Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 22-23.

Two days ago on Tuesday I wrote about the connection between eating the Body of Christ in Communion and the priests eating the meat offered on the altar as described in Leviticus.   Today’s passage begins with warning the priests to respect the sacred offerings.  Which reminds me of Paul writing in 1 Corinthians that we don’t defile ourselves by not being respectful of the body and blood of Christ.  This passage warns that the priests may die if they treat the   offerings with contempt.  In the same way, Paul warns us that if we treat the Lord’s Supper with contempt we will experience illness and weakness.  The priests under the Law of Moses were required to approach the sacrifices with the appropriate reverence.  We should approach the sacrifice of Christ with even more reverence for God’s holiness.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Leviticus 22-23.

I think we can learn something from the appointed festivals the Israelites were supposed to observe.  First I want to note that there were seven of these festivals.  We tend to forget that the Sabbath was as much one of the festivals ordained by God for the Israelites as was Passover.  I am not sure how Jews view these festivals, but the Christians I know who think about them tend to focus on Passover, the Day of Atonement, and, perhaps, the Festival of Tabernacles, mostly forgetting that the Sabbath is one of these Festivals.  I think that the importance of remembering that the Sabbath is the first of these Festivals cannot be overstated.  The importance of Passover for Jews, and Easter for Christians, cannot be overstated.  In fact, I think the fact that the English language uses Easter for that event, rather than a word derived from Passover as most other languages do, causes us to to make less of a connection between Jesus’ death and resurrection and Passover than we should.  Similarly, our failure to take notice that the Sabbath was the first of these Festivals established by God causes us to fail to take seriously God’s call for us to dedicate one day a week to worshiping and thinking about Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Leviticus 22-23.

There are seven festivals which the people of Israel were to observe.  Six of the seven festivals were celebrations, but the Day of Atonement is a more solemn assembly.  That was why I wrote that they were to “observe” the festivals, rather than that they were to “celebrate” them.  In the same way, I probably should have written that these were “assemblies” rather than that they were “festivals”.  Both celebrate and festival have connotations about joy, happiness, and fun which are inappropriate for the Day of Atonement.  Having said that I think it important that six of the seven have that sense of communal joy and fun associated with them.  It really tells us something about how we should worship God.  Most of the time (6 out of 7) it should be joyous and fun, but every now and then it needs to be sober and solemn.  We need to know and remember which approach to take on each occasion.  I want to circle back to the fact that these were assemblies.  The people were to gather together to observe these reminders about God.  We should gather with our fellow Believers on a regular basis, often in celebration, but occasionally in a more solemn fashion.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Leviticus 22-23.

The passage begins with a continuation of the instructions regarding priests who become ceremonially  unclean.  For the most part this restates the laws regarding ceremonial uncleanness specifically applied to priests.  I take away from this that the same rules that apply to everyone else apply to the priests, the leaders of the people (there are other places where laws which apply to leaders who are not priests are laid out in a similar manner), plus a few more.   This is the exact opposite of how most of our rulers and religious leaders act today.

Then the passage goes on to lay out seven festivals throughout the year.  We should take special note that one of the high festivals laid out here is the weekly Sabbath.  The other festivals only occurred once a year.  I want to highlight the importance of the people gathering to celebrate these festivals.  The festivals establish common practices among the people and help unite them.  Each of the festivals established certain values which the people were to share.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 22-23.

At the beginning of the passage it discusses the need for priests to maintain both spiritual and physical holiness.  The passage then goes on to command that flawed animals are not acceptable offerings to God.  Every time I read this I think about what this means when we make offerings to God today by donating to charitable causes.  When we make an offering to God it must be perfect not used, not our castoffs.  That does not mean that we should not donate such things that still have use to charity.  It just means that we should not think of that as an offering to God.  If we have clothes which no longer fit us but are still in good repair, it is a good thing to donate it to a thrift store or other charity, but doing so does not qualify as an offering to God.

From time to time someone comes to the conclusion that Christians can benefit from paying closer attention, perhaps even from celebrating the festivals God commanded the Israelites to observe.  There is some merit to the idea.  Yet in every case I am aware of, they start the discussion with the Festival of First Fruits.  Oh, they mention the Sabbath in passing, but they start their discussion with the Festival of First Fruits.  However, I think we should pay more attention to that very first of the festivals which God established for the people of Israel.  I do not believe it matters whether we celebrate that Festival on Saturday or Sunday.  The important thing is that we should gather once a week to celebrate God.  Which brings up another point, our Sunday services should be a celebration.  They are not an obligation which we grudgingly spend an hour or two fulfilling.  No, they should be celebrations which we eagerly look forward to taking part in and regret when they come to an end.