Sacrifices V.S. Contracts

Hebrews 10:1-18

Just a few nights ago I caught the movie Apocalypto, that Mel Gibson did in 2006. I was a little worried about watching it because I knew it was very violent. The story is about a time during the Mayan civilization. A man who lives as a quite farmer in the jungle is captured, along with others from his area, and taken to the Mayan capitol where they are to be sacrifices to the Mayan gods. The scenes are brutal to say the least. The young farmer is horrified at what he sees as he is dragged through the city. The behavior of the people is vile and disturbing. Here, we are witness to such a contrast between great Mayan architectural structures and the repulsive violence as one human being after another is ripped apart and thrown down the steps of the temple. ‘Hideous’ is not even a word that can describe the scene. ‘Pure evil’ might be.

After watching this, I found that I was to write about this passage in Hebrews that deals with how sacrificing animals to God – the one true God—would no longer be necessary after Jesus came into the world. One has to wonder where sacrificing of anything came from, but it appears in all human history and, yes, even in the Bible. What was the purpose of sacrificial lambs, goats or humans? For many civilizations, it was appeasement of the gods. Which means that we as human beings have always desired to execute control over our world.

In today’s scripture, we are given the eyes to understand how “new” the covenant was with God that only Christ could initiate into this fallen world. And we need to start with that premise first: that the world was and is a fallen world. Of course, today, there are many who would argue with this idea. Indeed, our whole culture is quite sure that we are in a progressive, technical world and thus in some recesses of our thinking, we actually believe that we as humans can control things. We see our selves as higher up the ladder of human existence because of our infrastructures, cities, ability to instantly communicate, cure diseases, monitor the weather, and problem solve most anything. Yet, in truth, we are still as vulnerable as the shepherd in Christ’s time out on a field when the earthquakes, or storms take over a landscape. Tidal waves and hurricanes in recent years have left us in awe, that no government or technology can battle the forces that God sets in motion. What a wake up-call it has been to remember who built this earth and this universe. While evolutionists and scientists may clamor that there is no God, God keeps showing us that His power is never relinquished.

Our fallen world is fallen, not because of natural disasters, but because of our behavior towards our fellow human beings and how we live. I do not think that any of us can listen to the news or open a newspaper without being hit in the face day after day and hour after hour without observing the intensity of how crippled with darkness we have become, especially in the last 40 years. The world has always had trouble and history shows us many eras of terrible times, including the one in which Jesus was born into.

But here is the difference. When Jesus came into the world, no one had ever heard of him. His words had not shattered the air of humanity. His death on a cross and resurrection had not occurred. Here, in is this passage in Hebrews, we are given the key to the instruction about what made Jesus different in one more way then all the other prophets, and great teachers and religious men of His time or times that would come. First, because of who he was (the son of God) he could do something no one else could ever do or would do. He changed the arrangement between God and man. Not a small thing.

We all know that the second half of the Bible is the ‘new’ Testament. However, non Christians, non- believers and even some who call themselves Christian yet know very little of the Bible, do not grasp the significance of the “New” part of the New Testament. For most of them it is called “new” because it was written later, after Jesus left this earth and they think it is just the story of Jesus’ life. Let us think again about this. The reason it is called ‘new’ is not that it has nothing to do with the Old Testament, but rather because of the Old Testament, it is the fulfillment of all that came before. It is the pinnacle of what God had to say to us and it is the new contract with God, the new attitude, the new thinking, the new way to approach this awesome God who breathed fire into the world and dusted the earth with oceans. How incredible is that-- to have a God who sacrifices his son so that we can be washed clean of all that we are or are not!
Laurie Erdman