Sacrifice

We've reached the second Passover in my OT class. It's been a year since the awesome and awful power of God freed the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt through the plague of the Firstborn son, and the Israelites are called to reflect on everything they've endured (which includes, but is not limited to: starvation, dehydration, death, plagues, idol worship, war) and where God has led them.

In Numbers, there is a discussion between Moses and a few of the Hebrews about the Passover and a small problem they have: they're unclean. They have come into contact with a dead body and will not be ceremonially able to observe the Passover until after the appointed time. God declares that they are to observe it a month later, but otherwise change nothing. A few verses later, a warning is fired off against people who ARE able to observe the Passover, but choose not to do so. It is decreed that they will be cut off from the community (bad) but also will bear the consequences of their sins (way way worse) due to their indiscretions.

This led to a discussion of sacrifice in one of my classes. We talked about the perfection required in the animals and how God needed something perfect in order to redeem the sin we have committed against him.

I can't imagine a world in which every thing I did wrong required a different sacrifice, and because of that, I thank God for the perfect sacrifice to free us from the bondage of sin and God's wrath: His Son. Without flaw, without imperfection, and without guilt--the only thing capable of bringing me back to God's side, a horrible death so that I might have life.

Thanks Jesus...we owe You.

"Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Isaiah 53:12