Last week I was teaching my second-year students at Legacy about the sacrificial system in Exodus. Exodus (and even more so Leviticus and Numbers) spell out just how many animals had to be slaughtered under the tabernacle and temple system of worship by the priests. The answer is an astonishing amount of animals. Two lambs every day, 70 bulls every Feast of Tabernacles, and special offerings on the New Moons and other Sabbaths besides this. And this does not even begin to take into consideration the individual sacrifices for sin, trespass, peace, burnt or grain offerings from individual believers. The number of animals that was killed in the tabernacle and temples during the Levitical priesthood was astounding.

What was it like to be a priest during those times? What went through the mind of a priest when he killed a bull for someone’s sins, when he placed the sins of Israel over the head of a goat during Atonement? Did he just blindly go through the rituals without thinking about it, thinking that God was pleased with the death of animals, or did he see all of the blood of the Levitical worship system and ask questions about it? No doubt many priests simply ate their portion of animals or killed the lambs and rams and turtle doves and goats and bulls without a second thought or reflection. Given that I am a very reflective and incessantly inquisitive person, I am sure had I been a priest in those times I would have thought very deeply and seriously about it.

And here is why. The deaths of countless animals that brought reconciliation to sinners, peace between quarreling brethren, and atonement for trespasses all symbolized the death of Jesus Christ for our sins. Seeing all of those animals die, their blood slain for the sins of mankind, would have been an intense and constant reminder of the fact that blood must be shed for sins. Either it is to be our own blood (for we all are worthy of death: Romans 3:23, 6:23) or someone else’s on our behalf. Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ was offered on our behalf for our sins, or else we would have to face a strict judge with a certain death sentence. To reject the sacrifice of Christ is to provide no escape from the certainty of eternal destruction. And a priest was reminded (whether he was aware of this or not) every single day as a part of his job to kill animals so that God’s wrath for sin could be temporarily kept at bay through repentance as recognized through the sacrifice of one’s animals (and the loss of its economic gain). The reminder of death, that innocent life must be given to cover for the sins of the wicked, is not a lesson that is easy to take, whether then or now.

And yet I wonder how many priests really understood the seriousness of their actions. The Bible is full of reminders (especially in the prophets) of how God was displeased at being offered maimed animals that would be upsetting to physical rulers (see Malachi 1:6-14), or through the rote giving of sacrifices without a repentant heart or the practice of righteousness in the thought that God was pleased by the holocaust of animals offered on His altar (see Hosea 6:6). Too often people have thought that God is pleased by mere ceremony, whether it is the ceremony of offerings in the tabernacle or temple or the ceremonies of a church service. Sacrament without genuine spirituality is meaningless to God. Why do we mock God by showing a pretense of worship without the heart and mind of worship? Do we not know that God can read the heart and the mind? Do we think we can fool God with surface appearances? I think not.

For this question is not merely a historical one. Certainly, I wonder about what the priests of ancient Israel and even the time of Christ thought when they performed the sacrifices, because it would seem to me that blood would be an obvious and omnipresent reminder of the reality and penalty of sin. How can one not be sensitive to the shedding of blood if one is standing between a just God and a fallible people (as all ministers of God have throughout history). The question applies just as deeply to ourselves, though. When we perform our religious services, are we doing so genuinely or are we doing so merely out of habit? Do we reflect on our thoughts and actions or do we just repeat them mindlessly and superstitiously, thinking there is nothing more to reflect on, nothing left to understand, nothing left to learn, nowhere left to grow? If so, then we will probably (like the Jews of Jesus’ day) be greatly mistaken and greatly surprised by what we did not understand about God’s word. For everything we do and experience is the opportunity for thought and reflection, and we should take advantage of the experiences we are given. Who knows how long we will have to enjoy them?