Bulls, Rams, and Male Lambs

When you read through the Levitical sacrifices and the animals that God required His people to offer for sacrifice, you notice clearly one thing: almost all of them are male. There are certainly occasions when it doesn't seem to matter, or even where female sacrificial animals are included in the instructions, but these are always presented as an option, not a mandate. The mandates are the males.

At sanctifications and purifications, males. At holy festivals and appointed days, males. For burnt offerings and sin sacrifices, males. Bulls: males. Rams: males. And rather specifically, one-year-old male lambs.

For many years, as I read this sort of guidance from God, I thought it was just another one of those male vs. female things. In a male-dominated, man-centered society, blah blah blah.... For awhile, I thought it was more proof that men, as a species, are simply more pleasing to God than women. That, of course, would feed right into some of the things many of us have heard about women in God's kingdom, things that just don't stand up in the context of the rest of the Bible. But that's another story for another day. Today's story is that on the basis of this specific type of passage, I was prone to believe such a thing - that I would always be less pleasing to God because of my femaleness, that there was something special about maleness, and that there would always be this line because, hey, who can change such a thing?

As I re-read a section in Numbers this morning during my devotional time, a new thought struck me about all of this. One that changes the way I think about it. And it brings me more in line with the God I see revealed throughout Scripture who doesn't necessarily make such distinctions. From this understanding, I say with confidence that a sacrifice pleasing to God must ideally be male in nature.

And it all goes back to sex.

Nothing gross, I promise. But think about the way sex, in the creation of life, works. The woman bears the egg, the incubator of life. She has within her the ability to grow, to nurture, to cultivate new life. Her body is ripe for development. It is within her womb that something new begins. Of all the world, it is the woman who is prepared to receive life.

Giving God your ability to receive life is no sacrifice. That's quitting. It's giving up and giving in. It's turning your back on yourself and new possibilities. It is testifying against His creative, redemptive power and declaring yourself outside of His will, which is that you would continue to receive new life. That's why God doesn't want an ewe or a cow or a female lamb. If you give God your ability to receive new life, you preclude Him from ever pouring that very thing into you. What loving God wants that?

Not ours.

Which is why the maleness of the sacrifice is a key ingredient. It is the male who is designed to give life. It is he who plants the seed. It is he who transfers the raw material. The woman is ripe, but until the man gets to her, all her ripeness is futile. It is his seed that starts the process.

Giving God your ability to give life is an incredible sacrifice. It's a surrender. This vital thing, this one vital thing, you give to God in a demonstration of devotion. And that sacrifice says, "You, God, give life. You, Lord, create life. I do not. So I give to You a symbol of my ability to do so." It's also why God chose the male sacrifice - when you sin against God, it's really just a usurption of power or authority. In the male sacrifice, God demands you give some of that back.

It's also a recognition that all one has comes from God. Livestock was a big deal in those days, bigger than I think most of us in the 21st Century can understand. It defined a man's worth. It defined his position in society. To give God the male of your flock meant not only that you were, figuratively, giving Him your ability to give life, but that you were giving Him also the most vital part of your possession - the ability of your flock to reproduce. That was no small deal either. Ewes? Sure. They're a dime a dozen. Any ol' cow can get pregnant. But it takes a bull to make that happen. Otherwise, all you've got to show for yourself is a field of rotting cow patties. A bull, a ram, a male lamb - that was a true sacrifice. That one stings a little.

And I think this kind of thing carries over to our generation, even though most of us don't tend livestock any more and we certainly have no obligation to ritual sacrifice. It still speaks to what God wants from us. 

So many of us, when we sin against God, are ready to write ourselves off. We bow down and beg Him to turn His anger away from us..and while He's at it, the rest of us. We're not worthy. We don't belong here. We don't deserve His grace. We're ready to turn our backs on ourselves and long for God to do the same. But that's a female sacrifice. We're trying to give Him our ability to receive life - all for our sin - and that's not a pleasing sacrifice. 

What He wants instead is our surrender. He wants us to give up that part of ourselves that believes we can give life, that thinks we can solve our problems, that is convinced that maybe we can just "do better." He wants the part of us that plants the seed, that starts the process. He wants the part of us that thinks it's "got this" to realize otherwise and give it right back to Him.

He wants us to give Him our bull...  (Go ahead. Read it with double meaning. It's meant that way.)

That's a sacrifice. 

120

One of the things I love about God, which also frustrates me immensely, is that when He resolves to do something, He doesn't simply do it. There's always a measure of grace worked in.

Case in point: Genesis 6 and surrounding texts. 

It starts out fairly simply - there is the Lord's resolve. Then the Lord said, 'My Spirit will not struggle with humans forever, because they are flesh and blood. They will live 120 years.' (6:3) Said and...not immediately done.

And can you imagine what chaos would have ensued if He'd simply done it, just like that? Genesis 5, the preceding chapter, is a genealogy from Adam to Noah. In it, we see men living 930, 912, 905, 910, 895, 962, 365 (special case), 969, and 777 years. Then we get to Noah, and he's already 500 before he even has kids. God decides to end all life at 120 years...He's going to cut short the history of men who have not even begun living. Everyone's going to be shocked. This is going to look much more like a plague than a mercy. Everything's going to go nuts. 

So obviously, knowing that, and knowing that the ultimate goal is 120 years, God begins a slow tapering of the years of a man's life. We see that reflected in the next genealogy, in Genesis 11 (the descendants of Shem). We should also note that Noah lived to be 950. That's 450 more years for a 500-year-old man after God determines to give only 120. But let's go to Shem...

Shem lived 500 years. His son, Arpachshad, 403. His son, Shelah, 403. His son, Eber, 430. His son, Peleg, 209. His son, Reu, 207. His son, Serug, 200. His son, Nahor, 119. His son, Terah, was only 70 years old when he became a father. To Abram, of course.

It was over the course of eleven generations that God whittled the numbers down to His liking. Each man was given the chance to live, to love, and to raise a family. Each man had the opportunity to serve his community, to have a place in his tribe. It probably still seemed strange, the way all this was happening. If a man normally raises his children somewhere in his 500s and now, we're at a man who dies that "young," what were people saying when Shem started having kids? At a mere...300 years old? (I'm guessing.) What about when Reu started having kids at a practically pubescent 100 years old? (Again, guessing.) What about Terah, who was a mere 70 years old when he became a father? I can only imagine the whispers spreading through camp about these promiscuous sons of Noah, about these men who couldn't wait to grow up, about these "babies having babies!" Or maybe they just all somehow knew and understood. I don't know. I wasn't there.

But what I do know is that, even after He'd made up His mind, God worked through eleven generations to get to the place He wanted to go - to whittle a man's life to 120 years. And by the time it happened, it seems, everyone was at least accepting of that. We don't see the chaos that would ensue if the change had been more dramatic, if the limit of years had corresponded to God's decision on such a thing. We don't see panic in the streets. We don't read about men wondering if they've been cursed, talking about the plague, struggling to change God's mind. Slowly but surely, this was just the way life came to be. And so it was.

I think about the way God did this, and I think about why. I think first about a God who longs for His people to live. Isn't that the way God has always been? Isn't that why He sent His Son to die...so that His people could live? God desired 120 years, but that's not the way life was structured. He had to slowly change the way life was lived if His people were to have any hope of it. If Noah's having children in his hundreds, most men were having children in their hundreds. Cut a man off early, and suddenly, there are no children. There are no future generations. God has no people because there are no people, because He didn't allow for the procreation of His people. He wanted His men to live and love and to give life because that's how creation works. Even if He longed for fewer years of wrestling with man in flesh and blood, He needed that flesh and blood to do what it was created to do - to live. So He needed eleven generations.

I think also about a God who quietly works holy into our lives. It's holy because it's His idea. It's holy because it's how He wanted things to be. Slowly, quietly, without a lot of fanfare, He worked this holy into the world until man's years looked the way He wanted them to look. Until 120 years was just about it (although there have been exceptions). I'm not sure man understood, fully, what was happening. I'm almost confident man didn't understand, hardly at all, why. But there's no mention of stress about it in the Bible. To them, He was still God and they were still His people and it didn't maybe feel like a whole lot had changed and yet, so much had. 

I think about a God of grace, who decides that things must be a certain way but doesn't use His power to trump His created wisdom. He could. He could say 120 and that's it, but such a thing would be chaos. And chaos can never be love. (Although, let's be honest, love can certainly be chaos.) Rather, He binds Himself to the very thing He's created, and the way He's created it, and works within His own structure instead of outside of it, allowing us to be a part of the whole thing. Slowly. Quietly. Until the world's a little more the way He intends it to be, until this struggle with flesh and blood is a little more manageable. Until we're a little closer Home.

I think about a God who is right now working, and I wonder what generation I'm in. Is this the first generation of God working toward His master plan? Is this the place that holy starts to change and this world grows closer to it, even if I can't see the end game right now? Even if it doesn't feel like anything's that different? Maybe this is the eleventh generation. Maybe this is the new thing. Maybe I'm - we're - somewhere in the middle, in the third or fifth or eighth generation. I think about how many generations it's been since the Cross. You see, I believe that God is always developing, that He's always working us more toward holy. I believe He's quietly, slowly, working through us in His developing revelation. I also wonder what He's up to.

Snow Big Deal

It snowed again in Indiana last night, and I have to tell you - this morning, I'm conflicted. I'm broken-hearted, and yet, not entirely sure that's the right response either. It comes from watching my world respond to the snow.

On the one hand, it amazes me how quickly a little bit of snow shuts down my community, as broad as the community of my state and perhaps even beyond. They've been forecasting this storm for nearly a week, and we've heard everything from 30" + of snowfall to a an all-rain event to a mix of snow and ice. It seems to have fallen somewhere in that third category. I've already been out shoveling for a bit, and we've got about five and a half inches with a crunchy coating of ice on top. But people have been panicked over the forecast, even though it's February. In Indiana. And we do this every year. There's the customary rush on the stores, the crossed fingers for school closings, and one eye to the sky.

The news has been going extended and non-stop, with no actual news to report except that it snowed. In Indiana. In February. This isn't even our biggest snowfall of the season! The plows are doing a lackluster job of clearing the snow, cars are sliding off the roads, but many people stayed home today, victims of Mother Nature's latest trick.

On the other hand, some ventured out. Some refuse to be deterred by snow, and while I applaud their willingness to continue life as normal, a great deal of these folk are over-confident. They look at the snow, look at the ice, and determine this merits absolutely no change in their regular routine. They're driving the speed limit on snow-covered interstates, where no pavement or lane lines are visible. They're tailgating. They're rushing up on stop lights and stop signs as if this is any normal day. And they're sliding off, spinning out, and causing more trouble for others who have dared to live today. Just moments ago, the news chopper showed video of a spin-out on the freeway and jokingly commented, "Either that guy just spun out on the icy roads or he won a NASCAR race. I'm betting it's the former."

And I'm watching all of this, and I just don't know what to think. Have our lives and our technology become comfortable, but frail? Are we really living in a world that can't stand up to a little weather, where our cars don't function on a slick road and we're afraid to go out at all? Have we become so arrogant that we don't consider anything worthy of our hesitation? Two sides of a coin, and I don't particularly care for either.

I'm turning 29 in less than two weeks, and yet, I can clearly remember a time when it wasn't like this. The news didn't run 24/7 declaring a new snow in the middle of winter. People woke up, looked out their windows, saw a new snow, and grabbed a shovel. Kids grabbed their sleds. Everybody rushed outside to build snowmen, to dig the elderly out of their homes, to throw snowballs. I know children who are right now hearing, "You can't go out. It's cold and there's too much snow." What a thing!

We didn't cancel school, not even for subzero temperatures. We might have cancelled outdoor recess, but we knew the value of a day in the classroom. And more important, we knew to teach our kids that the world doesn't stop for the weather; it just hesitates a bit out of respect. But I also remember being in that classroom when the principal knocked on the door and asked for me and three other girls to grab our coats and come with him. The snow had drifted all the way to the top of the building in the corner by the music room, and he saw a photo opp. He asked us if we thought we could climb all the way up and we scurried, laughing, all the way to the roof. I wonder what ever happened to that photo.... We drove a little slower - we had to - but we got where we were going.

I don't know. I'm watching what's happening today, and this maybe the tenth or twelfth time this season that such a day has occurred, and I'm wondering what's happened to my world. We seem to have somewhere lost all respect, for creation and for ourselves, and it seems such a difficult thing to get back. We don't respect ourselves enough to think we can handle this. The helplessness - the learned helplessness - that I see reflected on the news, on Facebook, on Twitter, on my streets is alarming. We can't handle this? Really? And yet, among us we also have an arrogance that says this can't change us. The arrogance is already costing lives. Along with the arrogance is some kind of ignorance, like we don't understand what snow and ice even are. Like we don't buy into the laws of physics.

I'm looking for respect, on so many levels. We had it once. We had a world that knew that a day like today doesn't shut the world down, but neither does it leave it unchanged. A day like today makes everything hesitate. It makes us stop and evaluate our strengths, and our vulnerabilities. It makes us look at our limitations but with breathtaking beauty. It adds a measure of stillness into our hurried lives, and look at the soft white snow - how could it not?

Somehow, we've come to a place where we think everything is winners and losers. Either we defeat it or it defeats us. Someone, something has to come out on top. And we've forgotten how to live in harmony with such things. There is a way - it's a mutual respect and a humble appreciation and a certain embrace of life as we know it. Even on a day like today.

With a fresh bit of snow. In Indiana. In February.

Love and a Jealous God

Likely by now, you've heard - God is a jealous God. He will not tolerate rivals.

Throughout the Old Testament, we see Him taking on the gods of the regions. Baal. Asherah. Molech. He repeatedly orders His people to smash those gods, tear them down, completely destroy them as His style of holiness moves into a place. Sometimes, His people even listen and do just that. But what about when they don't?

Join me in Leviticus 26. 

If you will not listen to me...if you reject my laws...if you reject my promise...then this is what I will do to you: I will terrorize you with disease and fever. You will suffer from eye problems and depression. You will plant your crops and get nothing because your enemies will eat them. I will condemn you so that you will go down in defeat in front of your enemies. Those who hate you will be your rulers. You will run away even when no one is chasing you. 14-17

For a little context, this chapter of Leviticus begins with these words: Never make worthless idols or set up a carved statue or a sacred stone for yourselves. Never cut figures in stone to worship them...because I am the Lord your God. He's talking about idols, among His other laws and conditions of His promise. But idols are chief among them. And if you don't listen to what He says about other gods? Life is going to suck. 

You'll be surrounded by defeat and discouragement. You'll be hungry. You'll be sick. Your enemies are going to laugh at you. Nothing is going to go right. That's step one of the curse. But presume that isn't enough...

If you still will not listen to me, I will discipline you seven times for your sins. I will crush your arrogance. You will have no rain, and your land will be hard as cement. You will work hard for nothing because your land will produce no crops and the trees will produce no fruit.

Nature itself will rebel against you. The way things are won't be the way things are. You won't even know what you think you know. You thought it was bad before? It's about to get worse! And if you still don't listen to what God says...

If you resist and don't listen to me, I will increase the punishment for your sins seven times. I will send wild animals among you. They will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle, and make you so few that your roads will be deserted.

He will turn the very order of creation on its head. Man was given dominion over all the earth and wild animals, but now, it will be wild animals who will have dominion over man. They will devour you. They will destroy you. Because hey, if you don't respect God's wisdom in creation, then why should His creation respect you? But there's a chance you still might not listen and obey, in which case....

If this discipline does not help and you still resist, then I, too, will resist you. I will punish you seven times for your sins. I will bring war on you to get revenge for my promise that you rejected. When you gather in your cities, I will send plagues on you and you will fall under the control of your enemy.

If you aren't listening to God, and you're supposed to be His people, then He will just find other people with whom to punish you. He will put His favor on them and send them against you, so you remember what it is to be His people with His favor. You will be defeated by people who have no business defeating you except that now, since you refuse to be, they have become God's people. 

All of this because man chooses to worship idols. All of this because he's not obeying the primary law of God - not to have any other gods. Not to turn to stones and statues. All of this because man makes a choice against pure love. And then there is this...

If in spite of this you do not listen to me and still resist me, I will fiercely resist you. I will discipline you seven times for your sins. You will eat the bodies of your sons and daughters. I will destroy your worship sites, cut down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on top of your dead idols. I will look at you with disgust. I will make your cities deserted and ruin your sacred places. I will no longer accept the soothing aroma from your sacrifices. 

That line about eating the bodies of children? That is a reference to the sacrifice of children to Molech, one of the popular gods of the region. God says, it reaches a point, where He just lets us do it. He pulls His presence completely away, takes away the option of the Temple, and leaves us to our idols. Our idols will destroy us. And God, in His tender mercy, will clean up the mess by piling our bodies gingerly on the very idols that killed us. 

If you're thinking by now, why doesn't God just destroy the idols? The answer is...He can't. Okay, He can; He won't. He's waiting for you to do so.

Because this jealous God, this God who will not tolerate rivals? He's also a God of Love. And love...must be freely chosen. You have to decide your idols aren't worth it; He can't just knock them down. He can bring discouragement and defeat. He can turn nature against you. He can turn creation on its head. He can choose other people. He can withdraw His presence from you. But He cannot kill your idols. Only you can do that. That's a matter of the heart, and only your heart can choose.

It's sad, really, but it's also beautiful. God, your jealous God, wants your love so desperately that He's willing to let you die for it. The question, then, is are you willing to live for it?

Eunuch

There is a story in Acts 8 about Philip's conversation with an Ethiopian. The Bible tells us this man was a high-ranking official in charge of all the treasure of Queen Candace. It also tells us the man was a eunuch. And the way it tells us this, it leads us to believe that they are one and the same. Let's not fool ourselves: a high-ranking official in charge of all the treasure is a trusted man.

A eunuch is a castrated one.

It's a great deal to be a trusted man, particularly in the queen's palace. Indeed, this man lived the high life. He rode on chariots, which is where Philip crossed his path. He was free to travel to another country to worship, which is the journey he was on. He'd have no overseers, no watchdogs. He was the watchdog. At his fingertips were treasures unknown to common men, the treasures of the queen herself. He knew luxury. He knew honor. He lived in the midst of it all.

But none of it was his. He...was nothing more than a slave. A trusted slave. Higher than, say, a brick-making slave. But still just a slave. How do I know? Because other than perhaps the most heinous of sexual criminals, slaves were the men who were castrated. And young.

Slaves were castrated at a young age for one simple reason - to take away their urge to ever love anyone else. Slaves were meant to love their masters, to love the service they performed in the work of their masters, to love faithfully their masters' households. They were meant to be broken, to conform to the masters' wishes. There's no guarantee that a castrated man will never fall in love. Love is, after all, a matter of the heart (or it's meant to be...) but castration ensured that his other love could never lead to life. He would never have a son. Never have a daughter. Never have an heir. Whatever belonged to him would always come back to his master, for there would be no one else to pass it on to. Which means that for the duration of his life, he was working for his master's household. Wholly and fully. 

Tied to the treasure but not allowed to touch it.

I think for too long, I misunderstood this story of the Bible. The way it's written, I always imagined Philip talking to this influential character from Ethiopia, talking to this leader, talking to this man that the people of the region would listen to and follow. I thought Philip was converting a leader, who would then lead his people to Christ. 

It doesn't seem as glamorous to say he was a slave. Philip spent his time with a slave. A single slave, in a nation of slaves, was baptized and believed. It's nice, but...yawn. Why does God share with us the story of a simple slave?

Because it's more than that. It's not this man's status that is the focus of this story; it is his state. Philip shared Christ's message with a lover.

That's who the eunuch was. He was a lover, longing for something in this world to give his heart to, pained that there was no way for that love to turn to life. Yet in this aching heart, he held an image of Love Himself. We know that because he was on a journey to worship. Since he didn't know the message of Christ, probably a Jew. Then Philip tells him this story of a Divine Lover, who has come and walked amidst this very region, and the eunuch's heart is taken. This is a place where he can put his love...and that love will give life. It's maybe all he's ever wanted.

I liked this story when the eunuch was a high-ranking official. And maybe he did have some circle of influence that helped spread this message through Ethiopia. Maybe Queen Candace heard the name of Christ from this man. Who knows? 

I don't like this story as much when the eunuch is just a slave. Although that's exactly what he was. (And remember, this is wholly possible. Joseph was also both a high-ranking official and a slave.) It doesn't have a lot of consequence to hear the story of a single slave.

But I love this story when I realize the eunuch is a lover. Because that's what so many of us are. We're lovers. We're longing for our love to invest in life, and yet this world is a cruel master. It demands our loyalty. It begs our trust. It longs for us to take all we have and give it back to this place, so that all we have, all we work for, all we do, is for the sake of the world. It tells us we can't have life without it, that any other love would be fruitless. It ties us to the treasure but never lets us touch it. It strips man of his very manhood.

I want to touch the treasure. I want another love. I want a love that leads to life, and I can have it. It's in Christ. That's the message of the eunuch. I love it.