Today, as we contemplate the Sacrifice of Jesus upon the Cross, it may be beneficial if we contemplate the Old Testament understanding and meaning of “sin offerings.” In those days people would go to the priests of the Temple and present them with animals (or for the very poor, grains). In the Temple they would sacrifice young bulls (for the high priest and/or the entire congregation), male goats (for leaders), female goats (for common people), doves and pigeons (for poor people) and/or 1/10 of an “ephah,” an Old Testament measure similar to a “bushel,” of fine flour (for those who were very poor). The priests in the Temple would ritually burn these offerings day after day on a special altar of sacrifice located near the Holy of Holies in the most sacred part of the Temple.
These “sin offerings” had been done day after day, month after month and year after year for hundreds, and even thousands, of years. Faithful people believed that if they had any hope of approaching God and of being reconciled with him, they were required to make these offerings. The priests in the Temple were very busy!
Yet, with Jesus a whole new reality takes effect for the people of God. By his death on the Holy Cross, Jesus himself becomes the “sin offering” and frees the faithful from the need to depend on repeated, never-ending offerings made by the priests in the Temple.
Today in our first reading, the Holy Prophet Isaiah promises us that the Messiah to come will be “pierced for our offenses and crushed for our sins, and upon him will be placed the chastisement that will make us whole;” he tells us that he will “gives his life as an offering for sin” (see Isaiah 53: 5, 10). By the words of the Gospel today, we are assured that the prophecy of Isaiah is completely “fulfilled.”
At the moment of his death on the Cross, and when Jesus said, “it is finished,” the perfect sacrifice that would never need to be repeated was accomplished once and for all (see John 19:28, 30). In the other Gospels we learn also that when Jesus died “the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (see Mark 15:37–38). What was “finished” when Jesus breathed his last was the need for never-ending and imperfect sacrificial offerings performed by the priests of the Temple. On the Cross, and because of the Father’s eternal love for us, Jesus became the “perfect and final sacrifice.”
This great gift to all of humankind opens up the possibility that every man and woman might be able to share God’s life (i.e., his grace) to the fullness. Because of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, not only can the priests enter that sacred area of the Temple once reserved for ritual and imperfect sacrifices, but now and forevermore all people, without regard to their station or status in this life, may enter into the veil-less sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. This is to say that each and every person on earth is invited, through Jesus, into a personal, permanent and loving relationship with the Father who loves each one us more than we can ever possibly imagine!
As we look forward to the joy of the Resurrection at Easter, let us thank and praise our God that each and every one of us may now share the same divine life and the same dignity that we understand to be the fullness of life forever! Through the perfect and eternal sacrifice, the “sin offering” of Jesus, we have been redeemed!
Praise God! Friar Timothy
No comments:
Post a Comment