When reading about the consecration of priests in ancient Israel, I’m struck by the vast amounts of blood involved. Aaron and his sons, the men undergoing the ritual, corralled a bull and two rams. After praying over the bull, they slaughtered it in the meeting tent. With their fingers they painted the horn of the alter with blood, then poured the rest out at its base.

Next they slaughtered the first ram and splashed its blood against the side of the alter. They applied blood from the second ram to the lobes of their right ears, the thumbs of their right hands, and the big toes of their right feet. They splashed more blood on the alter, then sprinkled blood over each of the priests and their garments. Only then were Aaron and his sons considered consecrated before the Lord and qualified to serve in his temple.

That’s a lot of blood. Such a foreign practice in my experience, (although I have seen chickens sacrificed in a temple in India to a different god). Only the spilling of blood purified and made holy the priests and their house of worship.

The author of Hebrews sheds light on these sacrifices: The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

According to the Scriptures, only blood yields forgiveness. It’s easy to forget this in our sanitized world. We don’t haul animals to church for liturgical slaughter anymore. The system collapsed because of one sacrifice—good for all times and all peoples—on the cross.

We avoid the whole bloody mess because Jesus became a bloody mess for you and me.

Exodus 29 & Hebrews 9 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by Alan Bowman