Butcher Priest

                                                    Butcher Priest


I'm sure the hospital officials thought I was a candidate for the psyche ward. Well, I guess I always am but  gave more visible cause that day. I entered a somewhat catatonic trance by one of those anti-viral\microbial\disinfectant dispensers for visitors to cleanse their hands upon entering and exiting the hospital. I thought how different my duties were from the butcher-priests of 3500 years ago. I had been reading Leviticus and was impressed with the kind of work the priests were called to do to for six different (counting two sin offerings) offerings.

( Insert in your own mind dream sequence music........)

When they become aware of the sin they committed, the assembly must bring a young bull as a sin offering and present it before the Tent of Meeting. The elders of the community are to lay hands on the bull's head before the Lord and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord. Then the appointed priest is to take some of the bull's blood into the Tent of Meeting. He shall dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle it before the Lord seven times in front of the curtain. He is to put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is before the Lord in the Tent of Meeting. The rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. He shall remove all the fat from it and burn it on the altar and do with the bull as he did for the sin offering (he shall remove all the fat from the bull... the fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will remove with the kidneys...But the hide of the bull and all its flesh as well as the head and legs, the inner parts and offal, that is, all the rest of the bull he must take outside the camp to a ceremonially clean place where the ashes are thrown, and burn it in a wood fire on the ash heap.

Time and again for each offering was the securing the animal- a bull, a ram, a lamb, a goat, two pigeons, as the offering's demand or the person's ability would allow- the slitting of the throat with respect and precision to cut the right nerves and sever the carotid artery-the catching of the blood in the proper basin (a bull would have over 4 gallons of blood)- the sprinkling and dabbing of blood inside the tent, the pouring of all the blood on the altar outside the tent- the butchering of the proper organs and cuts to burn on the altar, the hauling of the hide and offal (probably an offal smell) outside the camp about one-eighth to one--quarter mile away.  Can you imagine on a ninety degree day on the desert plains of Sinai the workload of hundreds of animals being sacrificed, the smell of blood, dung, and burned cuts of meat? Consider the stickiness of the blood of hundreds of animals on hands and fingers, the blood soaking the toes and getting under every finger and toe-nail and running down to the elbows.  And then someone would come to present a grain offering-grain, mixed with a little oil, offered by priestly hands soaked with blood and fat, waved before the Lord in thanksgiving and that too placed on the fire. No wonder it took an entire tribe with thousands of priests working in shifts to handle the duties. I can imagine one worn down, exhausted Levite after a special day of worship and sacrifice standing almost catatonic with dust, grain, fat, blood, and sweat covering him from head to foot as he tries to pry open sticky, curled with cramping fingers and he thinks to himself:  "This business of sin and it's forgiveness is dirty, exhausting, and costly. It has to be done again tomorrow and next week and next month. It never ends. Is this really what it takes to atone for sin, worship Yahweh, and find His pleasure? Are there enough bulls, goats, and pigeons? Is there enough blood spilled to satisfy His holiness? Is there a better way?

It was at this point I "awoke'' from my trance and rubbed the disinfectant into my hands and thought as I waited for the elevator--sin is still a costly, exhausting, and dirty business. We can rub our hands with a gallon of cleanser and not cleanse the heart of sin. But there is a better way, the way of  The Lamb.......

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the Living God!  But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.   Hebrews 9: 14, 26

The only thing left for me to butcher is my sermons.

Cos