Tag: Sacrifice

Scrolls, Lions, Lambs & Leadership

Credit: Pxfuel

In Revelation 5, John is in the thick of a heavenly vision when he sees a scroll with writing on both sides. This vision hearkens back the call of the prophet Ezekiel, who also sees a heavenly scroll:

Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, which he unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe. (Ezekiel 2:9-10)

When God calls Ezekiel, He gives Ezekiel His words to speak, even if these words are words are difficult words of judgment.

But when John has his cherubic vision of a two-sided scroll, things have changed:

Then I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. (Revelation 5:1-3) 

Ezekiel’s scroll was unrolled. John’s scroll is sealed.

When John sees that the scroll is sealed, he has a bit of a breakdown:

I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. (Revelation 5:4)

John wants to know what’s in the scroll! Words of divine judgment? Words of divine grace? But no one can unroll the scroll – that is, until John hears a voice:

One of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” (Revelation 5:5)

John is instructed to direct his attention to a Lion who can open the scroll. But then, in a strange and fantastic shift in images, this Lion turns out to be a Lamb:

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders … He went and took the scroll from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. (Revelation 5:6-7)

John sees Jesus as a Lion, but also as the Lamb.

Jesus can indeed be a Lion. His interactions with the religious leaders of His day demonstrate how He fiercely fights those who oppose God. But He is also the Lamb. He doesn’t just roar in judgment, He goes quietly to a cross for our salvation. And it’s Jesus’ sacrifice as the Lamb that allows Him to open these seals:

When He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. … And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain, and with Your blood You purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.” (Revelation 5:8-9)

If given the choice, I suspect that many of us would much rather be like a lion and not so much like a lamb. After all, lions are strong and command respect and even fear. But Christ willingly derives His authority from His sacrifice as the Lamb, even though He already had all authority as a Lion.

As we lead, do we seek to be a lion, or do we willingly sacrifice as a Lamb? The willingness to sacrifice is not normal. But it is Divine. And it is how we want Jesus to lead us. After all, if He led us only as a Lion, we would be devoured in judgment. But as the Lamb, He leads us by grace. May we lead the same way.

Perfect and Imperfect People

File:The Phillip Medhurst Picture Torah 521. Burnt offering. Leviticus cap 8 vv 14-16. Mortier.jpg
Credit: Phillip Medhurst Collection of Bible Illustrations

In Leviticus 22, we read about the kind of sacrifices that are acceptable to God:

When anyone brings from the herd or flock a fellowship offering to the Lord to fulfill a special vow or as a freewill offering, it must be without defect or blemish to be acceptable. (Leviticus 22:21)

What the ancient Israelites offered to God was the be the best of the best. What is often overlooked, however, is that Leviticus speaks not only to what could be offered to God, but to who could offer it:

No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. (Leviticus 21:18-20)

These restrictions concerning who may bring an offering to the Lord may seem eyebrow-raisingly blunt to us, but their core implication is inescapably clear:

Only perfect people are allowed before God.

Not only did the sacrifices to God have to be perfect; the people who made them had to be perfect, too.

This requirement for perfection is one of the reasons Jesus’ ministry so scandalized the religious professionals of His day. Jesus gladly interacted with precisely the kinds of people Leviticus 21 barred from service to God. Jesus healed the blind, made the lame walk, and even reconstructed a man’s deformed hand. These were not just healings; they were testimonies to a new day and a new way. Under the Levitical covenant, to which the religious professionals of Jesus’ day subscribed, only perfect people could approach God. But now, Christ, in word and in deed, was announcing that God was approaching imperfect people.

Jesus addresses the scandalized religious professionals’ concerns by summarizing His ministry like this:

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. (Mark 2:17)

Jesus takes the core of Leviticus 21 and turns it on its head. With these words, He announces:

Only imperfect people are allowed through Christ.

Only imperfect people are allowed because, if we are honest with ourselves, we have nothing perfect to offer to God in the form of either ourselves or a sacrifice. This is why the preacher of Hebrews writes:

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. (Hebrews 10:11)

These sacrifices never took away sins because they never met the demands of Leviticus 21 and 22. They simply were not perfect enough. But Jesus was. And Jesus is. This is why God offers Jesus as a sacrifice for us.

The temptation to point fingers at the defects and blemishes of others can be acute. Those who are different from us can sometimes seem to almost invite criticism by us. But Christians must remember that our mission is not to demand perfection from people, but to point them to the One who already is. May we do so gladly.

Stinky Sacrifices and Sweet Offerings

File:The Altar of Incense, from De Biblie uth der uthlegginge Doctoris Martini Luthers MET DP833041.jpg
Credit: The Altar of Incense / Martin Luther / Wikimedia

When God is giving Moses instructions for the tabernacle, one of the things He instructs him to build is an incense altar:

Make an altar of acacia wood for burning incense. Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every morning when he tends the lamps. He must burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the LORD for the generations to come. (Exodus 30:1, 7-8)

This incense altar served a couple of different purposes. On the one hand, it was used in worship. When the father of John the Baptist, Zechariah, famously receives word from the angel Gabriel that he will soon be a father, even though he is well past his child-rearing years, he is stationed at the altar of incense while “all the assembled worshipers were praying outside” (Luke 1:10). On the other hand, this altar served a much cruder purpose. With all the sacrifices that were made at the tabernacle and later at the temple, the fetor from the dead animals would have been overwhelming. The incense helped cover the stench of death.

The stench of death, as offensive as it may have been, was a reminder to the Israelites that sin came with a cost. As the apostle Paul explains: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The question was: is there anything that can stem the stench of sin and death?

In Ephesians 5, Paul writes about a unique sacrifice:

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Sacrifices were stinky! But when Christ gave Himself up as a sacrifice, it was “fragrant.” Why? Because Christ was both an “offering and sacrifice.” He was the sacrificial “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) as well as “an aroma that brings life” (2 Corinthians 2:16). He was slaughtered as a sacrifice and sweet-smelling like incense, all at the same time.

I’ve had more than one person tell me that life stinks right now. Nationally, culturally, and personally, we have our share of struggles thanks to sin. And yet, the fragrance of Christ can still overwhelm and overcome the sin of this world. This is the hope we have. And this is the message we are called to share:

Thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him everywhere. (2 Corinthians 2:14)

May we spread Christ’s aroma and make someone’s life sweeter with Him.

Losing to Win

Credit: Pixabay

A couple of weekends ago, we sat down as a family to play games. At this stage in my kids’ lives, the games are simple – Go Fish, Old Maid, and Crazy Eights were the chosen fare for our fun. But in the middle of some family frivolity, an unexpected display of the dark side of human nature broke out. As my kids were playing Old Maid, they both became determined to make sure they would not be the one holding that final, dreaded card. So, they engaged in peaking and grabbing and even a bit of fighting in an attempt to emerge victorious. There’s just something in human nature that loves to conquer someone else. There’s just something in human nature that loves to win.

In the final book of the Bible, John has a vision of Christ who sends seven letters to seven churches all over ancient Asia Minor. In these letters, Jesus makes promises to those who conquer and win against the forces of evil:

To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Revelation 2:7)

The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. (Revelation 2:11)

To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna. (Revelation 2:17)

The one who conquers and who keeps My works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations. (Revelation 2:26)

The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God. (Revelation 3:12)

The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with Me on My throne, as I also conquered and sat down with My Father on His throne. (Revelation 3:21)

Jesus celebrates those who win. The obvious question, then, is: how do you win? Later in his vision, John hears a voice from heaven declaring victory over the devil. And this is how God’s people have conquered him:

They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. (Revelation 12:11)

It turns out that winning, in this instance, involves losing. John hears of a lamb who loses His blood – who sacrifices His life – to vanquish Satan. And, as followers of Jesus, we are called to be willing to lose in order to win, too – loving not our lives even unto death.

Are we willing to fight our battles and gain our victories against darkness by losing? In the world – and to the world – winning by losing may be derided as naïve and ineffective. But in a world where usual victories prove fleeting and the usual way of winning always seems to give way to losing, perhaps it’s time to see if it works the other way around – if a loss can actually give way to a win. That’s the story of Good Friday and Easter Sunday – a loss of life gave way to victory over death. Let’s make that story our stories, too.

The Only Sacrifice You Need

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 030.jpg
“David Plays the Harp for Saul” by Rembrandt, circa 1650

The downfall of Saul began with a sacrifice.

We usually think of sacrifices as being noble – like when parents sacrifice for their children or when soldiers sacrifice for their country.  And these sacrifices certainly are noble.  But King Saul’s sacrifice was different.  King Saul’s sacrifice was not noble, but self-serving.

In 1 Samuel 15, the prophet Samuel instructs Saul, “Go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them” (1 Samuel 15:3).  Saul does attack the Amalekites.  He does defeat the Amalekites.  But he does not destroy all that belongs to them:

Saul and the army spared…the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs – everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.  (1 Samuel 15:9)

Saul disobeys Samuel’s – and, by extension, God’s – instruction.  When Samuel confronts Saul in his disobedience, Saul first tries to deny that he disobeyed at all.  He says to Samuel, “I have carried out the LORD’s instructions” (1 Samuel 15:13).  When Samuel catches him in his lie, Saul claims, “The soldiers spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God, but we totally destroyed the rest” (1 Samuel 15:15).  Samuel, though, is having none of it.  He asks:

Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams … Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has rejected you as king. (1 Samuel 15:22-23)

Saul thought he could use a sacrifice to weasel out of his disobedience.  He was sorely mistaken.

What was true of Saul’s sacrifice, the Bible says, is true of all sacrifices.  God cannot be somehow bribed to overlook sin by a sacrifice.  The preacher of Hebrews says of the Old Testament sacrificial system:  “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins” (Hebrews 10:11).  Sacrifices do not fix sins.  That is, except for one sacrifice:  Christ’s.  For by Christ’s “one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:14).

Whereas kings and priests would offer broken sacrifices in their sin, Jesus offered a perfect sacrifice for our sin.  The one man who needed no sacrifice for Himself because He was sinless was the one man who made a sacrifice for all in their sinfulness.  And His sacrifice changed everything.

The next time you are caught in a sin, then, do not try to hide your sin, like Saul.  Instead, confess your sin freely.  And do not try slyly redeem yourself by making a sacrifice, like Saul.  Instead, rejoice that you have been forgiven by a sacrifice already made.  Jesus is all the sacrifice you need.