Reflection: Body substitute
Something’s seriously wrong when a bride or groom breaks their promises. When anyone dishonours a covenant!
The God of the Bible is never fickle like that. (Don’t take this for granted. Ancient lore is full of capricious, double-crossing gods.)
In every essence our God is trustworthy.
He is faithful to every promise and commanding of all that creation is made to be.
Well, God’s story continues as patriarchs give birth to a people – Israel,
a people God calls his beloved bride.
And covenant breakers they are (and we, in their wake).
Be it Israel’s unfaithfulness or ours, God is a persistent lover.
He details a worship system to deal with justice, sin and shame –
a drama enacting repentance, forgiveness and renewed covenant.
It’s costly and, you guessed it—it involves a body. A sacrifice.
Sacrifice: familiar as a concept, but not popular or well-practiced in our day, wouldn’t you say?
But in ancient and Biblical times it was very familiar, very common, and not just a concept but a tangible, costly and visceral part of devotion to the gods.
Sacrifice by God’s design (patterned on a perfect sacrifice to come):
an acceptable substitute-body offered in place of the sinner and bearing the curse of sin.
 Body just took on a whole new concept and role.
Prayer:
Keeping covenants does not come naturally to me. But honouring a perfect pledge is your nature, God. I’m celebrating that outrageous commitment today. Thank you for your relentless, pursuing love.