Give It Up

Animal sacrifice is no longer practiced by Jews or Christians, but the New Testament still has plenty to say about it. Leviticus outlines the details of the sacrificial system: burnt offering, grain offering, guilt offering, purification and fellowship offerings, done over and over again hundreds of times a day. Figuring out how to obey these commands without breaking any (civil) laws was a challenge. Nevertheless, some managed to pull it off. For everyone, the question remained as to why. Sure, the idea of sacrifice as atonement for sin is taught in our churches, but what about all the rest? Why was God so bent on having his people burn everything? And what do you do about the Fire Department?

Wrestling with seven chapters on animal sacrifices was the first challenge for the group. We’re used to the idea of God sacrificing for us through Jesus, but didn’t that just about cover it? OK, so in the New Testament book of Romans we read that we’re to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices.” Hmm. Maybe we should try animals first. While no animals were harmed during our experiment (animal rights activists were keeping track online), several were engaged. Thomas paid a visit to a family farm and tried to lay his sins on an unsuspecting herd of cattle (taking for granted he’d need at least 30 head to get through the month). Needless to say, the cattle did not take kindly to having anybody’s sins laid on their heads. Simon decided to try burning a grain offering in his kitchen, which did succeed in approximating the stench that he felt his day’s misdeeds had caused. Yet none of this seemed to catch the significance of sacrifice as Leviticus taught. We found ourselves wondering if already we were up against something we couldn’t begin to touch.