The One Year Bible: Blood

 

A bloody business

This week's reading was perhaps not the most exciting--a lot of the nuts and bolts of the elaborate requirements for the Old Covenant sacrificial system.  A lot of detail.  A lot of repetition.  And a lot of blood.

Blood on the horns of the altar.  Blood splattered on the sides of altar.  Blood sprinkled on the curtain of the most holy place.  Blood on the right ear, thumb, and big toe of the high priest.  Just a lot of blood. The details of the sacrifice are given in all their gory glory, and much of this week's passages read like a butcher's manual.  With our tendency towards an egocentric reading of the Bible--"What's all this got to do with me"--it's easy for us to lose sight of how vitally important these scriptures were to the people of God.  This was an instruction manual on the proper way to manage every aspect of the sanctuary service and was vitally important to the people of Israel.

Highlights from Exodus 35-40, Numbers 9:15-23, Numbers 8, Number 7, Leviticus 1-9

• The Tabernacle Constructed
• The Priesthood Consecrated
• The Sacrificial System: A Detailed Handbook

Fun Facts

• Did you know there is a passage in Numbers reminiscent of the 12 Days of Christmas? In Numbers 7, we read of the dedication gifts presented to the Lord by representatives of each of the twelve tribes of Israel. At first, I thought each tribe would present their own unique gift, but it turns out each tribe presented the exact same gift: two silver containers of specific weight containing grain offerings moistened with olive oil, a gold container of incense, a young bull, a ram , fiiiiive one year old male lambs, a male goat, two bulls, five male goats, and a one-year old male male lamb for burnt offering in a pear tree.  Ok, I added the pear tree part, but that's just how it reads.  For 89 verses.  Each tribe is described bringing that exact same gift. I admit somewhere between Simeon and Gad, I started skimming.

• Did you know the difference between a sin and a guilt offering?  A sin offering was presented as a sacrifice for sins committed by accident--things wrong that you did without intending to (Leviticus 5).  It makes sense that a sinful world we sometimes do things that are unintentionally hurtful--but that doesn't make them less hurtful.  Guilt offerings were for things you did deliberately --cheating, lying, stealing things like that. In addition to making restitution (usually with an additional 20% added on) a guilt offering was required (Leviticus 6) 

• Did you know a sacrifice was required if you made a foolish vow?  You know all those pinky swears and careless promises that you ended breaking?  Overcommitting and biting off more than you can chew so that you ended letting down those who depended on you? There's a sacrifice for that. It's a sin offering to be precise-offered when you "make a foolish vow of any kind, whether it's purpose is for good or bad.  When your realize its foolishness you must admit your guilt "(Number 5:4).  Put a pin in this, because we'll come back to in a few weeks.  There's a guy in the book of Judges that I wish had followed this command. It would have saved a young girl's life.

• Did you know that there were certain sacrifices that required a female animal to be sacrificed? I always thought of the sacrificial system was centered around the spotless male lamb.  But actually all kinds of animals were prescribed for different types of sacrifices--bulls, rams, goats, and turtledoves among them. While most of these animals were male, which one would expect in such a patriarchal culture, there were a few occasions where female animals were required for sacrifice. Specifically the sin offering required for an individual ordinary person (as opposed to leaders, priests, or the community as a whole) was a female sheep or goat

What Stood Out to Me 

"When I move, you move."

I really liked the description in Numbers 9:15-23 of how the people of Israel moved in response to the pillar of cloud/fire that contained the presence of God. I always knew they followed the cloud, but something about reading the description made it really come alive for me. Sometimes the Israelites might be one location for months, other times just for a few days.  Sometimes the cloud would stop just for the night and then be on the move again the next day. It didn't matter.  Whenever the cloud moved, the people moved.

"Washed in the Blood"   

We tend to become desensitized to the symbols and imagery of our faith.  They have lost their shocking power because we've grown so used to them.  This is really evident in videos like this of a bunch of cheerful kids singing enthusiastically about the power in the blood. It just feels really disconnected from the reality of what we are singing about. We celebrate streams and rivers of blood, blood we drink and bathe in. To an outsider, this must sound awfully ghastly.  "There is a fountain filled with blood."  Do we ever stop to think about the imagery?  I don't mean this as a criticism--just an interesting observation. The blood was an important part of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament.  The priests did so many things with the blood--sprinkling, spattering, dabbing, rubbing, and pouring.  But the one thing that they never did--that they were absolutely forbidden to ever do--was to consume that blood (Numbers 7:26-27). 

Knowing this its impossible to understate how stunned the followers of Jesus must have been when he called on people to eat his flesh and even worse drink his blood (John 6:53-58). This was in direct opposition to a direct command from the Lord.  Symbolic or not, this was a huge statement.  It's no wonder that "many of His disciples said, 'This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?" It was this polarizing and offensive speech that caused many disciples to stop following Jesus.

We tend to be grossed out by blood--some faint at the sight of it. And it's understandable---generally when we see blood outside of our bodies, it indicates at best discomfort and annoyance, and at worst serious injury or ghastly death. But blood is the vehicle for life inside the human body--it carries life-giving oxygen and removes life destroying waste.  We cannot live without blood.  Blood is life. It was the life of the animals that were sacrificed and therefore sacred.  And His blood is our life.  I think once we get past the initial discomfort of the imagery of blood, we arrive at the power and truth of it as a sacred symbol.  But, we can't really get to that truth without confronting the discomfort first.

1. "Would you be free from your passion and pride?
   There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;
   Come for a cleansing to Calvary’s tide;
   There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood."
2.                                            -- Lewis E Jones "Power in the Blood"