When's the last time you sacrificed a pigeon for lying to your neighbor?
When's the last time you were considered unclean for touching a dead deer that you shot while you were hunting with your friends?
Chances are, you haven't and probably won't. Ever.
But, for the Jewish audience to whom Jesus presented himself to, the Jesus thing made sense. There was a whole litany of requirements for each possible wrongdoing they would have committed at any given moment.
So, when we talk about Jesus, we can't talk about him without talking about what he represented to the people to whom the scriptures were written.
Imagine you live in a world dominated by both political and religious zeal. On one side you have the government vying for every bit of attention it can muster up from you, and on the other side you have a very powerful religious presence on ever corner, trying to get you to walk the straight and narrow.
You're caught in the middle of a constant tension, continuously wondering where you stand.
You want to appease the government, which is demanding you pledge allegiance to it, but you also want to appease the religious leaders who claim they represent the voice of God.
And so, you pay your taxes and sacrifice your goats.
You would never consider the idea that you're possibly living under tyrannical powers, unless someone stepped in and proposed that there was a different way.
Now for sacrifices.
In order to talk about Jesus, we have to talk about sacrifices. For first century Jews, there was this idea that had been carried down through the generations that in order to be redeemed, or atoned, or forgiven, or whatever, then you couldn't let one sin go by without doing something to appease the gods about it.
If you lied, there was a formula for redemption.
If you cheated, there was a system for redemption.
If you stole, there was something to do about it.
Have you ever had a day where you just couldn't do anything right? No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't seem to create good in the world?
There was also another side to this story of sacrifice.
If you cheated, or lied, or stole, or looked lustfully at a married woman, and didn't make the necessary sacrifices for your wrongdoings, then you were considered unclean or blemished or lost or un-redeemable.
Have you ever heard someone talk about someone else, and they said something like, "That person is un-redeemable"?
What does that person mean? They mean that the other person has done something or said something that was so wrong that they would never get it right.
And this was the kind of world Jesus entered into.
It was a world full of ritualistic rule-following, whether it was at the helm of the Roman government or the temple.
And everybody was held under these rules. It didn't matter who you were. If you were anti-religious you were bound to the same rules. If you were pious, you were bound to the same rules. Not only that, but the government was married to the religious institution, making it even more confusing for a citizen of the Roman Empire.
So, the whole idea of a God becoming a human, and living a perfect life, and dying on a cross, and resurrecting was a completely new, breakthrough concept. Yet, it was eerily familiar to what caesars throughout the centuries had claimed.
Kings and caesars claimed to be sons of God. They claimed divine authority. They demanded worship. They claimed that when they died, they'd sit at the right hand of God.
Yet, it didn't take long for anyone with their right mind to see the way the kings took care of defiant citizens, to see that these kings were anything but holy.
Wherever you were, you were required to make some sort of sacrifice, whether in the form of outlandish taxes or redemptive goats.
Sacrifice was the name of the game.
So, when Jesus entered the scene, and people started talking, and people started watching, the whole idea of sacrifice got turned on its head. All of a sudden, this "son of God, Christ, son of David, and spotless lamb," started talking about sacrificing himself for the sins of mankind.
Not only this, but he started pointing people back to their religious texts, showing them that what they were reading about this whole time was all pointing forward . . . to . . . himself.
If you were living in a neighboring country, and heard that God became man, and then became a sacrifice for humanity so you didn't have to atone for your sins anymore, this would have been a life-changing concept that you wouldn't have been able to keep quiet.
It would have affected your moment-by-moment, sacrifice by sacrifice, way of life. It would have affected the way you worshiped, hung out with friends, viewed the government, and viewed sin.
This concept would have ushered you into a way of life that was now free from having to keep sacrificing, keep buying pigeons, and keep trying to make sure you were in good standing with your God.
And so, fast forward to now. While we don't have pigeons to sacrifice, we do have guilt - which was a very understood concept then, just as understood as it is now.
The sacrifice was a symptom, or a payment, for guilt.
And so, when we talk about guilt, and when we say things like, "I don't feel close to God" or "I need to pray more" or "I need to spend more time with God," we're actually saying, "I need to sacrifice a pigeon because I've failed and need redemption.
And as a result, we pray more, and do more, and go to church more, and do more good things.
And two weeks into it, we're like, "Geez. This is too much! I can't handle this!"
And all of a sudden a deep turmoil enters into our hearts and we don't know what to do. We cry out to God but feel like we're talking to the clouds. We talk to other people, but they just tell us to do more, or do something different.
All the while, we're trying to figure out what to do to atone for our wrongdoings. We're guilty. We're in need of redemption, but we can't find the right pigeon to throw on the altar.
So, the concept we're talking about when we talk about Jesus is this:
A God who made a sacrifice once and for all, so that we wouldn't have to play the sacrifice game ever again.
You mean, I don't have to pray more? Absolutely.
You mean, I don't have to worship better? Yes.
You mean, I don't have to try to get closer to God? Oh yeah.
When the authors of the scriptures write in this language of high priests, and sacrifices, and Jesus dying and resurrecting, it made complete sense to the original audience. Why?
Because they lived in a world full of high priests and sacrifices.
What they needed was an eternal relief from the system that was killing them - the system that started out good but soon turned bad.
They needed a once-and-for-all way out of a system or rules they couldn't hold up themselves.
When's the last time you were considered unclean for touching a dead deer that you shot while you were hunting with your friends?
Chances are, you haven't and probably won't. Ever.
But, for the Jewish audience to whom Jesus presented himself to, the Jesus thing made sense. There was a whole litany of requirements for each possible wrongdoing they would have committed at any given moment.
So, when we talk about Jesus, we can't talk about him without talking about what he represented to the people to whom the scriptures were written.
Imagine you live in a world dominated by both political and religious zeal. On one side you have the government vying for every bit of attention it can muster up from you, and on the other side you have a very powerful religious presence on ever corner, trying to get you to walk the straight and narrow.
You're caught in the middle of a constant tension, continuously wondering where you stand.
You want to appease the government, which is demanding you pledge allegiance to it, but you also want to appease the religious leaders who claim they represent the voice of God.
And so, you pay your taxes and sacrifice your goats.
You would never consider the idea that you're possibly living under tyrannical powers, unless someone stepped in and proposed that there was a different way.
Now for sacrifices.
In order to talk about Jesus, we have to talk about sacrifices. For first century Jews, there was this idea that had been carried down through the generations that in order to be redeemed, or atoned, or forgiven, or whatever, then you couldn't let one sin go by without doing something to appease the gods about it.
If you lied, there was a formula for redemption.
If you cheated, there was a system for redemption.
If you stole, there was something to do about it.
Have you ever had a day where you just couldn't do anything right? No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't seem to create good in the world?
There was also another side to this story of sacrifice.
If you cheated, or lied, or stole, or looked lustfully at a married woman, and didn't make the necessary sacrifices for your wrongdoings, then you were considered unclean or blemished or lost or un-redeemable.
Have you ever heard someone talk about someone else, and they said something like, "That person is un-redeemable"?
What does that person mean? They mean that the other person has done something or said something that was so wrong that they would never get it right.
And this was the kind of world Jesus entered into.
It was a world full of ritualistic rule-following, whether it was at the helm of the Roman government or the temple.
And everybody was held under these rules. It didn't matter who you were. If you were anti-religious you were bound to the same rules. If you were pious, you were bound to the same rules. Not only that, but the government was married to the religious institution, making it even more confusing for a citizen of the Roman Empire.
So, the whole idea of a God becoming a human, and living a perfect life, and dying on a cross, and resurrecting was a completely new, breakthrough concept. Yet, it was eerily familiar to what caesars throughout the centuries had claimed.
Kings and caesars claimed to be sons of God. They claimed divine authority. They demanded worship. They claimed that when they died, they'd sit at the right hand of God.
Yet, it didn't take long for anyone with their right mind to see the way the kings took care of defiant citizens, to see that these kings were anything but holy.
Wherever you were, you were required to make some sort of sacrifice, whether in the form of outlandish taxes or redemptive goats.
Sacrifice was the name of the game.
So, when Jesus entered the scene, and people started talking, and people started watching, the whole idea of sacrifice got turned on its head. All of a sudden, this "son of God, Christ, son of David, and spotless lamb," started talking about sacrificing himself for the sins of mankind.
Not only this, but he started pointing people back to their religious texts, showing them that what they were reading about this whole time was all pointing forward . . . to . . . himself.
If you were living in a neighboring country, and heard that God became man, and then became a sacrifice for humanity so you didn't have to atone for your sins anymore, this would have been a life-changing concept that you wouldn't have been able to keep quiet.
It would have affected your moment-by-moment, sacrifice by sacrifice, way of life. It would have affected the way you worshiped, hung out with friends, viewed the government, and viewed sin.
This concept would have ushered you into a way of life that was now free from having to keep sacrificing, keep buying pigeons, and keep trying to make sure you were in good standing with your God.
And so, fast forward to now. While we don't have pigeons to sacrifice, we do have guilt - which was a very understood concept then, just as understood as it is now.
The sacrifice was a symptom, or a payment, for guilt.
And so, when we talk about guilt, and when we say things like, "I don't feel close to God" or "I need to pray more" or "I need to spend more time with God," we're actually saying, "I need to sacrifice a pigeon because I've failed and need redemption.
And as a result, we pray more, and do more, and go to church more, and do more good things.
And two weeks into it, we're like, "Geez. This is too much! I can't handle this!"
And all of a sudden a deep turmoil enters into our hearts and we don't know what to do. We cry out to God but feel like we're talking to the clouds. We talk to other people, but they just tell us to do more, or do something different.
All the while, we're trying to figure out what to do to atone for our wrongdoings. We're guilty. We're in need of redemption, but we can't find the right pigeon to throw on the altar.
So, the concept we're talking about when we talk about Jesus is this:
A God who made a sacrifice once and for all, so that we wouldn't have to play the sacrifice game ever again.
You mean, I don't have to pray more? Absolutely.
You mean, I don't have to worship better? Yes.
You mean, I don't have to try to get closer to God? Oh yeah.
When the authors of the scriptures write in this language of high priests, and sacrifices, and Jesus dying and resurrecting, it made complete sense to the original audience. Why?
Because they lived in a world full of high priests and sacrifices.
What they needed was an eternal relief from the system that was killing them - the system that started out good but soon turned bad.
They needed a once-and-for-all way out of a system or rules they couldn't hold up themselves.
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