A Homily for Good Friday 2015
Have you ever taken the time to read through, let’s say, the Book of Leviticus? In modern Bibles, you often find chapter or section headers that describe the contents of the portion of Scripture you are reading… Starting with Leviticus 1:1, here’s what you find:
Have you ever taken the time to read through, let’s say, the Book of Leviticus? In modern Bibles, you often find chapter or section headers that describe the contents of the portion of Scripture you are reading… Starting with Leviticus 1:1, here’s what you find:
- Procedures for the Burnt Offering
- Procedures for the Grain Offering
- Procedures for the Peace Offering
- Procedures for the Sin Offering
- Sins Requiring a Sin Offering
- Procedures for the Guilt Offering
- Sins Requiring a Guilt Offering
- Further Instructions for the Burnt Offering
- Further Instructions for the Grain Offering
- Procedures for the Ordination Offering
- Further Instructions for the Sin Offering
- Further Instructions for the Guilt Offering
- Further Instructions for the Peace Offering
Okay, I am going to stop there.
That’s a summary of the contents Leviticus up to half-way through chapter 7.
You pick back up at the beginning of Chapter 11 with clean and unclean animals,
and keep going through the highlights of the High Holy Days to the relatively
obscure regulations concerning the redemption of property. Twenty-seven
chapters, the majority of which consists of regulations for Covenant Life.
There are other laws in the Old
Testament which discuss other principals of Covenant Life… but I am not going
to spend the next hour introducing you to them. Instead, I am going to share
with you something that I think, for some, is a bit of a secret.
It’s
just not that complicated.
Not anymore.
You see, as we read in the Letter
to the Hebrews, Christ Jesus is our true high priest. He is able to offer, and
has offered – as we just heard – the one, full, perfect, and sufficient
sacrifice for sin… not just for our sins, but for the sin of the whole world.
He came and fulfilled all that had been written of in the Law and the Prophets.
He cancels the old covenant, because it has been fulfilled. He truly means it
when he boldly proclaims, “It is finished!”
And so, you see, it’s just not that complicated anymore.
To be sure, we are called to live
a life based on a clear moral and ethical code as Christian believers; but it
is not that moral and ethical code that justifies and redeems us. It isn’t the
complexity of our worship. It isn’t the astuteness of our biblical studies, nor
is it the vocabulary of our prayers.
Our redemption is secured through
Christ Jesus’ righteousness, which is poured out upon us through the gracious,
loving, and merciful will of the Father through the working of the Holy Spirit.
In Old Testament practice, the
rituals, the laws, all were designed both practically and pragmatically – yes,
if you could keep them perfectly, you’d be drawn close to God… but from a
pragmatic perspective, nobody could keep the entire Mosaic Covenant. It would
up being a death sentence.
You and I, as Christian
believers, yes… we will sometimes fail at keeping the moral and ethical imperatives
of the New Covenant. But when we fail, we need to assemble spotless animals,
proper weights of grain mixed with specified additives, etc. We are simply
called to look to the Cross of Jesus Christ, and there to be brought to
repentance and renewal in him.
It isn’t complicated…
For the just
shall live by faith.
May this day be a day in which, beholding the Cross, our faith is
strengthened, and our hope renewed.
