Leviticus 16:20-22, 17:10-12
“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites-all their sins-and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert.
“‘Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood—I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Therefore I say to the Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood.”
Matthew 26:26–28
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Blood and atonement is our theme today, the next part of our mini-series from Leviticus. And people, and I’ve heard recently, want to question the book’s relevance to a modern-day Christianity. But as we read, the second lesson, the action of Christ at the Last Supper should shed light on those ancient rituals and customs.
Holiness, sacrifice, ritual cleansing, atonement. These are the themes running through these ancient laws. And in them all, often we have the repeated verse: “The Lord God spoke to Moses.” The author, the authority, was God himself.
Leviticus, the instruction book for the sons of Levi, that is the priestly tribe, was not just a record of laws. It was a set of examples for everyday living, of worship, for how to live in a wandering community. It dealt not only with holiness and sacrifice, it dealt with illness, with marital harmony and disharmony, and strife in personal relationships. Everything is accounted for. It is not a channel of life of restriction, but it was one of unity with God, with him at the centre, leading his chosen ones into a promised land.
Today’s Old Testament reading centres on the covering of sin, the ransom required for forgiveness and the removal of guilt. In the previous verses, two goats had been presented. One was sacrificed as a sin offering in the sanctuary of the tabernacle to purify the tabernacle and the priests who performed. The second goat was possibly more fortunate in that its life was spared, but it would bear the sins of the whole community.
In verse 21 we read that Aaron is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness of the Israelites, all their sins. The two hands placed on top of the head of the goat was a symbolic act of transference. It was all the people’s sins. An escort would lead the animal through the camp for all the people to see and witness the animal bearing their sins, and it would be left as far away from the camp as the escort was able to find in the wilderness. Thus, the sins of the people would trouble them no longer. The sin removed from the camp went into the wilderness where it truly belonged.
In ancient times the wilderness and the desert was a place of evil. It was a place where the evil ones dwelt. And it seems in this simple ritual, what is being said is: you can have back your sins. Here are your sins, you evil ones. You can have them back as far from the sanctuary as is possible. A visual reminder to the people of the drama of sin and its consequences.
I was reading the commentator Philip Jensen last week, and he saw this visual act in a state of five concentric zones. He had zone one in the middle of the sanctuary, the most holy place, and then five concentric circles leading away from the sanctuary out to the last zone, to the desert region, far beyond.
I was sitting on the tube that day and thinking about these zones, and I looked up and I saw the fare zone map of the underground. And of course, I was coming from St Paul’s, wasn’t I? I was coming from the centre, from the sanctuary, Zone 1. And I sat there and watched these zones go past on my underground journey until we got to Zone 6. And I thought, yes, I am covered by my travel card. I am safe. But woe betide me if I tried to go beyond Zone 6 without the appropriate fare cover; I would be doomed.
Anyway, that was just a side effect, but I was thinking about these zones and how it was true that the zone for the Israelites, the centre of it all, was a sanctuary. And then beyond the Zone 6, as we might say, is where the sin would be left behind.
So, beyond that, and beyond my whimsy shall we say, there is so much shedding of blood through sacrifice it was no surprise that there were prohibitions about the use of the blood itself. In verse 11 we read: the life of a creature is in the blood, and this is repeated again in verse 14.
Now we know the connection between life and blood is obvious. Major loss of blood can lead to loss of life. So, blood must carry the very essence of life. But only by the shedding of this precious element, for the people, God said, could atonement be made. And for no other purpose could it be used, especially for human consumption.
The tribes around in ancient times used blood a lot as food, even though to the Israelites it had to appear as sacred. All meat to them had to be drained of blood. So, sorry everybody, no rare steaks, no black puddings. The blood was special, was precious, because the life of a creature was in the blood.
God allowed the sacrificial goat of a creature to make atonement for the sins of the people. Thus, the atonement was being made by a victim that took the place of a sinner and shed its own blood in the sinner’s place.
Paul reminds us in Romans: “we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The only hope is if there is a ransom offered on our behalf, a life given up so a life could be saved. So, here is where the Old Testament and the New Testament meet, come together, almost collide. We read in our second lesson: “this is my blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Without the recognition and understanding of the ritual laws of the Old Testament, the idea of the shedding of blood to release us from the burden of sin would seem abhorrent, would seem strange, would seem savage.
The new covenant of which Christ speaks is no less a covenant of blood, but this time the victim is not a nameless goat. The victim this time is someone that we begin to love and trust as we read the Gospels, just as those disciples did who followed him and who wept in despair and disbelief as he was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
But it was meant to be, for “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” So wrote the writer of the Hebrews letter. Just as we are destined to die once and after that to face judgement, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sin of many. He was sacrificed once, if you remember, and so no longer the endless shedding of blood with animal sacrifice. The people could be freed from that burden.
So, in a curious reversal, almost a contradiction, although we read that the Israelites were forbidden to consume blood, the people of Christ are symbolically commanded to do so. Jesus said: “drink this, all of you; this is my blood.”
The exchange has taken place. For not only had Jesus laid down his life as a ransom for many, but we are to absorb his lifeblood. It is a mystery indeed. We are to be part of him and to remember his death until he returns. The life of the creature is in the blood. It is sacred. Paul warns us that if we partake of this holy supper in an unworthy manner, we are guilty of abusing this sacred rite.
But from the Old and the New Testament passages, we see the wonder of God’s grace. The blood to be shed, to be required, to release us from our sins, is not blood that he extracts from us. It is not a blood vendetta: you’ve done me wrong, so now I reap my revenge. He is the God of grace. He provides the blood sacrifice himself.
Do you remember the story of faithful Abraham and the sacrifice? Isaac, about to be sacrificed, said to his father: “the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” And Abraham replied: “God himself will provide the lamb, my son.”
God does not require from us what he knows we cannot give, but has graciously provided an alternative sacrifice in our place. God has provided for us; but have we embraced him and his provision, his Son?
Leviticus seems like a book of prohibition, doesn’t it? “Thou shalt not.” But God is a caring God, and he guarded his people against external temptation. So what for us? Some have rejected these ancient texts, but we wish to preserve this scripture, for it is the scripture that Jesus himself knew. He debated with the lawyers as a young child in the temple. He knew the scriptures from his youth, and he upbraided the scribes when they hijacked the scriptures for their own use.
As we have seen, the rituals and laws in Leviticus point directly to Christ. Much Christian history and teaching have found a basis in the writings of Moses. The writing of the Hebrew scribes did not disappear from Christian thought, but changed in the light of the Gospels, in the light of Jesus and his teaching.
Jesus’ preaching and his references are so often from the law and the prophets; so we should not ignore them. They contain allusions to our own faith. Our brief studies have opened up this ancient scripture: the scripture of a God of grace and of forgiveness, his plan for his people in ancient times and his plan for us now, and the plan for his Son, whom God sent for our atonement.
As the beautiful hymn goes:
It’s your blood that cleanses me.
It’s your blood that gives me life.
It’s your blood that took my place
in redeeming sacrifice.
My Jesus, God’s precious sacrifice.