Sacrifice worries us. It can be unsettling to think that God might still have things to teach us through Israel's rites of animal sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice ended all that. And we are happy with that arrangement. Unless we can eat them, we don't want animals to die. And why did God want sacrifices anyway?
Ultimately, sacrifice remains important for us because it is a death that leads to resurrection. We don't need good advice. We need good news that the old realm of death is ended, and the new realm of life in the Spirit has come. It is the only way to true restoration. While it is true that we don't offer animal sacrifices anymore, the vocabulary and symbolism of sacrifice is still the best way to understand our Christian lives today.
There were five stages to safely draw near to God through sacrifice, and catch a glimpse of Eden. First, the worshiper draws near through a substitute. A substitute takes another's place. The worshiper signifies that the animal is a substitute by laying hands on its head. Laying hands on a person's head is a way of giving them a particular job or office. The animals for this 'meal' were cattle, goats, sheep, and some birds. These animals represent Israel, suggesting that Israel herself is God's meal. Second, the worshiper kills the animal as a symbol of the worshiper's death, because sinful flesh cannot enter into God's presence. Third, the blood is collected, and is put on the tabernacle or on some furniture to prove that someone or something has died in the worshiper's place. Fourth, the flesh of the animal is burned on the bronze altar in the courtyard of the tabernacle. Fire turns the animal into smoke, and it mingles with the cloud that represents God's presence over the altar. The fire turns the animal into something new. The animal is translated, purified, transformed, glorified, as it meets the Lord in Spirit. Representing the worshiper, the smoke slips past the cherubim and enters the Lord's presence. Fifth, the worshiper shares in God's meal. (A House for My Name, 89-92)
While it is true that sacrifices speak to us about God's righteous indignation, wrath, and punishment against sin, we see here that God's ultimate goal is to draw us into his presence again.
It encourages the hope of a New Eden. When God expels Adam and Eve from the garden, he places cherubim to guard the entrance. Cherubim are seen in the tabernacle's curtains. They are also built above the ark of the covenant. Therefore, the most holy place of the tabernacle is meant to remind of the garden. A flaming sword guards Eden, and we see in the tabernacle that fire translates the animal into smoke. The animal suffers the death of re-entry on the worshiper's behalf. The gateway to Eden is on the east, and the tabernacle also has a door to the east. The whole sacrificial sequence emboldens the worshipers to hope for re-entry to Eden, that God will provide a substitute.
Worship in this way habituates the worshipers to see what God is really like. The sacrifice represents a gift of the worshiper's own self. The sacrifice is a removal of what would hinder our communion with God. God doesn't need the animal or the food. In fact, he seems to resent it when the Israelites think this from time to time. The prophet Samuel says, "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams." (1 Sam. 15:22-23) In other words, God isn't in this because he's hungry. He wants to restore his people for communion. It isn't only God's meal, but it is ultimately a shared meal. Eating is a means of fellowship, of shared life. Finally, God himself bears Israel's sin. Introducing these purification rites is risky. Leithart writes: "Purification offerings pressurized Israel's situation: Yahweh's very presence in Israel was a danger, and as the sins, rebellions and impurities mounted on the priest and in Yahweh's house, the danger intensified. Without a mechanism for decompression, it would rapidly become intolerable." (Delivered, 114) God provided a "pressure valve" in the Day of Coverings (Lev. 16), which provided an "annual reboot" for the sanctuary, removal of impurity, and reinvestiture for the high priest. God himself bears the cost of this.
This is all the continuing story of God's war against flesh. God's circumcised people are habituated to see themselves as fellow warriors in God's ongoing battle, as testifying witnesses in God's ongoing prosecution of flesh. Humanity is in league with death and flesh, and are in exile from Eden. God has instituted real but limited access to Eden through the Tabernacle, even taking the burden on himself, all of which nurtures hope that God will one day open his house fully again.
All of this tells us about Jesus, but not only that Jesus turns out to be the true lamb who is sacrificed, the true priest who does the sacrificing, the true Israel who re-enters to meet with God, and the true God who takes the burden on himself. All of that is true, but it isn't quite the whole picture. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes:
"But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption." (Hebrews 9:11-12)
Think again of the sacrificial sequence. Christ is the substitute, the representative of Israel, and through Israel, the representative of the whole world. His death on the cross is a sacrificial death for his enemies. In his resurrection and ascension into heaven, he presents blood as evidence that the sacrifice has been made, and re-enters Eden, at the Father's right hand. And every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we eat our sacrifice again. We feed upon Jesus' body and blood through the Holy Spirit.
God never needed to eat animals. But he gave the sacrificial sequence and its symbolism of gift, love, and communion to nurture the hopes of his people that one day, through Christ, Jews and Gentiles alike would have access to God's house again, to Eden, to share God's good things with him forever.
And this is why our worship services are simultaneously sacrifice-free, and yet full of sacrifices. True, we don't kill cattle, sheep, or birds in our sanctuaries anymore because Christ is the one true sacrifice. Gathering to confess sin, hear God's word, and praise him is all a way of saying "Christ's sacrifice is sufficient." But there are still sacrifices. When we come forward to commune with God, and when we go back out into the world, we do so as living sacrifices, as people who have truly died and risen, died to the flesh, and risen to live in the Spirit. Israel used to have to slip past the cherubim to get a taste of Eden. Now, in Christ, we live there all the time.
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