The messiness of sin

He took the blood and threw it against the altar. (Leviticus, over and over)

The fat, the burning flesh of animals, the stench, the visible reminders of the wretchedness of sin.

Over and over and over and over. They (we) kept on sinning and kept on sacrificing.

Death. Blood. Stench. Sacrifice. Pain. Bleats. Fear. Regret. Fire. Death. 

Now we have a sterile reminder of our sin in communion - tangy juice and a crispy cracker are fairly friendly memory-joggers of the cost of our sin.

Golden crosses, bath-robed disciples, cute lambs, ornate figures, wooden decorations. Nothing that gets to the guts of the matter. Nothing that dredges up the raw disgustingness of our sin the way animal sacrifices use to.

And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. Leviticus 9:24.

When have I been that overcome by my sin, by God's holiness and might?

Part of the reason we don't have those reminders today is because of the miraculous truth that Jesus paid the price for all eternity. 

God made a way when there was no way.


Our sin was a sticky, messy obstacle to our intimacy with God. I don't grieve over it often enough.

I could never let it grieve me enough as it was this, my sin, that nailed him to the cross.

And still, as his love held him there, he paid that price and made a way.

Only He could make a way for my vile, perpetual sin to be forgiven.

Leviticus usually comes across as an endless list of animals and shekels and rules and rituals. But this time, the messiness of the sin and the sacrifice cut me deeply. Spending some extra time, yet again, with a mirror to my self and relentlessly letting God point out and dig out the sin that still festers.

The sin He already paid for.