Thursday, October 6, 2016
To purify
the house the priest must take two birds, a stick of cedar, some scarlet yarn,
and a hyssop branch. He will slaughter one of the birds
over a clay pot filled with fresh water. He will take the
cedar stick, the hyssop branch, the scarlet yarn, and the live bird, and dip
them into the blood of the slaughtered bird and into the fresh water. Then he will sprinkle the house seven
times. When the priest has purified the
house in exactly this way, he will release the live bird in the open
fields outside the town. Through this
process, the priest will purify the house, and it will be ceremonially clean. Leviticus
14:49-53(NLT)
The Levitical
law is almost maddening in its nitpicking details. Here, in the case of simple household mold,
the house, to be cleansed and re-plastered, had to be spiritually-cleansed by
the priest offering a sacrificial bird, and releasing a live one.
In the annual
sacrifice for sin at the temple in Jerusalem a goat was slaughtered, while a
second goat was released outside the city – the scape goat. The priest would tie a scarlet ribbon on the
goat’s horn, lay his hands on its head, symbolizing the transference of sin
from the people to the goat, and release it outside the city, carrying the
peoples’ guilt far away from the guilty.
At God’s
direction Abraham took Isaac up the mountain of sacrifice; it was a test for
Abraham, God stopped him short of actually harming his son. But the case of sacrifice for forgiveness was
made, and it’s hard to forget.
Over and
again in Scripture the imagery of sacrifice, forgiveness, and cleansing is
repeated. Mold, goats, birds and a son…what
to make of it all?
In each case
of a living animal being sacrificed to cleanse something once-encased in death’s
grip was followed by a second living animal carrying the death away. This was the sacrificial system of Israel.
So what does
it mean?
God’s desire
for a close relationship with His creation (us) is short-circuited by sin. And the problem of sin has to be
addressed. The mold (or leprosy) is a
type of insidious sin, infecting every part of life. (If you’ve ever had a mold problem, you know
how hard it is to get rid of it completely).
This highlights how impossible it is for us to eliminate our sins
without God’s intervention. After all,
how can you undo something in the past?
The
scape-goat and scape-bird are types of God dealing with our sin problem, taking
it far from us, along with punishment.
The son, Isaac, is a foreshadow of God offering His own dear Son,
Jesus. He was both the sacrifice AND
the scape-goat/bird, as he rose from the grave, carrying the leprosy of our
sins far away.
Listen to the
words of our Easter hymn, One Day[ii]:
One day when heaven was filled
with His praises,
One day when sin was as black as could be,
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin—
Dwelt among men, my example is He!
One day when sin was as black as could be,
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin—
Dwelt among men, my example is He!
Living, He loved me; dying, He
saved me;
Buried, He carried my sins far away;
Rising, He justified freely forever:
One day He’s coming—O glorious day!
Buried, He carried my sins far away;
Rising, He justified freely forever:
One day He’s coming—O glorious day!
For You Today
If the well is a little dry finding ways to praise God
for what He has done for you, try reading a little Leviticus. God leaves out no detail when it comes to
cleaning house!
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