A Better Sacrifice

If you've ever attempted to read the Bible from cover to cover, chances are you made it through Genesis and maybe Exodus. Somewhere in Leviticus, I'm guessing, your head began to spin. You became bogged down with the deluge of details about sacrifices.

In the liturgy of Israel, sacrifice was the divinely ordered Means of Grace by which God gave blessings to his people. The Israelites sacrificed cows, sheep, goats, turtledoves, pigeons, wheats and grains. They offered burnt sacrifices, sin sacrifices, guilt sacrifices, peace sacrifices, and meal sacrifices.

Throughout the Old Testament times, God's people brought animals to the Lord's altar. The priest would ceremonially kill these animals and formally present them to the Lord. The sacrifices then symbolically became the Lord's property.

I'm guessing that you did not bring a goat or lamb with you to church tonight for the evening sacrifice. That's OK. God doesn't want any more sacrifices of animals. That's because he's already received a better sacrifice.

Long before Jesus came into the world, God's laws taught his people that sacrifices were necessary. Something had to be done about all the ways that people didn't measure up to God's demands. And so, he commanded priests to offer sacrifices -- lambs, bulls, and goats -- day-after-day, year-after-year. There was no end to it.

God commanded those animal sacrifices in the Old Testament to send a very clear message -- sin is serious. So serious, in fact, that it requires a life as its payment. St. Paul later wrote to the Romans that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Every time God's people in the Old Testament brought an animal to be sacrificed, they realized, "Sin is serious. My sin is serious. A life must be given as its payment because 'the wages of sin is death.' But in his grace, God has allowed me to offer the life of this animal as payment for my sin instead of my own life." The sinner was then able to walk away from the altar upon which that sacrifice was offered, forgiven and alive. Oh, what a beautiful message the sacrificial system proclaimed!

But the people knew that the blood of these animals didn't really remove their sins. They were merely a shadow, a picture, of something greater and better that was coming. The author to the Hebrews explains, "In fact, the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the actual realization of those things. It will never be able to make perfect those who continually offer the same sacrifices year after year. If it could do this, wouldn't they have stopped bringing sacrifices, because the worshippers, once they were cleansed, would no longer have a bad conscience about sins? Instead, these sacrifices reminded them of their sins year after year. The fact is that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins" (Hebrews 10:1-3). These continual and constant sacrifices reminded the people of their sins year after year. God was teaching his people that no animal sacrifice or anything a sinful human could offer was enough to make up for those sins or take them away.

So, why did God require all those animal sacrifices in the Old Testament if "he did not desire" them, "nor [was he] pleased with them" as the author to the Hebrews states?

The author finds a beautiful answer to that question as he records a divine conversation between Jesus Christ and his heavenly Father.

"Therefore when he entered the world, Christ said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but you prepared a body for me. You were not pleased with burnt offerings and sin offerings. Then I said, "Here I am. I have come to do your will, God. In the scroll of the book it is written about me." First he said: Sacrifices and offerings that were offered according to the law, both burnt offerings and sin offerings, you did not desire, and you were not pleased with them. Then he said: Here I am. I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. By this will, we have been sanctified once and for all, through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 10:5-10).

Why was God "not pleased" with those sacrifices? He wasn't pleased with them because those animal sacrifices had no actual power to pay for sin. They were just animals. If sin was truly going to be paid for, a better sacrifice was needed. It needed to be a one time for all time sacrifice. The author explains, "Unlike the other high priests, he [Christ] does not need to offer sacrifices on a daily basis, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. In fact, he sacrificed for sins once and for all when he offered himself" (Hebrews 7:27). Jesus Christ, the innocent, perfect Lamb of God, was the fulfillment of the shadow from those animal sacrifices.

Jesus Christ is the one better sacrifice. He is the one perfect sacrifice offered by himself as the better perfect high priest. He offered the sacrifice that only he could give. He gave himself. He didn't do it for himself. He didn't need to. He gave that sacrifice for you, dear sinner. Knowing that you could not earn God's favor, knowing the best you could offer could never cover a single slip-up, he offered his own life on a cross. Because Jesus was the Son of God, his innocent life was infinitely valuable. His sacrifice was perfectly pleasing to God. It never has to be repeated. It was a once-and-for-all sacrifice for all people.

Through that sacrifice offered on a spring Friday afternoon twenty centuries ago, your relationship with God is perfectly restored. Once and for all. No strings attached, no wonder we call this Friday good!

When we recognize that our own lives are completely stained with sin, this is the sacrifice to which we also look. We look to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who gave up his own life as a payment for our sins. "The wages of sin is death." But when we look to the sacrifice of Christ, who paid for our sins through his death, we can walk away from his cross, forgiven and alive. Oh, what a beautiful message the sacrifice of Christ proclaims!

This is the better sacrifice of which the Son of God proclaimed himself through the psalmist in Psalm 22 which we read earlier in the service. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My groaning does nothing to save me. My God, I call out by day, but you do not answer. I call out by night, but there is no relief for me. ... I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They sneer. They shake their heads. They say, 'Trust in the Lord.' 'Let the Lord deliver him. Let him rescue him, if he delights in him'" (Psalm 22:1-2, 6-8).

We don't have to bring these animals sacrifices anymore because the greatest sacrifice of all died on God's altar of the cross. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice. He is the fulfillment of all those Old Testament sacrifices. He is the culmination of all the guilt, sin, and peace sacrifices. He gave his life for our lives. Now, we give our lives to him in return. He died in service to us. Now, we live in service to him.

Now, we don't bring lambs or goats to church to sacrifice to God. Jesus is our better sacrifice. Instead, we bring ourselves to church and then bring church to our families, workplaces, schools, and community as our continual, living sacrifice to God.

Our motivation for serving God is not because we have to. It isn't to gain God's mercy ... rather, it is in response to receiving God's mercy found in the better sacrifice of Jesus Christ. When hearing about the love God has for us in sending his Son as our sacrifice, why would we not want to live sacrificial lives in return?

We speak because we have been spoken to by God. We serve as we have been served by God. We teach as we have been taught by God. We encourage as we have been encouraged by God. We contribute to the needs of others because God has taken care of our needs. We give generously because God has given his Son and salvation generously to us. We lead because our Good Shepherd is leading us to heaven. We show mercy because God has poured out his mercies on us.

We offer our bodies and lives as living sacrifices for Jesus Christ who is our once-and-for-all better sacrifice. Amen.