Unalloyed Offerings

            One thing I notice about the various offerings all of them were to be the very picture of life and value.  So, for example, the burnt offering was to be a specimen ‘without defect’ and the grain offerings were to have ‘value-added.’  Frankincense and olive oil were added, presumably so that the offerings were aromatically pleasing.  On the other hand, no grain offering could be made with yeast or honey.  (Moderns probably wonder about the ancient Israelite hang-up with yeast; apparently in the Israelite mind ‘leavening’ brought up images of decay and death.  It makes sense if you think about it:  dead animals bloat, so a loaf of bread that is ‘bloating’ reminds one of a dead animal.)  So, the offerings were to be the best and they were to be valuable reminders of God’s gift of life.

            You can see the connection into contemporary Christian practice.  We, of course, see that every Levitical offering leads us to Jesus, the Unblemished One, full of the very life of God, who was offered for us on the cross.  And we also see that the Lord desires our best—whether in the actual offerings we bring to church or in the ways that we offer our lives to Him.  It does strike me that we contemporary Christians struggle to give God our best.  We tend not to give of our firstfruits, but of our leftovers—whether in the actual offerings we bring to church or in the time we offer to the Lord, letting our faith be just one constraint among many, without ever seeing that the Lord wants our relationship to Him to be the thing that shapes and determines every other commitment we make.

            We can learn from the Levitical offerings something about the way we present ourselves to the Lord, and we can learn that best when we first see how Jesus has become the great Offering and when it becomes clear that all of our offerings are responses to that grace.

Updated from 1/29/2011