THE LORD SPOKE (February 11)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Old Testament: Leviticus 6-7

Restitution! Without it, repentance doesn’t mean much. You can talk all you want, you can even shed big tears, but if you don’t give back what you stole from me, I’m not going to be very impressed with your repentance. Or your character.

Five different sacrifices are described in these chapters. Three involve a voluntary act of worship.

• Burnt Offering (Lev. 6:8-13) = an expression of commitment to God. It was a sign of one’s devotion and complete surrender to God. It provided atonement for unintentional sin in general (see Lev. 8:18-21; 16:24).
• Grain Offering (Lev. 6:14-23) = a recognition of God’s provision and goodness. It was also an expression of one’s devotion to God (see Lev. 2).
• Fellowship Offering (Lev. 7:11-34) = an expression of thanksgiving and fellowship. There were three types of fellowship offerings: thanks (vs. 12-15), vows (vs. 16), and freewill (vs. 16). They involved both meat and a variety of “cakes” or bread. For two days the meat could be eaten by the one offering it.

There are two other kinds of sacrifices described here, both of which involve a mandatory offering to provide atonement for sin.

• Sin Offering (Lev. 6:24-30) = a requirement for specific intentional and unintentional sin (see Lev. 4:1 - 5:13; 8:14-17; 16:3-22). It had a variety of applications (national, individual) and acceptable animals (bull, male goat, lamb, dove, fine flour). It always included confession of sin and the symbolic transfer of guilt by laying hands on the sacrifice (see Lev. 4:29; 16:21).
• Guilt Offering (Lev. 5:14 - 6:7; 7:1-6) = for sin requiring restitution. It was very similar to the sin offering but was accompanied by the return of the stolen property and a 20% fine for indemnity.

Which brings us back to the part about restitution. Genuine repentance necessarily involves making things right to the best of our ability. That’s relatively straightforward and easy to define when we rob man. What about when we rob God? Give that one some serious thought today (and go read Malachi 3:8-12).


New Testament: Mark 14

Was it the last straw? Did Judas feel like he’d put up with enough already and this was just too much? When Jesus rebuked the disciples for troubling the woman who broke the alabaster jar and poured perfume on His head at Simon the Leper’s house, Mark tells us that Judas decided to make his move (Mk. 14:10). Was it because he lost his chance for some more cash to embezzle? Matthew mentions such a conversation going on between the disciples. Maybe he didn’t like the smell of the perfume and grew disgusted with Jesus. Luke tells us that “Satan entered Judas” at just this moment (Lk. 22:3). That happened a second time during the Last Supper (Jn. 13:27).

John’s account (Jn. 12:1-11) of the event in Bethany is not parallel. The other Gospels place the event at the house of Simon the Leper (Mat. 26:6; Mk. 14:3; Luke doesn’t say), where an unnamed woman anointed Jesus’ head with perfume. None of them specifically says Judas was involved in the conversation about the expensive “waste”. John, on the other hand, describes an event apparently at Lazarus’ house, where Mary anoints Jesus’ feet and Judas leads the criticism. There may be some way to harmonize those two events but if they are two separate occasions it would be easy to imagine Judas thinking, “This whole thing has gone too far.”

Not that he was right! Jesus gave an excellent defense of both women and what they did. It was a significant part of His teaching the disciples about His imminent death and burial - a subject they chose to put out of their minds and refused to believe.

Isn’t it interesting that even at the Last Supper, the other disciples couldn’t identify who it was that would betray the Lord. They questioned among themselves who it might be but didn’t have a reason to be suspicious of any one in particular. Even when he got up to leave that table, they didn’t suspect Judas. How, after spending the last three years with Jesus, could he follow through with it. Don’t you wonder how Jesus spoke to him and lived with him during those three years, knowing that he would ultimately betray him? How did it happen that Judas drifted away (that always happens first) and then finally came to that fatal moment of betrayal?

How interesting also that Jesus picked twelve, concentrated on three, but then graduated eleven.