1.The opening word of today’s parsha gives its name to the entire book: Vayikra, “He called.” Look carefully at the verse and you will see that its construction is odd. Literally translated it reads: “He called to Moses, and G-d spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying …” The first phrase seems to be redundant. If we are told that G-d spoke to Moses, why say in addition, “He called”?
The answer is that G-d’s call to Moses was something prior to and different from what G-d went on to say. The latter were the details. The former was the summons, the mission – not unlike G-d’s first call to Moses at the burning bush where He invited him to undertake the task that would define his life: leading the people out of exile and slavery to freedom in the Promised Land.
There are many examples in scripture where G-d calls someone to a specific task.
One story is the call of a young boy named Samuel in I Samuel chapter 3. He was dedicated by his mother Hannah to serve G-d in the sanctuary at Shiloh where he acted as an assistant to Eli the priest. In bed at night he heard a voice calling his name. He assumed it was Eli. He ran to see what he wanted but Eli told him he had not called. This happened a second time and then a third, and by then Eli realized that it was G-d calling the child. He told Samuel that the next time the Voice called his name, he should reply, ‘Speak, L-rd, for your servant is listening.’ It did not occur to the child that it might be G-d summoning him to a mission, but it was. Thus began his career as a prophet, judge and anointer of Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David.
I believe as we go through our lives G-d calls to us, sometimes to more than one calling. For each of us G-d has a task: work to perform, a kindness to show, a gift to give, love to share, loneliness to ease, pain to heal, or broken lives to help mend. Discerning those tasks, hearing G-d’s call, is what gives a life meaning and purpose. Our daily question should not be what do I want from G-d? but what does G-d want from me? What task has G-d called you to?
2.I want us to look at the whole idea of sacrifices from the view point of G-d. What did He see as their purpose from the beginning of the system and what went wrong along the way, even until today. How do we see what we bring to the L-rd? What do we see as the purpose of our offerings? Do our ideas match what G-d had in His plan? What does scripture say about offerings?
The word for sacrifice in Hebrew is, “Korban” which means to draw close. So the point of the sacrifice or offering was/is to draw us close to the Father, to be able to recognize we are not in that close relationship which will give us peace, for us that is accomplished still through a sacrifice, that being the Messiah Yeshua.
What does scripture say about sacrifice?
I Samuel 15:22, “Does the L-rd delight in burnt offering and sacrifices as much as obedience to the L-rd’s command? Surely obedience is better than sacrifices, compliance than the fat of rams.”
Hosea 6:6, “For I desire goodness, not sacrifice, obedience to G-d rather than burnt offerings.”
Psalms 51:17-19, “My sacrifice, O G-d, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, G-d, will not despise.May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar.”
We see here what pleases the Father, praising Him, a contrite heart, a crushed heart.
As time went on the people of Israel brought sacrifices however, they were basically thought of as a get out of jail card. They were being used to mask the sin of the people. They were not being used to worship G-d but to soothe their conscience, to help them feel like they were doing their duty.
So, the question comes, what does this have to do with me in today’s world. Actually, quite a bit. Have we been guilty of much of the same thoughts. Somehow the idea has crept into our lives that all G-d requires is that we show up once a week or maybe twice a week. We drop our money in the plate, shake a few hands and then out the door and resume our daily lives unaffected by what we have heard or what we have sung.
We go back to our world and continue to live as we wish thinking that next time we go to church we can pay our tithe and not allow our faith to interfere with our daily life.
Micah 6:6 says it very well. “He has told you, O man, what is good and what the L-rd requires of you, to do justice, to love goodness, and walk humbly with your G-d.”
We see in the Messianic scriptures a good example of an offering brought with the purpose to make the giver look good and not for the purpose of helping the poor. In Acts chapter 5 we read of Ananias and Sapphira. These people sold a parcel of land and brought the money to Peter. Peter however knew they had kept back part of the money for themselves while acting as thought they had given it all.
Who in the Messianic Scripture followed the guidelines for repentance for a guilt offering?
Luke 19:8-10, “But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the L-rd, “Look, L-rd! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Yeshua said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Rules Zacchaeus followed – Leviticus 5:16, “They must make restitution for what they have failed to do in regard to the holy things, pay an additional penalty of a fifth of its value and give it all to the priest. The priest will make atonement for them with the ram as a guilt offering, and they will be forgiven.”
Yeshua declared, “Today salvation has come to this house,” because Zacchaeus, demonstrated a genuine change of heart and a willingness to repent and live a life of generosity and justice.
We are being called on to live our life by faith, above reproach, to be kind, helpful and giving. Not to gain some praise for ourselves or to gain some social standing for our efforts.
G-d wants heart over ritual. We are to live our lives for the glory and honor that comes to the Father and not for any other reason.
3.Where in the Messianic scriptures do we see a believer in the Messiah offering sacrifices in the Temple proving that the early believers continued this practice even after Yeshua’s death and resurrection?
Acts 21:23-26, “Therefore do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; 24) take them and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the Law. 25) But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.” 26) Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them.”
4. In Leviticus 1:2 we read, “When one of you offers a sacrifice to the L-rd.” Read correctly in Hebrew, it says, “when one offers a sacrifice of you.” Does this change in the translation make a difference in the meaning of the verse?
The difference being that in the Hebrew, the meaning is clear for the whole sacrificial system. The essence of sacrifice is that we offer ourselves. We bring to G-d our everything, our energies, or thoughts, or emotions. The animal was only an external manifestation of an inner act – our soul our all being offered.
Shaul the Apostle mentions over and over in the scripture that our life consists of a day to day struggle between our flesh and our spirit or our soul.
Galatians 5:16-17:
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want”.
Romans 8:5-6:
“For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit, set their minds on what the Spirit desires. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”
So the whole sacrifice system is pointed to offering that animal/flesh part of us on the altar.