I didn’t grow up on a farm, a ranch, or any place that brought me close to the food source I ate.
We bought our groceries wrapped in plastic containers or bags, sealed into cans, or vacuum-packed into styrofoam trays. Fresh greens and ripened fruits were picked and put away on a truck and brought home for me to enjoy in my salad or side dish. Except for visiting my aunt and uncle as a teen, collecting fresh eggs, and watching a live chicken get “prepared” for dinner, I’ve lived a life with the typical distance between my dinner plate and the food raised for it.
Someone picked, sorted, separated, and washed the produce we ate. The steaks and wings I’m enjoying were neatly packed for me…and that seems lovely to imagine.
You know what doesn’t seem as lovely? The image of an animal that will become my main dish.
I know somewhere in another part of the state is a farm where that cow, sheep, or chicken will be raised and brought to a slaughterhouse. Even typing that word ‘slaughterhouse’ – is hard!
Being disconnected from the foods I enjoy also keeps me disconnected from the cost. Oh, not the financial cost – although I feel that in my wallet for sure – but the “reality” cost. The reality of a life ending. The sound of animals lowing and bumping around on their way up a ramp toward their demise.
The smells and the sights of the areas where those lives are taken – I can faintly imagine it, but not really. When I enjoy a meal, I enjoy the convenience of simply opening a package and preparing the recipe with little thought of what brought it all to my table.
The cost of being separated from God can feel distant as well. The sin that creates a cavern between us is too easy to lose sight of.
Being saved is a lovely thought. Knowing God hears my prayers is reassuring. But counting the cost of that privilege is often just a faint whisper.
One of my favorite passages in the Bible is from Exodus. It is the song that God’s people sang after their miraculous deliverance from Egypt. Out of the clutches of a maniacal king and 400 years of slavery, no longer slaves – they were free! Behind them, the land and a once proud people decimated by the plagues God launched upon them and also destroyed by their own pride – the Israelites have ahead of them the relief and release of freedom, and they sing their praises enthusiastically:
You stretch out your right hand,
Exodus 15:12-13 (NIV)
and the earth swallows your enemies.
In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
How thrilled God’s people were to be rescued from Egypt. How filled with relief to no longer be trapped and enslaved. They were no longer just a people; now they were “the people” of God, and they had the privilege of being in fellowship with Him…but there would be a cost.
Read on through Exodus and into Leviticus, and you’ll be able to hear and see, smell, and even taste the cost – to be in fellowship with a holy God meant remaining holy.
That holiness will come at the cost of sacrifices – bulls, rams, lambs, goats, and birds – having their blood spilled, splashed, and poured out. Their flesh burned – consumed totally by the fires of non-stop offerings. Sun up to sundown, a cloud of smoke will never cease to be lifted up to the LORD so that the people can remain holy and in His presence.
Leviticus opens with the expectations of the burnt offering – the way to have an audience with God. “Anyone among you” could bring an offering. Every person who did was intimately involved in presenting the offering – laying their hand on the head of the animal – bull, goat, sheep, bird – cutting it into pieces, washing the pieces – the internal organs, legs, chest, head, etc. – the blood collected and splashed against the sides of the altar and the entire offering burnt to God. A bloody, gory mess.
It’s lovely to be saved – it’s meaningful to know the cost.
I flinch as I read this. I even try not to imagine it. But even as I push the gory images away I think – that’s image of my sin. Not rationalizing it, not making it nicer than it is, or better than someone else’s sin – my sin is ugly. My sin is a mess. My sin has a cost.
Jesus. the ultimate and final sacrifice…the gory, bloody death he suffered was on my account. No more do we need bulls, lambs, rams, or little birds to die. Once and for all, Jesus took the ugliness of my sin and became sin for me. That’s the cost.
I take care to appreciate in any way I can the cost of the meal I enjoy at my dinner table – to not allow the distance between me and the farm to create a dull lack of gratitude. From the farm to the table, I’m thankful.
In the same way, in the pages of Scripture and the details of the offerings lifted up at great cost, I appreciate what it takes to be in the presence of a holy God. From the garden to the cross, I am thankful.
As I read the Old Testament, I know what is coming…a new covenant lies beyond the chapter of Leviticus. The Light that created the shadow in the types that fill the pages in Leviticus and Numbers is dawning, and I’m so thankful.
And, as I read these passages again, I’ll embrace the reality of the cost and be grateful that God did make a way for me…for us…to be in His holy presence.
This devotional thought is from the “Saved & Set Apart” Dwelling Richly Bible study. A verse-by-verse study from Exodus through Deuteronomy. Dwelling Richly studies are always open to the community. We have women from around the country joining and studying together. I invite you to join us today! Click Here for details about our current live study, and find other studies you can do on your own or with a group.
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