Encountering God in the mundane II (Exod 20:22-26)

Once, I overheard a woman talking to her friend describing her partner or spouse, ‘One minute, he is so sweet, it melts my heart and the next I could hit him, he irritates me so much’. Anyone who has been in a relationship knows the range of emotions and the ups and downs of closeness and distance that we experience. Some move along on a more even keel, others are more fiery, depending on personality. However, the key to a strong and lasting relationship is commitment and making an effort to nourish one’s closeness with the other person. Our relationship with God needs something of the same ingredients.

What does this look like for Israel? They were to offer sacrifices to God (Exod 20:24), which, in general, expresses the idea of bringing a gift to God (think of Cain and Abel offering from what they had – Gen 4:2-4). Abraham was taught about the meaning of the burnt offering when he was asked to offer up his son, Isaac. Although God did not allow him to go through with it and provided a replacement animal, the lesson to learn was that animal sacrifice is a token expression of that larger commitment Abraham demonstrated in his willingness to give to God what was most precious to him. This is well-expressed in the burnt offering in that the whole animal is consumed by the fire – a costly act in a nomadic society where livestock represented wealth and livelihood. The second type of sacrifice is the peace offering, whose distinctive feature was that the worshippers had a share of the meat and it thereby created a table fellowship, as it were, with God.[1]

The key principles from the sacrificial practice described here, then, are that Israelites were to express and remember their wholehearted devotion to God through burnt offerings and nurture their fellowship with Him through sacrificial meals eaten in His presence. In our modern context, we no longer offer animal sacrifices, but we can express our commitment and love to the Lord through using our gifts and money in the service of others, prayer and godly living. Indeed, Romans 12:1-2 point us in this direction (worth reading the whole chapter that expands on these ideas in Rom 12:3-20).  Although the peace offering is not an exact parallel to the Lord’s Supper, as we break bread and drink wine in sacred communion with Jesus Christ and each other, we experience fellowship and are reminded of the deep bond we have with the Lord who has given Himself for us.

The practices that foster the relationship with God are available to all Israelites through the very minimal requirements placed on how sacrifices are to be offered: an altar made of soil or field stones (Exod 20:24-25), materials that are readily at hand. Neither are there any distinctive skills or special personnel (priests) needed. Israel will later have a tabernacle and eventually a temple with officiating priests, but in this transitional phase God ensures that experiencing Him is possible for everyone.[2] Further, He promises that where His name is remembered, He will come and bless (v.24). Those who seek the Lord will find Him. Moreover, the phrase is actually a causative ‘where I [God] cause My name to be remembered’. In other words, our remembrance of the Lord, our worship, commitment and love for Him is already an answer to His initiative. He loved and saved us first. May we respond to the salvation He brought and to His presence by seeking Him in worship and fellowship.

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[1] In later law, the priests received a portion from each offering (mainly meat, but only the skin from the burnt offering). This was the payment for their service, but (apart from the Passover) only the meat of the peace offering was shared with the worshippers (Lev 7:11-18).

[2] Our Protestant and modern individualistic instinct may suggest that this kind of simple and much more relaxed worship is better than the liturgical and ritualistic priestly service limited to the Temple. However, the threat of idolatry and pagan practices in such unregulated worship is great among a people who had only limited access, if at all, to God’s teaching. Anticipating these dangers, the law prohibited worshipping God outside the Temple once it was built (Deut 12:10-11). The various altars and sacred shrines in the land (the OT refers to them as ‘high places’) later became centres of pagan worship mixed with worship of the true God and had to be eliminated (2 Kings 18:3-4).

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