A Couple Easter Thoughts

I’ve been reading a little book during Lent entitled “The New Covenant” by Robert Coleman. I didn’t intentionally use it as a Lenten devotional but it turns out that it has been a great focus considering the wonderful opportunity next weekend we all have to join with a third of the worlds population is proclaiming the risen Lord. The book reviews the Old Testament system of sacrifices and atonement and connects those practices with Christ’s Passion (death and resurrection). I’ve been hit by a couple of things; one personal application and one of the great ironies of the Easter week events.

First the personal application. The OT picture of the sin offering provides a compelling picture of the personal consequence of sin. Picture this. During Passover, you bring your unblemished lamb or goat to the priest as your offering. You (yes, you) have to bind the animal to the altar. Then you place your hands on the now helpless animal’s, symbolic of transferring your sin to it. With one hand on the animal you use your other hand to slit the animal’s throat, it’s blood running down the sides of the altar – its life-blood for yours. The scene is violent and bloody. Such is the nature of OT atonement. That picture provides us with a poignant picture of the consequence of our sin as it relates to the death of Christ. It’s as if we place our sin on Christ while slitting his throat, his blood for ours. Life given for life attained. New Testament atonement too, is violent and bloody. Christ’s atoning work suddenly is not longer an abstraction. Despite the time lapse of 2000 years, I’m right there at the crucifixion throwing the spear.

The irony. Christ was in Jerusalem during Passover. Jerusalem’s population had swelled ten fold with the influx of pilgrims heading to the temple to make their annual sacrifices. I can only imagine that with so many people there, every priest available was helping out with the sacrificial processes to accommodate all the work that had to be done. Thousands of animals were being sacrificed and the blood of each one was caught in a conical saucer(so that it couldn’t be set down) forcing the priests to carry it immediately to the altar that stood just outside the Holy of Holies and fling the blood on the altar and then race back and get the blood from the next sacrifice. All this slitting, blood-scooping, running, and flinging, I suspect, presented quite a frenetic picture, not to mention the animal bleating, the stench of burning flesh and coagulating blood, the singing and chanting. Well, all this was going on while Jesus was hanging on the cross - The perfect, unblemished, bound and bleeding sacrificial “Lamb of God”. So imagine being the unfortunate priest or priests who were flinging the blood on the altar in front of the Holy of Holies at the moment of Christ’s death. Remember what happened? At that moment, the earth shook, the sky got dark and veil that hid the most holy place in the temple (the place that only the high priest could enter once a year with a rope attached to his leg in the event he had to be pulled out due to the overpowering presence of God) was ripped in half from top to bottom. Those poor old priests flinging the blood were suddenly exposed to the presence of God. The fact that the rent veil now offered them free access to God was, I’m sure, lost in the horror of the moment for them. The usual response depicted elsewhere in the Bible when caught in the presence of God was to fall down to the ground and hope you died quickly.
I certainly don’t pretend to understand the divine rationale for the bloody mess of atoning sacrifices in either the Old or New Testaments. However, if that’s the God-ordained system designed to eliminate the barrier between God and man, then a once for all, perfect, and complete sacrifice to mediate our inherent preoccupation with ourselves and get in touch with the “bigger picture” in this life and the next, is definitely simpler and more liberating than the old way. And since we’re responsible for Christ’s death, his sacrifice for us certainly deserves a life of gratitude and a vigorous “Hallelujah” this Easter! Blessings all. WB