Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
"Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.' "
Blood.
It is a central, indeed critical, element of both Christianity and the ancient Israelite understanding of God, and I am afraid that in our culture, it has lost almost all of its meaning. Westerners--both "Christian" and Jew--revel in the fact that they do not have to kill innocent animals for the sake of pleasing their God, and yet look at how bloody human history has become in the wake of this "freedom." In the past 100 years alone, we have killed more of our brethren--soldier and civilian, male and female, born and unborn--than all of our ancestors put together, and the reckless abandon with which we approach murder has not shown any signs of abating.
What a sad commentary.
I'm not saying that we should reinstitute a system of animal sacrifice--the Bible is very clear that in the wake of Christ's atonement, such a reinstitution would be meaningless--but I am calling into question the extent to which we shy away from something that is very central to both the Christian and ancient Hebrew understandings of God.
Blood is real. It is a core part of any life--human or animal--and if you take away the blood of a human being or animal, you have destroyed life.
Leviticus 17:10-12 clearly articulates God's feelings on this matter:
Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood—I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar. It is the blood that makes atonement for one's life. Therefore I say to the Israelites, "None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood."
Blood is so important to God that innocent blood shed by another human being brings judgment from heaven. Genesis 4:10-12 says that, in answer to Cain's attempt to conceal his brother's murder in the face of an all-seeing God,
The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."
And in Genesis 9:6, we hear the Lord saying that "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man."
Ladies and gentlemen, I wonder how meaningful all of this is in a world that represents the shedding of human blood in movies, television, and video games as a casual, even enjoyable, affair. Statistics tell us that, on average, a child in our entertainment saturated society will have witnessed thousands of murders by the time he or she reaches adulthood. In fact, it is even possible that a child in our videogame rich society will have, by simulation, engaged in thousands of murders by the time he or she reaches adulthood.
Do you think this bodes well for the future of the United States?
I know that, to some of you, those words may seem a bit extreme, but let me ask you this: If someone has been trained from childhood to look upon the shedding of virtual blood as a casual enterprise, do you think they will shrink from the prospect of shedding real blood if the occasion be desperate enough and the action suitable to their purposes? And even if they do not commit murder in the sense of sneaking up behind someone in the middle of the night and stabbing that person to death, do you think that they will shrink from doing other things that will be less gruesome in appearance, yet have the same effect?
I spent 4 years tutoring students in writing at Texas Christian University, and in that time, I saw a lot of people--most of whom were majors in business or some related field, but some of whom were majors in other disciplines--whose concern, or even attention, to the impact that their future decisions might have on others was sorely lacking. It seems that, to many of our nation's up and coming business professionals, slashing salaries and benefits, to say nothing of outsourcing and simple exploitation of Third World labor, have a legitimate role in what they would call "making a company more efficient." Building relationships with their co-workers, treating their employees as human beings, these are increasingly going by the wayside, lost to a decidedly hostile spirit of greed and self-service.
I'm sorry to say this, ladies and gentlemen, but shedding someone's blood through the stroke of a pen is still shedding someone's blood, even if you didn't use a hatchet or a knife.
The principle to be learned in the scripture from Exodus 12, indeed the principle that is articulated over and over again in both the Old and New Testaments is simply this:
Sin has consequences.
You may not agree with me on this point, and that's all right--after all, I would have laughed at someone saying the same thing a couple of years ago myself--but let's look at a few examples:
When I log onto the internet and surf around, looking for pornography, if I am married, I am betraying my spouse's trust in me, and if I am single, I am destroying any semblance of awe and wonder I would have taken into the marriage bed. Either way, I am not hurting only myself.
When I snort cocaine, looking for that next high, I am cutting myself off from my friends and saying that my finances are at the beck and call of the next pusher that comes my way. So what happens when I have a family or a loved one who is depending on me for some financial support--to say nothing of love, care, and energy? Yes, that's right--I have just hurt someone other than myself.
When I steal, even in order to shoplift, I may think I am "sticking it" to some faceless corporation, but in reality, I am preventing someone else from having whatever I stole. That's the principle of stealing, after all: I want no one else to have what I want, so I'm just going to take it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's hurting someone else.
When I lie, even to myself, I am hurting every man, woman, and child who puts their trust in me.
When I shirk my responsibilities, I make it that much harder for everyone else to fulfill theirs.
When I lust after a woman who does not belong to me, I am seeking to rob myself and her of a happy life with happy relationships so that I can enjoy a few moments of selfish pleasure.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, sin has consequences.
I didn't even talk about Hell, which is a subject we will cover later on, after we have finished tackling God's commandments in the Torah, but of course the Bible is clear that there is a final judgment, and all souls who have lived in sin throughout the number of their days will experience a torment far worse than any we can experience in this life.
But I wanted to indicate to you in this post very strongly that the consequences of sin affect others in this life. You may not want to accept that, you may want to switch to another blog after reading this, but the fact is that your sin hurts other people, indeed everyone around you, and that is why the God of the Bible is so adamantly against sin.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is why we have the ultimate sacrifice, the Cross of Christ Jesus. His blood, shed for the remission of sins, poured out in streams on that wooden crucifix, making pools in the ground for you and for your atonement. You don't have to suffer the weight of bloodguilt for all the wicked things you've ever done in your life--that's what the blood of the Cross is for.
In the New Testament, Christ Jesus is referred to over and over as "the Lamb," and this is something very meaningful when you consider the original Passover regulations, because a Passover lamb had to be eaten in one night, signifying a new life freed from bondage to slavery, and the blood of the Passover lamb was used to indicate that the owner of the house was a Hebrew and therefore not subject to judgment.
I took some time to research the hyssop plant, mentioned in Exodus 12:22,
Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning.
and what I found was very interesting. All of the websites I looked up, including several botanical sites, indicated that the plant has certain healing qualities as an herb.
I'm not a fan of Wikipedia--as a resource, it is fairly hit or miss--but the following paragraph from Wikipedia describes the healing qualities of the hyssop plant in a way that is somewhat easier for the layman to understand:
Hyssop also has medicinal properties which are listed as including expectorant, carminative, relaxes peripheral blood vessels, promotes sweating, anti-inflammatory, anti-catarrhal, antispasmodic. Its active constituents are volatile oil, flavonoids, tannins and bitter substance (marrubin). A strong tea made from the leaves and flowering tops is used in lung, nose and throat congestion and catarrhal complaints, and externally it can be applied to bruises, to reduce the swelling and discolouration. An old English country remedy for cuts and wounds suffered while working in the fields was to apply a poultice of bruised hyssop leaves and sugar in order to reduce the risk of tetanus infection. An essential oil made from hyssop increases alertness and is a gently relaxing nerve tonic suitable for treating nervous exhaustion, overwork, anxiety and depression. The Herb Society's "Complete Medicinal Herbal" cautions however that "the essential oil contains the ketone pino-camphone which in high doses can cause convulsions. Do not take more than the recommended dose."
Isn't it interesting, also, that hyssop became a part of Christ's crucifixion? In his account of Jesus' last moments on the Cross, John provides for us the following vivid portrait of a longsuffering, merciful Savior:
Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28-30)
The very stick on which the sponge that the soldiers used to give Jesus something to drink rested was from the hyssop plant. It seems that on this Passover of Passovers, when the Lamb of lambs was sacrificed, hyssop was again dipped in blood, not only for the freedom of the Jews but for the freedom of every man, woman, and child on the Earth.
Yes, your sin hurts other people, but my friend, it doesn't have to go on that way. Through Christ Jesus, you can be freed. Through Christ Jesus, you can be brought into a new world. Through Christ Jesus, the incredible weight and bloodguilt of your sin can be atoned for.
I know these are ancient, meaningless words to a lot of you--I sat through sermons on the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus myself years ago and ignored every word I heard--but for some of you, they may be everything you needed. We hear so often on the conservative radio today that America is a Christian nation, but I think that if we examine our hearts and look at the Bible, we will find that we are far more lost than we ever could have imagined.
Don't rest on your church membership or your casual adoption of the name "Christian." The Lord whose name you invoke will not accept anything less than a soul willing to turn away from sin.
The blood of Christ is crying out for your soul.
Are you going to listen?
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