Passage Read: Leviticus 7-10
Meditation Verses: 9:5-8
Thought
Moses brought the whole congregation near to watch the whole sacrificial process. It was not a pretty sight, slaughtering and skinning and cutting into portions, removing fat and innards. But he made as many as could see watch the whole thing. It was gruesome and would leave an impression on all who were not otherwise involved in butchering animals for food. It was not meant to be pretty, but to show the terribleness of sin, the awful consequence of sin. There is a financial price to pay for making atonement for sin, but when you have to personally bring the animal and watch its death and dismemberment, that should add to the weight of redemption, and hopefully motivate a distancing of self from sin.
Application
It obviously didn't work for everyone. Unless the community agreed that an individual had sinned, people could tell themselves that they hadn't really done anything wrong. They could make excuses and so avoid the process. Or they could become so used to it, that the only pain they felt was in not making a profit from selling that animal. Today, communion is our regular reminder of the price that was paid for my sin, and it's just a little cup of juice and a tiny cracker. A far cry from the blood and butchering of an animal before my eyes. In Paul's instructions, he emphasizes the death of Jesus without really mentioning Jesus' resurrection. Was that deliberate? Fixing in mind the torment and suffering of Jesus in His death while eating the bread and drinking the wine would bring back that sense of horror at what was done for my forgiveness, and hopefully impress on me not to treat His sacrifice lightly, but motivate me to hate sin and remove it from me. Whether taking communion or not, those are the images I need to keep in mind all the time, so that I develop a stronger hated of my own sin and a greater appreciation of Christ and what He did for me.