Daily Lesson for April 25, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Leviticus chapter 16 verses 6 and 7:

6 "Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. 7 Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting."

There is an old Midrashic story which tells of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai walking with his disciple, Rabbi Y'hoshua, by Jerusalem after the Temple was destroyed. Lamenting over the rubble, Rabbi Y'hoshua said "Alas, the place that atoned for our sins lies in ruins!" Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai said: 'Do not grieve, my son. There is another way of gaining atonement, even though the Temple is destroyed. We can still gain atonement through deeds of compassion. For it is written in the book of Hosea, "I desire compassion, not sacrifice." (Avot D'Rabbi Nathan 4:5)

I read a story like that and take delight, but wonder if it is true, why then did God command the Isrealites to offer sacrifice in the first place?  The 12th century Jew Maimonides answered that God commanded sacrifice not for God's sake, but for ours. Maimonides's understanding was that the Israelites lived in a culture where there was a deeply-ingrained psychological need for sacrifice, going all the way back to the human sacrifice in the days before the patriarchs.  God did not need the sacrifice, but accepted it as a part of the condition of living in atonement (at-one-ment) with the people.

There are aspects akin to Maimonides's thought in some Christian thinking as well -- including my own. I do not believe God demanded blood to be shed in order that God's wrath would be satiated. That belies all we know about forgiveness, which is always an alternative to wrath and vengeance and the demand for blood.

The sacrifice then that we see in Jesus on the cross is sacrificial love -- God's son willingly dying on the cross, not to satisfy God's wrath, but to prove God's love.  And surveying the cross from even this distance of 2,000 plus years, we hear Jesus' final words and know them to be true: "It is finished."  Our sense of estrangement from God is finished. Our need for sacrifice is finished. Our demand for the blood of vengeance (human and animal) is finished.

It is finished. Our atonement is complete. Our at-one-meant with God and all others has been accomplished.