearts, it shall deter­mi­ne all their thoughts and actions. I will be their God and they will be my peo­p­le.»(Jere­mi­ah 31:33 HFA). Jesus knew that He was the cho­sen one to make this new coven­ant with God. He knew that a sacri­fice had to be offe­red to seal this new coven­ant and that He would be that sacri­fi­ced lamb. The­r­e­fo­re he vol­un­t­a­ri­ly went to the cross to make this coven­ant legal­ly bin­ding with his blood.

The Passover Meal (Update 2.0)

The­se blood sacri­fices, howe­ver stran­ge they seem to us, were of gre­at importance at that time. Only through them do we under­stand what hap­pen­ed on the cross. On the evening befo­re his death, Jesus ins­truc­ted his disci­ples to prepa­re a pas­so­ver meal. This was to com­me­mo­ra­te God’s gre­at act of allo­wing the first­born sons of the Israe­li­tes to live. In this con­text of the Pas­so­ver meal, which could not be more fit­ting, He gathe­red with His clo­sest fri­ends. «And while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and bles­sed it, and bra­ke it, and gave it to the disci­ples, say­ing, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, say­ing, Drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the new coven­ant, which is pou­red out for many for the remis­si­on of sins.» (Matthew 26:26–28 ELB1905). Alt­hough the disci­ples knew the old coven­ant, they did not under­stand what Jesus real­ly meant by it. Jesus said: Eat my body and drink my blood. By this he did not mean the blood that their foref­a­thers had pain­ted on the door­posts, but his own blood. Jesus is not tal­king about an old, tra­di­tio­nal pas­so­ver meal. He talks about a Pas­so­ver meal of the future. Jesus» blood saves not only the first­born from death, but all who want to cla­im sal­va­ti­on. Jesus cele­bra­ted the Updated Pas­so­ver (2.0) 2000 years ago, which we call the Lord’s Sup­per today. It is won­derful that we can cele­bra­te the Lord’s Sup­per today on Good Fri­day in see­tal chi­le and I am alre­a­dy loo­king for­ward to it.

Communion

The body of Jesus and his blood have infi­ni­te power. His blood wipes out all our debts and res­to­res our rela­ti­onship with God. Today we may take the­se life-giving ele­ments into our­sel­ves. His blood brings life, not only eter­nal life in the Last Jud­ge­ment, but alre­a­dy now and today. In the Lord’s Sup­per, Jesus is pre­sent and we are united with Him. When we take the cup and drink, we can ima­gi­ne His blood flowing through our veins. Jesus sacri­fi­ced His blood to flow through you, through your body. Through the Lord’s Sup­per, He gives us divi­ne power so that we can beco­me one of His followers.