Stephen
Terry, Director
New Covenant Sanctuary
Commentary
for the June 12, 2021, Sabbath School Lesson
"Remember the days of
old;
consider the generations long past.
Ask your father and he
will tell you,
your elders, and they will explain to you."
Deuteronomy 32:7, NIV
Who has not had
someone say to them, "You really do not know me?" Usually, when we hear this,
it does not mean we do not know their name, how they look, what they do for a living,
or where they live. They mean we have not had the experiences they have had, so
we do not understand everything that has brought them to the present moment. We
all are creatures of our pasts. The choices we have made along the way, during
crucial moments of our lives have moved us ever deeper into the chaotic
appearing maze called life. At some point, we may have looked back, pondering
those choices, but we realized that we were so deeply committed to the maze
that it would be easier to just go on following the path we have placed
ourselves on than to try to find our way back to some crucial earlier point and
begin again, if that were even possible. Eventually we reach the end of the path
and discover either a door out of the maze to something beyond, or a barrier preventing
us from going any further. In fact, it is the nature of mazes, that only one
path ends in a doorway. All other paths commonly go to blind alleys.
If life is indeed like
a maze, it would be very depressing to realize that the odds of finding one's
way through to what lies beyond are far from being in our favor. We are more likely
than not to discover that all our efforts to move forward have been for naught.
But it did not have to be that way. Rumors persisted throughout our journey
that somewhere there was a map to the maze, if one could find it, and even
better, a guide was available for those who asked. But maps needed to be carefully
studied,[i] and one sometimes had to wait
for the guide.[ii]
Not all have the patience to study and wait. Some are sure they already know
the way. Others may simply be tempted to see what is around the next bend. For
those who are willing to wait and study, a light shines
on their path,[iii]
and the journey becomes more pleasant. In some ways the wandering in the wilderness
of Sinai by the Israelites mirrors that journey. They also had a map and a
guide, but often rejected both, so that only two of the generation that left
Egypt as adults found the exit out of that wilderness, though multitudes had
crossed the Red Sea together. The experience at Mount Sinai, where the Ten
Commandments were given, is the bedrock foundation of the entire wilderness experience,
and at the heart of that Decalogue is the key to it all - the single word "Remember!"
The past is the key to the future.
As Seventh-day
Adventists we often look back to that wilderness experience and despite
intently studying the record, we miss that key point. We focus on the wilderness
tabernacle as though it was some new insight into what was to come, as though
it were the type, and Christ's incarnation and death were the anti-typical
fulfillment of that earlier model. But when we do so, we may fail to find the
key to the maze. We may fail to understand that it all went much further back
than that. It is not because of any failure on the part of the biblical narrative.
The entire book of Genesis was dedicated to helping us and those ancient
Israelites to remember. That sacrificial system, of which the wilderness
tabernacle was only a more organized and formal presentation, began with the
very first generation of mankind. Abel the second born of the first couple, Adam and Eve, presented a sacrificial lamb to God. It is
hard to see how he could have begun such a practice without either direct
instruction from God or being taught the practice by his parents. His older brother,
Cain, also made an offering, but from the narrative, even though he knew the
correct form such an offering was to take, he chose his own way. His later murder
of his brother over the matter revealed a rejection of the instructions he had
received as to what was right.[iv] That rejection then became
the eternal antithesis to the call to remember. Ironically that antithesis now
has taken on the patina of an appeal to a romanticized past where everyone got
to do whatever they chose without interference from others. We are like
children lusting for a time that never existed when there were no parents to
tell us what to do. Like J. M. Barrie's "Peter Pan," we create the illusion
that irresponsibility is freedom, but in life as in the novel and play, there
are plenty of Captain Hooks to remind us that responsibility, while being
evaded, cannot be endlessly avoided. The answer to Cain's query as to whether
he was his brother's keeper is always, "Yes." It is impossible to bring death
and destruction to others without it coming to roost in the rafters of my own
home, the ghosts of those actions haunting every step. Especially during the
quiet moments, those images destabilize our thoughts, disrupting the calm we
hoped to enjoy.
Having been to war and
seen the carnage there, as well as having some horrific experiences at other
times during my life, I understand how these things can result in what seems
more than one can bear as in Cain's response after he murdered Abel. In some
ways, that event foreshadows Golgotha where another innocent is murdered. And I
wonder what images haunted the lives of the soldiers forced to kill people in
that way, especially when they realized his innocence, as in the case of Jesus.[v] It makes it hard to understand
some aspects of the sacrificial system. Gruesome death was central to that
system. While the Pentateuch accounts of its practice made it appear sporadic,
when we get to the wilderness tabernacle and all the way down to the destruction
of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, we are talking many, many sacrifices daily.
Few of us could survive a visit to a modern abattoir without experiencing some revulsion
at the seeming indifference to the pain inflicted and the butchery. It is hard
to understand how the workers in such a place become inured to it all. Do those
images haunt them as well? How did the priests in the ancient tabernacle handle
it? Did they become indifferent to it? That becomes all the sicker and more
pathetic when we realize it could not do the cleansing it promised.[vi] Many today turn to
vegetarianism because of the suffering animals endure on a large scale as they
pass through gigantic meat processing factories. But if we naturally experience
revulsion at that thought, how do we come to grips with the fact that those
thousands and thousands of animals who were slain as part of the sacrificial system
were purportedly killed at God's command? Whatever the reason, the priesthood
had become so brutalized that they barely gave the murder of Jesus a second
thought.
Jesus spent three and
a half years telling everyone they really did not have things right about God
and their responsibility toward others. He urged them toward a correct response
to Cain's question of God about caring for his brother. He often pointed them
to the map given to help them navigate the chaos of their lives, highlighting
significant texts that would help them to see.[vii] But they preferred their
own maps and continued to wander in darkness.[viii] In refusing to accept new
information about the map, they also rejected the guide who was offering that
information.
In some ways, we as
Adventists are like this as well. We become so sure that we know everything happening
in heaven that we have made ourselves of little earthly good. We concern
ourselves so much more with just exactly where Jesus is in a heavenly sanctuary
and what he is doing there that we overlook our roles as faithful stewards in
the absence of our Lord. We distance ourselves from the needs of others,
perhaps feeling that some impersonal entity like the government or the tax-exempt
NGO will take care of everything. In the meantime, we use our personal funds
for partying in the ballroom while the Titanic slowly sinks around us, the iceberg
crushing its hull mirroring the ice in our hearts. Even when prompted to do
more for others, we rail against the deprivation of our freedom to do what we
want with our money. The irony of using personal freedom as an excuse to not
free others in economic slavery is lost on so many. But that sacrifice seems to
be so much harder for us than sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lowing and bleating,
frightened animals. Even though, that pathway is a dead end. Isaiah tried to
tell us.
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to
loose the chains of injustice
and
untie the cords of the yoke,
to
set the oppressed free
and
break every yoke?
Is
it not to share your food with the hungry
and
to provide the poor wanderer with shelter?
when
you see the naked, to clothe them,
and
not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then
your light will break forth like the dawn,
and
your healing will quickly appear;
then
your righteousness will go before you,
and
the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then
you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you
will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I."
"If
you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with
the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and
if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and
satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then
your light will rise in the darkness,
and
your night will become like the noonday.
The
Lord will guide you always;
he
will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and
will strengthen your frame.
You
will be like a well-watered garden,
like
a spring whose waters never fail."
Isaiah
58:6-11, NIV
After several
centuries passed, that was still not enough to set people on the right path. So,
the curtain separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place in the temple
was torn in two by an unseen hand. Even then, it took the complete destruction
of the temple in 70 CE to end the dependence on institutional sacrifices as a
means to righteousness. But many continue today with that system sanitizing it by
demanding money be brought as opposed to animals. It is time we stopped trying
to buy God's favor. Jesus already said the path to his favor is to love one another.
That will truly reflect the character and the work of God, regardless of what
may or may not be going on in some ethereal sanctuary somewhere.