Lamb of God

Every year, I read through the Bible in its entirety. I keep a journal every day as I read, and my rule is that I'm not allowed to write down something that I wrote down previously, whether that was 1 year or 15 years ago. So I am always looking for something new. 

Sometimes, I find something so obvious, I can't figure out how I've read the Bible through that many times and still missed it. 

Sometimes, it makes me have to come back to this space and correct myself. 

Today is one of those days. 

I have previously been known to talk about the sacrifice of Jesus as the lamb of God and connect it to the sacrifices in the Old Testament, specifically in Leviticus. When you read through the prescribed sacrifices in Leviticus - the burnt offering, the guilt offering, the sin offering, the thankfulness offering, etc. - the only time you see a male lamb as an acceptable offering is in the fellowship offering. 

I think this is important when we talk about Jesus, the Lamb of God. I still think it is important. 

But there's something else I've been missing. 

Because when you keep reading in Leviticus and you get into the nitty gritty of offenses against God and others, of cleanness and uncleanness, of boils and mildews and bodily emissions, we see the lamb again. The lamb was required, even of the poorest Israelites, as a purification offering after a period of uncleanness. 

When the boil healed, the mildew cleared, the bodily emissions ceased, the Israelite was to bring a male lamb to the priest to serve as a purification offering, to make him- or her-self clean with God again. To become ceremonially pure. To be restored to participation in the community, fellowship with others, and fellowship with God. 

And I think this is more important. 

It's closely related to the fellowship offering, as both have to do with our relationship with God, but it is in this sense, in the matter of purification, that we truly understand how it is that Jesus takes away the sins of the world. That we understand what God was doing on the Cross in full - at least, as full as our finite, limited minds can fathom of it. 

It's strange to me that I never really caught this before. I have always gone to the prescribed sacrifices to try to understand the Lamb, not to the sins. Not to the failures. Not to the uncleanness. But of course, I should most definitely have gone there, since that is where Jesus went.

So I hereby correct myself and expand on my previous reflections to embrace this more full meaning of the Lamb of God. 

(But can I also just say that as many times as I have talked about the fellowship offering, not a single person has stepped forth to correct me on this point, either. So perhaps I'm not the only one who has been missing it. Anywho, now you know.)