Friday, May 30
Leviticus 2: When Stephen Langton divided the Bible into chapters in the 13th century, he determined that the change of subject matter in this next section of Leviticus warranted the commencing of a new chapter. In this chapter the author moves from sacrificed animals to sacrificed plants, with special attention to wheat.
This chapter’s rules governing grain offerings had little application in the desert; they look, rather, to the future, when the Israelites become, at last, a sedentary and agricultural society.
Because these sacrifices involve farm products, they were presented, often enough, at festivals associated with grain harvests, whether Pentecost in the late spring (winter grains, particularly barley) or Tabernacles in early autumn (the close of the annual agricultural year),
As we saw in chapter one, it was important that the person presenting the offering should own the animal; these could not be wild animals, not even the two species of birds. It was fundamental that the victims designated for sacrifice should actually be part of the human economy; it was necessary that the animals presented for oblation represent the life and culture of human beings. Otherwise, the offering would have no immediate relation to human existence. It was the essential that the sacrificial animals be, in that sense, humanized, cultivated and controlled by human beings.
In the present chapter, we perceive this same concern in a different way. The “grain offering” is actually an offering of flour; that is to say, the sacrifice involves the consecration of human labor. The stuff of the offering involves, not only the produce of man’s planting and harvesting, but also its further humanizing through the processes of threshing and milling. What is offered to God is food prepared for the human table. Indeed, some of this flour becomes food for the table of the priest’s own family.
Three things are offered together, each of them the product of human labor. The first is , which is finely milled wheat flour (soleth), which was passed through a sieve. That is, this flour, like the animals offered in the previous chapter, must be perfect. Two things are added to the flour: oil (shemen) pressed from the olive and incense (libonah,) the processed resin tapped from plants native to Arabia and the Horn of Africa, mainly Boswellia and Commiphora trees. This is the same aromatic gum offered on the altar of incense twice each day (Exodus 30.34).
The remainder of this flour offering is set aside and reserved for the priests to consume within the Tabernacle itself. This portion is called the “holy thing of holy things”—qodesh qedashim—meaning “the most holy thing.” The priestly reservation of this portion is identical to that of the prescribed “Show Bread” (cf. 6.10; 7.6;14.13 etc.; Matthew 12.4).
Saturday, May 31
Leviticus 3: What most English translations of the Bible call the “peace offering” is, in the Hebrew text, known as the zebu shelamim, a term indicating an oblation which harmonizes or makes perfect. It is an offering in which there is some sort of communion through the shared eating of part of the victim. Hence, unlike the holocaust, the entire victim in this kind of sacrifice is not destroyed by fire; parts of it are eaten by the priests who offer it and by those individuals for whom it is offered.
The sacrificial victims offered in this sort of oblation were the ox, the sheep, and the goat; animals of both sexes were acceptable. The sacrifice of the ox is described in verses 1-5, in which special attention is given to the animal’s blood. Because blood especially symbolizes life, it could not be ingested. It had to be sprinkled on the altar, as a sign that all life belongs to God. Similarly, those internal organs more especially associated with the processes of life, such as the intestines, the liver, and the kidneys, were burned in the sacrificial fire. Much the same procedure was followed for the offering of the sheep (verses 6-11) and the goat (verses 12-17).
For reasons that are not clear, the fat of these sacrifices could not be eaten, though there are no proscriptions against eating fat outside of the sacrificial context.
Psalms 82 (Greek & Latin): It would be easy, one supposes, to read this psalm as a simple calling of human judges to task by reminding them that, at the end, they too will face the higher tribunal of the justice of God. Read in this way, the sense would be that of Socrates, at his trial, reminding his own judges that he was about to go to the gods above, who could distinguish between a just and an unjust man.
The appeal, “Arise, o God, and judge the earth,” however, carries a heavier theological weight. It is an appeal to the Resurrection of Christ. All of the injustices of human history come from a single source, which is man’s enslavement to the powers of darkness. This is the deeper root and more radical meaning of the line: “But they do not know nor understand; they walk about in the darkness.”
It is in the Resurrection of Christ, in the great earthquake that accompanied the rolling away of the heavy stone from the door of His tomb (cf., again, Matt. 28:2), that we find the real meaning of the line that reads: “Let all the foundations of the earth be shaken.” The divine judgment, manifest in the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, is not a simple forensic decision, but a vindication of God’s righteousness against the enslaving forces of demonic darkness. It was they who aspired to equality with God.
Sunday, June 1
Acts 1.15-26: A good way of approaching Matthias, I suggest, is to place him within the literary structure and imagery of the writer and historian Luke. Among the features that particularly adorn the writings of Luke are certain points of symmetry and polish that unite the beginning and ending of his Gospel.
For instance, not all readers of Luke, perhaps, will observe that there is also a rolling of dice near both the beginning and the ending of that Gospel: the priestly duty of Zechariah, at the very beginning of the Gospel (1:9) is decided by the roll of dice, and the division of Jesus’ garments, near the end of the Gospel (23:34), is determined the same way.
Close readers of Luke observed this feature a long time ago. In the second half of the 4th century, for instance, the Bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose, perceived in this symmetry a comparison and contrast between the Levitical priesthood of Zacharias, chosen by lot to offer the incense, and that new priesthood by which
Jesus offered His sacrifice on the Cross while the soldiers cast lots for His clothing.
“So the priest was chosen by lot,” Ambrose observed with respect to Zacharias, and then he went on to add
Perhaps on this account the soldiers cast
lots for the Lord’s garments. Since the Lord prepared to offer sacrifice for us in His temple, the shaking of the lots around Him would also fulfill the precept of the Law.
In addition to symbolism by which Luke unites the beginning and ending of his Gospel, there is also a conspicuous parallel with the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles.
Once more there is a replicated rolling of dice. Just as Zacharias is designated by lot to offer the incense at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, Matthias is chosen by lot to be numbered among the Apostles. This latter detail, too, was detected by Ambrose, who thus commented on the choice of Zacharias by speaking of the choice of Matthias:
So the lot fell on the apostle Matthias, lest the choice of an apostle should seem to diverge from the command of the Old Law.
Before their casting of lots, the brethren narrowed their selection to a choice between two men with identical qualifications. Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas both met the technical requirements for being numbered with the original Apostles.
These men remembered, however, that Judas Iscariot. Also, had met those qualifications. Something more was needed. So the apostles gave themselves to prayer about their choice. In this respect they followed the example of Jesus, who—Luke alone tells us—spent the night in prayer before He chose the original Twelve.
This apostolic prayer left the choice entirely to God. “You, O Lord, know the hearts of all,” the apostles confessed.
God could read the hearts of both men, and, for reasons best known to Himself, He preferred Matthias. God’s preference of Matthias, nonetheless, implied no censure of the other man. Joseph Barsabbas was not chosen for that particular
apostolate, but there was no implied criticism of him. All through Holy Scripture, indeed, God continually chooses some individuals over others with a view to the divine purposes in history.
While each of those choices necessarily implies a rejection of sorts, such rejections are not necessarily condemnations nor repudiations. Thus, the Lord was not condemning the other sons of Abijah, years earlier, when he caused the lot to fall on Zacharias. It was simply the case that God chose Zacharias to offer incense that day, and not one of the other priests.
Not because Zacharias was worthier than his brethren; it was simply that the all-knowing Lord had some rather specific intention in mind, an intention involving Zacharias’s meeting, that day, with an archangel. God knew what He was about.
So with Matthias. The Lord had some specific plans for him. And while Matthias perhaps spent the rest of his life discovering what these plans were, he was keenly aware that God was reading his heart.
Monday, June 2
1 John 4.12-19: God’s love in us gives us confidence in the day of judgment. It is in this sense that perfect love casts out fear.
It is important to observe that the fear cast out by perfect love is fear of the day of judgment. Many commentators over the centuries have remarked that perfect does not cast out all fear, Perfect love does not cast out, for instance, the fear that is intrinsic to love itself, such as the fear of offending the One we love. In this sense, “The fear of the Lord is holy, enduring forever” (Psalms 18:9).
Perfect love does cast out, however, fear that the One we love will reject us. This is essentially the argument that Paul makes in Romans 8:31-39—
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This Johannine text should not disappoint those who find themselves fearful of the day of judgment. John does not say that fear of the day of judgment is incompatible with being a Christian. He says, rather, that perfect love casts out this fear. If one is still fearful of the day of judgment, this does not mean that he is not yet a Christian. It simply means that he has not yet attained perfect love. There is no disgrace in that. God is not dishonored by such a fear. The presence of such fear means only that one is not yet perfected in love.
This will be disappointing news, to be sure, to those who believe that everything in the Christian life is to be instant. Still, it is true that perfection in love is not the work of a day. Contrary to modern popular belief in instant salvation (and instant everything!), growth in love is the work of years. In this respect, the love of God resembles marriage itself, in which it is normal to spend one’s entire adult life striving for mature love.
Hardly anything is more open to illusion or more easily imitated by an imposture than love for God. If we inquire of a person, “Do you love God?” he may consult his state of mind or even the state of his emotions and answer with a ready “yes.” Yet, it may be the case that such a person is lying, or more correctly, that he is deceiving himself. It may be the case that there is not a scintilla of love for God in this person’s heart.
John says that there is only one way to begin addressing this question, and it is by asking another question: “Do you love the brother whom you see?” John does not concern himself with love for humanity, because there is a sense in which humanity is just as invisible as God. No, it is the brother whom we see that serves as the only reliable gauge of our love for God.
How much, then, do I love God? I love God as much as I love the least of those brothers whom I see, not one whit more. Have I seen anyone lately whom I do not love? That is how much I love God. Any other gauge is an illusion.
When we say, then, that perfect love casts out fear, most of us know that we are far from perfect love. Indeed, when we start to consider how little love we have for one another, we have every reason to be afraid. In the pursuit of the love of God, we must begin by applying ourselves very rigorously to loving the brother whom we see.
Tuesday, June 3
John 15:9-17: Whereas the Synoptic Gospels repeatedly affirm the individual believer’s obligation to love his neighbor—the imperative verb is normally singular—in the Johannine writings the dominant expression is, “love one another,” with the verb is in the plural. Although it is wrong to seek a contradiction between these two imperatives, John’s emphasis expresses a practical consideration; the “one another” indicates the community of believers, who share a common life in the Sacraments, the Scriptures, and the grace of the Holy Spirit. That is to say, the neighbor to be loved is the tangible brother or sister actually at hand.
John does not concern himself with love for humanity, because there is a sense in which humanity is just as invisible as God. No, it is the brother whom we see that serves as the only reliable gauge of our love for God.
How much, then, do I love God? I love God as much as I love the least of those brothers whom I see, not one whit more. Have I seen anyone lately whom I do not love? That is how much I love God. Any other gauge is an illusion.
When we say, then, that perfect love casts out fear, most of us know that we are far from perfect love. Indeed, when we start to consider how little love we have for one another, we have every reason to be afraid. In the pursuit of the love of God, we must begin by applying ourselves very rigorously to loving the brother whom we see.
Psalms 83 (Greek & Latin 82): Throughout the Book of Psalms is the constant mention of enemies. Indeed, it may occasionally cross one’s mind that about half of the psalms are prayed against somebody or other, an impression that may be pretty close to accurate. There is a lot of strife in the Psalter. This palm fits the pattern.
And just who are these enemies? Well, take your pick: “The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites, Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, and foreigners with the citizens of Tyre. For Assyria too has joined with them; they have come to the aid of the sons of Lot.”
Now taken all together, this list would describe a pretty impressive coalition of adversaries. Such a confederacy, in fact, never really came together against Israel. Moreover, at no point in Israel’s history did all of these forces even exist simultaneously. Our psalm is describing, rather, an ongoing general situation, not a specific historical event. Whoever the enemy happens to be at the moment, the servants of God live under constant threat of incursion. “Deliver us from the evil one” is ever a fitting petition.
In most of these names we recognize Israel’s real military enemies. Such are Moab, Ammon, and Amalek (cf. Judg. 3:12–30). The first two of these are likewise identical with “the sons of Lot.” Gebal was a city of the Philistines (cf. 1 Kin. 5:18), against whom Israel fought in many a battle. The Edomites are remembered in Holy Scripture for their participation in the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians (cf. Obadiah, passim), and we will meet them again in Psalm 137. Hagar being the mother of Ishmael, the Hagrites and the Ishmaelites are apparently the same folk (cf. 1 Chr. 5:10, 18–22). Assyria, finally, was one of the cruelest and most loathed of Israel’s ancient foes (cf. Nahum, passim).
A special feature of this list, nonetheless, indicates that the enmity involved is more than simply military. That element is the mention of the Phoenician capital of Tyre. Although Israel’s relationship with the Phoenicians may sometimes have been strained (cf. 1 Kin. 9:11–14), we have no evidence of any military hostility between them.
Nevertheless, from another and more spiritual perspective, it may be the case that Phoenicia, with its capitals at Tyre and Sidon, was the worst enemy that Israel ever had, because it was through the various economic and political alliances with the Phoenicians that Israel learned ever anew the ways of infidelity to God. Solomon’s early pacts with this nation paved the avenue by which the likes of Jezebel and Athaliah traveled south to teach Israel to sin, and opposition to Phoenician influence was a sustained feature of the prophetic message, from Elijah’s encounter with the servants of Baal (cf. 1 Kin. 18), through Amos’s condemnation of the Phoenician slave trade (cf. Amos 1:9), to Ezekiel’s lengthy tirade against their great economic empire (Ezek. 26—28).
The introduction of Tyre into our psalm’s list of foes, therefore, shows that the threatened enmity is more than physical and military. Whether with hostility on the battlefield, or along the subtler paths of syncretism, materialism, idolatry, and cultural compromise, there is more than one way for the people of God to be destroyed. And the danger of destruction is the very theme and meat of this psalm.
The real threat to God’s people, then, is one of spirit, because “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
So we pray that God will renew the wonders He worked of old. Smite afresh, we implore, the forces of Jabin and Sisera (cf. Judg. 4). Give us Gideon again, we plead, to crush those Midianites. Let Oreb and Zeb, Zebah and Zalmunna fall anew in defeat (cf. Judg. 7; 8). May their blood blemish the streams of Kishon, and their bodies lie once more on the dung heap at Endor. Against these demonic enemies of God and His people, we pray with the warrior’s fervor, anger, and zeal.
Wednesday, June 4
Leviticus 7: All the blood sacrifices in this chapter (and 6:24-30) have the identical ritual structure, consisting in the mactation of the animal, the use of the sacrificial blood for atonement, the burning of the animal’s flesh on the altar, and the subsequent ritual meal of meat and grain. It is significant that the meal, since it is a means of communion with God in grace, follows the rite of blood atonement.
The Christian reader will see in this ritual the outline of theological truth. These ritual sacrifices, all fulfilled as prophecy in the sacrifice of Christ (Hebrews 7:27; 10:12), indicate that communion with God in Christ requires the shedding of His blood for atonement. The sacrifice of the cross, that is to say, and Christ’s entrance into the holy place with His sacrificial blood are necessary required for our sharing in His Eucharistic meal.
Whereas in the Old Testament sacrifices of communion a strict distinction was made between priests and other Israelites with respect to this participation, no such distinction is made in the Eucharist of the New Testament. All Christians participate in the same Sacred Food. Through this Eucharistic meal, believers become the holy people of God. The Food itself is the means of this communion in grace. It is through this physical Food of this sacrificial meal that the Church is rendered holy.
Psalms 84 (greek & Latin 83): Several of the psalms are inscribed as being “of the sons of Korah,” an inscription apparently designating one of the choirs in Israel’s ancient temple (cf. 2 Chr. 20:19). In fact, some of the psalms so designated are much preoccupied with that temple, whether as a place to be longed for (Psalms 40; 41), or as a haven of experienced security (Psalms 45; 48).
The present psalm carries the same inscription. It commences on the note of longing: “How beloved Your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.” Immediately, however, the tone is transformed into one of secure resting in God’s presence: “For the sparrow has found herself a haven, and the turtledove a nest for herself, where she may lay her young—even Your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.” Sharing the psalmist’s view of its symbolic propriety, generations of both Jews and Christians have loved this ancient poetic record about Palestinian birds constructing their nests in the wall niches of Solomon’s temple. This is the endearing sight that prompts one to speak of “my King and my God.”
But Solomon’s famous construction, we know, was a figure passing away, for now “a greater than Solomon is here” (Matt. 12:42). The true and lasting temple of God, the term of our longing and the abode of our rest, is Christ the Lord. He is “greater than the temple” (12:6). So in this psalm we pray: “Give regard, O God, our Protector, and gaze on the face of Your Christ.”
This image of Jesus as God’s true temple, which provides the proper Christological key to Psalm 83, is indicated in the Gospel of John. Fairly early in that Gospel, when Jesus speaks of the destruction of the temple, the evangelist notes: “But He was speaking of the temple of His body” (John 2:21). This body of Christ, in the Johannine context, is His resurrected flesh and blood, the permanent and even physical abiding place of God’s presence. John will say of heaven: “But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev. 21:22).
And because He is God’s temple, God abides in Jesus. Jesus is the one place where we meet God, and we too abide in Jesus, being united to God in Him: “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one; I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:20–23).
Thursday, June 9
Leviticus 8: Here begin three chapters (8-10) of stories describing especially the institution of Israel’s priesthood and the inauguration of its priestly worship. This narrative section thus describes various divine commands received by Moses in Exodus 29 and 40. Central to this whole section is the theophany in 9:23-24.
This long account proceeds in three steps, each developed in an individual chapter. Thus, chapter 8 tells of the consecration of Israel’s priests, chapter 9 describes the inauguration of the priestly worship, and chapter 10 narrates the sacrilege and death of two priests that failed in their responsibilities. This last story prompts the pronouncement of further rules to prevent the repetition of such a tragedy.
Chapter 8, which describes the priestly ordination of Aaron and his sons, refers to the Tabernacle (moshken—verse 10; cf. 15:31; 17:4; 26:11). This portable shrine had two parts: the outer part, which is to be identified with the “tent of meeting,” and the inner part, commonly called the “holy of holies” (Hebrews 9:2-3).
Moses was not a priest, but in this chapter we see him, as mediator of the Covenant, ordaining the priests. All priestly ordinations in the Israelite religion go back to what Moses did in this chapter.
We observe that the ordination lasted, like Creation, a whole week (verses 33,35; 12:2; 13:4,5,21,26,31,33,50,54; 14:8,38; 15:13,19,24,28). The number seven, the standard biblical number symbolizing perfection, is important to this chapter. Thus, for instance, some version of the formula “as the Lord commanded” is found here seven times (verses 4,9,13,17,21,29,36). That is to say, the rite of ordination required seven acts of obedience. In fact, this ordination rite follows exactly—to the letter—what was prescribed for ordinations in Exodus 29.
The vestments of the priesthood were sacramental, inasmuch as they not only symbolized the office and authority of the priests, but also were the means through which that office and authority were conferred. The investiture of the priests was part of the consecratory act itself (verses 7-9; Ezekiel 44:19-20).
Also essential to the ordination was the oil with which the priests, the altar, and its instruments were consecrated (verses 10-12). This oil, mixed with the sacrificial blood (verse 30), also consecrated the priestly vestments. The mixing of oil and blood is not found in the Bible except in the rite of ordination.
There seems to be a detailed symbolism in the smearing of the sacrificial blood on the right earlobes, thumbs, and big toes of the priests. These latter were to be consecrated in their obedient hearing of God’s Word, their executing of the ministries through their hands, and their walking into the holy place.
The priestly ordination is called a “fulfillment” (milu’im), evidently indicating that all the prescriptions of the ritual were carried out to perfection (and thus were “valid”). The Septuagint translated this word literally as teleiosis, “perfection” (verses 22,28,31,33; cf. 7:37; Exodus 29:22,26,27,31,34), and the normal Greek verb meaning “to ordain” as teleio, “to perfect” (verse 33; 16:32; 21:10; Exodus 29:9,29,33,35; Numbers 3:3).
It is theologically significant that this same verb is used in the Epistle to the Hebrews to designate the priesthood of Christ (2:10; 5:9; 7:28). It is also the verb used of Christians, who by baptism share in the priesthood of Christ (9:9; 10:14; cf 7:11,19). Consecrated by Jesus’ own sacrificial blood (9:13; 10:22; cf 1 Peter 1:2), they can “approach” or “draw near” to the true sanctuary of which He is the High Priest (4:16; 7:19,25; 10:1,22).
Friday, June 6
Leviticus 9: We come now to this book’s first reference to the “eighth day” (verse 1), a symbolic time that will become a virtual theme in Leviticus (12:3;14:1023;14:14,29; 22:27; 23:36,39). Because seven days represents the work (and rest) associated with Creation, the eighth day signifies the beginning of history, the work of man that follows the work of God. It is the new day of the new week. Hence it represents renewal.
For this reason, it is the day that separates the Israelite from the rest of the human race. As all men were created during the first week, so the sons of the Covenant are created on the first day of the second week. Hence, circumcision takes place on the eighth day.
If this eighth day was so important for the Jew, how much more for the Christian! The eighth day, after all, is Sunday, and “Sunday seems to be an image of the age to come. Notice that although Sunday is the beginning of days, Moses did not call it the first day, but one day: ‘And there was evening and there was morning, one day,’ because this day would recur many times. Therefore ‘one’ and ‘eight’ are the same, and the ‘one’ day refers to itself and to the ‘eighth’ day. Even the Psalmist follows this custom in certain titles of the psalms [e.g., Psalms 6 and 12 in the LXX]. This day foreshadows the state that is to follow the present age, a day without sunset, nightfall, or succession, an age that does not grow old or come to an end” (St. Basil, On the Holy Spirit 27.66).
For this same reason, major feast days in the Christian Church often last eight days—what we call an “octave.” Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas come to mind. One likewise recalls that the traditional baptismal fonts of the Church are commonly octagonal, in accordance with the number eight associated with Baptism, the beginning of the new life (cf. 1 Peter 3:20-21).
The whole congregation “approaches” (qarab) and “takes its stand” (<i>‘amad</i> before God (verse 5). To “approach” or “draw nigh” suggests the intimacy of worship (cf. Hebrews 10:22), whereas “standing” indicates the respect due to the majesty of God. The latter word, for example, is used with respect to throne rooms (cf. 1 Kings 1:28). The priest always <i>stands</i> before God (Deuteronomy 10:8; 2 Chronicles 29:11; Hebrews 10:11).
This chapter twice refers to “the glory of the Lord” (verses 6,23), the divine radiance that prompts the respect and reverence indicated by the “standing” of verse 5. Israel has beheld this divine glory in the desert (Exodus 16:7,10), on Mount Sinai (Exodus 33:18,22), and at the consecration of the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-35), which will become the regular place of its appearance (Numbers 14:10; 16:19,42; 20:6).