Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


10.23.2004  

Sacrifices

The word "sacrifice" will connote, more often than not, the idea of giving something up. Because of this, I had rather mechanically applied this usage to Psalm 51:17 where it reads, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." If I look at the word "sacrifices" and apply that usage here, I can come up with the notion that a broken spirit and contrite heart are things that I give to God as gifts, things that I conjure up and present to Him as if to give Him something He were lacking.



How wrong I would be.



In order to gain a firm hold upon the term "sacrifices" as it is used here, we must look at the context we're working with. The immediate context takes us to the life of the Psalmist, David. It's Psalm 51, the infamous psalm he wrote after his horrible adulterous sin with Bathsheba and his confrontation with Nathan the prophet. David is penitent, crying out to the Lord for forgiveness. He realizes that His sin is, ultimately, only against the Lord. He acknowledges that this is due to God's holy and just and righteous nature, yet is asking for mercy according to God's compassionate and gracious nature. He asks for the Lord not to cast him away from His presence, and even more, for deliverance from his "bloodguiltiness." David goes on to say that God does "not delight in sacrifice," otherwise David would give it. Hmmm.



Look now at the larger context: the Old Testament. Some of the major events in Israel's history included the calling of and promises to Abraham, the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Law and the commandments, the crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land, the period of the Judges, and then the beginning of the Monarchial period. Throughout these periods and events, the idea of sacrifice is one that hammers home a twofold truth. The first aspect of this is the atonement and mediation that the priests would need to make for Israel and for themselves through the sacrifices. The sin of the people was so heinous in the Lord's sight that He gave them the Law and the commandments to show them that they could never truly be right with Him. Futher still, the sacrifices they brought served as a means by which the people would be reminded that the Lord is holy, and as such there is a sacrifice required to appease Him in light of the offensive sinful creatures that we are. The second aspect is the idea that as creatures that are dependent upon the Lord for everything yet blinded to that stark reality by our sinful natures, we are ever so prone to forgetting that the Lord is the one to whom we look and depend upon for all our lives. Sacrifice, as defined by the Old Testament practices, was not intended to add to anything the Lord would do or already had. Indeed, the Lord tells Job, "Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine."



The truth of the sacrifice the Lord desires comes from me comes into sweet fruition when I realize that the broken spirit and contrite hear that David spoke of is the state of spirit and heart that the Lord desired to get Israel to all along. The sacrifices were meant to show our utter inability to ever truly appease Him and to remind us of our frailty and desperate need for His provision. This is backed up by David's statement in verse 16: "For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering." Why would David claim that the Lord does not desire sacrifice, then in the following verse immediately speak of what the Lord's sacrifices truly are? He's making a point, one that we would be wise to heed. A broken spirit is one that has come to its end, and has no hope in anything that it alone can do or produce. A contrite spirit is one that is grieving over its sin, over the horrors it has rendered to the Lord. The sacrifices of blood are not enough! The only thing that would appease the Lord is our own blood, but He loves us and His compassion is aroused by His desire to glorify Himself as He pleases in our lives! So instead, He wraps up His own glory in our redemption by shedding the blood of Christ. Therefore, as David prays in verse 14, the Lord does indeed deliver him and us from our bloodguiltiness by the atoning work of Christ upon the cross.



David tells the Lord that He will not despise a broken spirit and a contrite heart. How great a God we have! How compassionate, that He will not beak a bruised reed, nor will He extinguish a dimly burning wick. How often have I felt bruised and battered, ever so close to the breaking point? How often have I felt to be that dimly burning wick, with no light of Christ shining forth from within me? How comforting to know that that is the sacrifice that the Lord desires! How sweet to know that I can relish that worn down frame, for the Lord does not despise such a sacrifice! No, that is precisely what He does desire :)

posted by Bolo | 10:55 AM
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