What A Torn Body Can Mean

“If his offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves or pigeons. And the priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and burn it on the altar. Its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He shall remove its crop with its contents and cast it beside the altar on the east side, in the place for ashes. He shall tear it open by its wings, but shall not sever it completely. And the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD" (Leviticus 1:14-17).

I can have so small a view of my sin and God's holiness. When I read this passage in Leviticus, or other passages describing the slaughter of a bull or a goat as a sin offering, my understanding can be trite and shallow. "Tear it open by its wings..."; ugh, but okay, whatever.  (Can't we secretly harbor a view of God, and of the times, as brutal and ancient... appallingly, embarrassingly violent, an offense to our sanctimonious sensitivities?)

But then this.

  "Who has believed what he has heard from us?
        And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
    For he grew up before him like a young plant,
        and like a root out of dry ground;
    he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
        and no beauty that we should desire him.

 "He was despised and rejected by men;
        a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
    and as one from whom men hide their faces
        he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
    Surely he has borne our griefs
        and carried our sorrows;
    yet we esteemed him stricken,
        smitten by God, and afflicted.
 
"But he was pierced for our transgressions;
        he was crushed for our iniquities;
    upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
        and with his wounds we are healed.
    All we like sheep have gone astray;
        we have turned, every one, to his own way;
    and the LORD has laid on him
        the iniquity of us all."
(Isaiah 53:1-6 )

Stricken, smitten and afflicted; pierced and crushed for MY iniquity. For MY lawlessness. For MY arrogance, and my sanctimonious sensitivities. The Son of God must be stretched and fastened with nails to a crucifix of wood because of my unholy insistence on my own, deficient righteousness.

Simeon with Christ in the temple (Luke 2:25-35).

The Bible is silent in Genesis on the abhorrence of God as he slaughters a good and innocent beast (the first physical death of his creation) to provide a covering for my first parents for the first arrogant transgression (Genesis 3:21).

The Bible is silent in Leviticus on the revulsion and horror that must have been felt by many, or most, or all of the priests when they learned they must tear apart the body of a bird by its outstretched wings; again, for the iniquity of my first parents.

The Bible is silent in Isaiah on the unfathomable depths of the Father's heart as he crushes and bruises his only Son, the true Scapegoat sent to bear the iniquity "of us all".

Yet the Bible so clearly reveals, throughout, the horror of man's rebellion, God's love for his good creation and his holy rules, his anger and wrath against the transgression that brought death and ruin, and his mercy and justice in sending his own Son to redeem all back. We may infer from all this that the tearing open of a living bird and the spilled blood of beast after beast after beast was never meant to be taken as normal-for-the-times. It was always unnatural, always abhorrent, always horrible.

And that gives me a much more sober view of my sin, and God's holiness, and what he accomplished in the death of his Son on the cross.

Three Leaps For Joy

"An evil man is snared in his own transgressions, but a righteous man sings and rejoices" (Proverbs 29:6). 


I am musing on this verse from my morning's reading in Proverbs. First of all (I muse), it should be noted that the righteousness of this righteous man is not his own but is a gift. This man's righteousness was received; in the Old Testament and today, this imputed righteousness is the free gift of God, bestowed because of his lavish mercy, on un-righteous former transgressors! The righteous man of Proverbs 29:6 has been declared right with God through faith in Christ's atoning work. He is a humble man, grateful and astonished at the grace given to him in Christ.

So this happy man, though beset by many afflictions and trials, goes singing and rejoicing on his way. The evil man, in the meantime, is the one who loves and clings to his sin. He believes that to give it up and put his trust in this Jesus would be the ultimate folly. Ironically and tragically, the very sin he clings to constantly proves to be a snare and a trap to him. He becomes entangled and ensnared. There is no song in his mouth and no rejoicing in his heart. Declaring in his heart that for him "there is no God," he sadly becomes the ultimate fool (Psalm 14:1).

Reading of the other man, the righteous man, I was reminded of Christian in Pilgrim's Progress. Though afflicted by temptations and trials on his journey to the Celestial City, Christian and his companions could often be heard singing and rejoicing as they went. Here John Bunyan describes the way Christian came to be relieved of his heavy burden of sin, declared clean and right before God, and the glad song he sang about it:

    Now I saw in my dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a Wall, and that Wall is called Salvation. Up this way therefore did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.


    He ran thus until he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below in the bottom, a Sepulcher. So I saw in my Dream, that just as Christian came up to the Cross his burden loosed from off his Shoulders, and fell from off his back; and began to tumble; and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the Sepulcher, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.


    Then was Christian glad and lightsom, and said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest, by his sorrow; and life, by his death. Then he stood still a while, to look and wonder; for it was very surprizing to him, that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks.

    Now as he stood looking and weeping, behold three shining ones came to him, and saluted him with Peace be to thee: so the first said to him, Thy sins be forgiven. The second stript him of his Rags, and clothed him with change of Raiment. The third also set a mark in his forehead, and gave him a Roll with a Seal upon it, which he bid him look on as he ran, and that he should give it at the Celestial Gate: so they went on their way. Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing. 

Thus far did I come loaden with my sin, 

Nor could ought ease the grief I was in, 

Till I came hither: What a place is this! 

Must here be the beginnning of my bliss? 

Must here the burden fall from off my back? 

Must here the strings that bound it to me, crack? 

Blest Cross! Blest Sepulcher! blest rather be 

The Man that there was put to shame for me.

Three leaps for joy!

(Text from Oxford World's Classics 2003 The Pilgrim's Progress)