Have you ever killed anything? When I was little and living in Korea, someone gave me a knife and told me to kill a chicken that was hanging by its neck on a tree. We were going to eat it for dinner, some adults told us. None of my friends could do it and so the knife came to me. I took the knife and plunged it through its heart, only to see the chicken flap its wings in protest and agony. I was startled and scared. I put down the knife and admitted that I was too chicken to kill a chicken…

Animal sacrifice in the Old Testament must have been gruesome. If it freaked me out to kill a chicken where no blood came out, I can’t imagine slaughtering a sheep or a goat, skinning it, and sprinkling the blood on the altar. How crass! How gruesome. How uncivilized!

Lev. 4:27, “If a member of the community sins… he is to lay his hand on the head of the sin offering (goat) and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering.”

What must’ve been going through these people’s minds as they were slaughtering these animals? “This animal is dying for my sin. I should be dying for my own sins, but this poor and innocent animal is dying in my place…”

But what they couldn’t fathom in their wildest dreams is that those animals were simply a pointer to THE Substitute that would die in their place and that Substitute would be the very Son of very God!

Is your heart filled with wonder and thanksgiving no matter the circumstances? No? It’s because we do not yet realize the weight of what God has done for us.
Are you treating those who are unlike you with utmost love and respect? No? It’s because we have not yet actualized what Jesus went through.
Is your mind filled with hope of seeing Christ in his resurrected body in heaven? No? It’s because the cross is not yet a reality to us.

Sometimes, I wish we still slaughtered animals in our church services. Of course there is no need for it since Christ died once and for all. But that would be a reminder of what we deserved and yet what Jesus took on instead.

PH