Royal Blood
Most of us have an uneasy relationship with blood. There are a various reasons for a vegetarian preference but one often cited is a look inside the abattoir, or at least an understanding of what happens in there. Lots of blood. Ever driven alongside a big truck loaded with cows? They’re probably not going to the coast for a day out, they’re having a very bad day. Just give me a Big Mac and coke and let’s not think any more about it. We live in a time and place where we can minimise exposure to the difficult aspects of the food chain, our grub is sugar coated both literally and figuratively. But something has to give.
In the run up to Easter, somewhere underneath the millions of chocolate eggs and soft cuddly chicks lurks the story of the cross. There are lots of aspects to the Christian story we quite like, people might not believe them all but we’re happy to have them around. God is one. Maybe not all the time but lots of people turn to him or like the thought of him at certain times of life. So too the man Jesus. He was wise, loving and compassionate. His stories were good and carried an air of truth about them. People are generally ok with this stuff, even like having it around. Listening to good teaching, hoping in a good God. I can roll with that. But then there’s this story about the cross. Why in this story about a good God and a nice man does someone need to die? Why all of a sudden is there blood?
It feels like a surprise in the storyline. It shouldn’t.
Someone once told the story of a boy lost in a big building. He thought he knew what the building was but he’d been wondering about so long and had become distracted by so much weird stuff that he’d lost all sense of where he was. Eventually he sat down in a corridor outside a dimly lit room. He was just tall enough to see through window and peer inside where he saw a small boy lying strapped to what looked like a table. The lost boy stopped and stared at him for a while wondering why he was lying like this, he looked afraid. Most of the room was dark and he couldn’t really see, the lost boy was worried for him. Suddenly in walked a big man, twice the size of the boy. He strode in an opened up a bag, pulling out what looked like a sharp knife. He went over to him, leaned over the boy and lowered the knife towards his chest. There were other people in the room but no-one was doing anything to stop the man with the knife. The lost boy wanted to scream. He was scared and didn’t know what was going on, none of this seemed to make any sense. As it turned out, the lost boy was in hospital, the big scary dimly lit man with the knife was just about the best surgeon around and the boy on the table was in desperate need of his help.
Looking at the Bible can feel a bit like looking into that room. Much of it rings true for us then we end up looking at something that seems to make no sense at all. We want to scream. Why is there a man with a knife? It can really help with these difficult parts of the Bible story to remember the bigger story you’re in. Knowing you’re in a hospital where surgery is necessary means men with knives move from scary strangers to much needed saviours.
Leviticus is a book with lots of blood and scary men with knives. It’s a peek inside the abattoir or a ‘butchers’ round the hospital. You’ll look over the first few chapters and assume you’re in the wrong place, you’ll want to scream and run away. But don’t run. Leviticus is a key signpost to make sense of the story we’re in. It’s located at the time when Gods people were camping out in the desert and God resided in their presence in a tent called the tabernacle.
God. Holy, perfect, all powerful. Not just good but look at him and die kind of holy! The reality was the people couldn’t just hang around him as they were, being near something so perfect only exposed who they were, who we are… not perfect. There is a cost to hanging round God.
By the time you read through Leviticus (if you make to the other side) you’ll see that. It was exhausting, virtually every minute of every day was taken up with it. The method was sacrifice, bloodshed. Get your best animal, bring your best grain and keep the fire going because you’ll need to come back soon. There is a picture building when this book takes its place in the big story of the Bible. We’ve seen enough blood to know being near a perfect God costs us something. But we’ll need a better sacrifice.
When you read the Gospels having read through Leviticus it’s like you’re reading a different book. Something that was painful and confusing to look at before is now soaked with layers of meaning. Remember the start of John’s gospel when John sees his Cousin Jesus walking at a distance. He utters a sentence that makes the big complicated bible story seem really small and easy to understand.
“Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” John 1:29
If you’d just put Leviticus down you wouldn’t need to read to the end of his story to know what’s going to happen to Jesus. The cross and the blood that comes with it is no longer a surprise and neither is the reason he places himself there. As for the big angry dimly lit God who orchestrates all this. He’s no longer a frightening figure with a sharp knife but the good doctor we so desperately need.
Come along or listen online as we look closer into the story cross and the deeper truths Leviticus helps us to see
Ash Gibson, Assistant Pastor, Christchurch Xscape
