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NewCity Orlando Sermons
Leviticus Is For Lovers | Leviticus 10-15
Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt continues our fall series, Leviticus Is For Lovers, preaching from a selection of texts from Leviticus 10-15. Drawing on Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations theory, he uncovers how the principles in this section of Leviticus still echo in our political landscapes and personal beliefs, urging us to rethink the relevance of biblical concepts in today's world.
Pastor Ben then focuses on the thematic verse, Leviticus 10:10, to unravel the clear lines between the holy and the common, the clean and unclean. He explains the temporal nature of these laws, reflecting on their intended purpose from Moses to Jesus, and how they underscored the uniqueness of God's covenant with Israel.
By exploring Jesus' teachings on internal transformation, Pastor Ben highlights how His sacrifice offers true purification and freedom from guilt, providing hope and healing even at our lowest moments. Jesus's compassion invites us to break free from shame and embrace the grace and holiness at the heart of the Christian faith.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Your reading is taken from Leviticus, chapters 11, 13, and 15. For I am the Lord, your God. Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground, for I am the Lord, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
Speaker 1:This is the law about beast and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground. To make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten, the leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out unclean, unclean. He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. Thus, you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. This is God's word. Please be seated.
Speaker 2:Puffy vest, ugg, boots PSL. This morning, it's fall y'all here. It is boots PSL. This morning, it's fall y'all here. It is. Only two-thirds of those things are true, but what that really means is I have a lingering cough and I need the Lord's sustaining help this morning. So I'm going to pray for us, for me, really, and I'm inviting you to pray for me before we jump in. Father, you are the one who made our mouths and our tongues and our throats and all the things, and, like Moses said, would you be with my tongue, would you be with my mouth? This morning, I want the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart to be acceptable and pleasing in your sight. Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer, and all God's people said amen, amen, thank you. Okay, and hopefully my time starts now. That's really what I want.
Speaker 2:So imagine for a moment you had a Dixie cup in your hand, okay, so imagine it. Get it really in your mind's eye. You can even put your fingers like this if you want to and then I asked you to spit in that cup. Okay, you can imagine doing that. And then how would you feel if I asked you to then drink the contents of that cup. You heard that. If you didn't hear, there was a guttural groan of sorts. Let the podcast listeners understand what's happening in that moment. What's going on.
Speaker 2:This simple experiment comes from the research into the psychology of disgust. Yes, that's a real branch of psychology, the psychology of disgust. This is one of the research experiments and really there's something interesting to pay attention to here. Right, few of us feel disgust when we swallow our saliva all the time happens all the time. But as soon as that saliva is expelled from the body and is then outside of us, it becomes spit, and the idea of swallowing that spit is disgusting. What's going on? It doesn't entirely make sense, right? But there's something here about the fact that, although there is little physical difference between swallowing the saliva in your mouth versus spitting it out and then quickly drinking it, there's a vast psychological difference between the two acts and this is regulated, this experience, by disgust. Now, when we talk about things that are inside of us versus outside of us and the nature of taking in those things outside of us into our bodies, these are in the categories of what Leviticus 11 through 15 is talking about. In other words, these categories of inside and outside, holy and common, clean and unclean, are both ancient and modern realities that we all have to navigate and deal with. So we might not use those exact words, but the topics and the concepts are really relevant for us to this day. Let me give you another example.
Speaker 2:Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist. Many of you might know his most recent book called the Anxious Generation, a New York Times bestseller. He's a professor at NYU and he had an earlier book called the Righteous Mind. The subtitle is why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, and he came up with something called the moral foundations theory, which will be on a slide behind me here in a moment. But I'm gonna encourage you don't agonize to read this really fast. It's going to be in the show notes, you'll get a chance to see it.
Speaker 2:But this is the moral foundations theory. It's significant. It says that we have these five kind of moral foundations by which we make instincts and intuitive judgments, care and harm, fairness and cheating, loyalty and betrayal, authority and subversion and sanctity and degradation. Now he wanted to test this, so he did four studies where he compared people who vote progressively versus people who vote conservatively. Brace yourself, it's okay. And this is what he found Liberals consistently showed greater endorsement in the use of harm slash, care and fairness slash, cheating those two foundations they used more than any of the other three. Conservatives endorsed and used the five foundations more equally. Now, there's no comment on that, that's just a fact. I'm just putting that out there and then I'll say this this is insight into what we call in America our culture, wars. You see, it really matters because your instincts and intuitions are shaped and taught and formed, both explicitly and implicitly, and then you guide your life and even your votes by them. That's the point I want you to hear, and I want you to hear that God knew this and he got out ahead of his people, and so he taught them in a variety of ways to shape, to form, implicitly and explicitly, their moral intuitions and instincts. That's what Leviticus 11 through 15 is all about.
Speaker 2:And so we're going to look at these five chapters under three questions. Here's the three questions. Number one what does it mean to be holy or common, clean or unclean? Number two why does it matter if we are holy or common, clean or unclean? And number three how do we move from common to holy, from unclean to clean? Okay, simply put, what does it mean? Why does it matter? How do we move? If you have a Bible or device, go ahead and open up to Leviticus, chapter 11. We are going to touch on various texts, the ones that Gina so helpfully read for us a moment ago. Let's look together at Leviticus 11 with this first question what does it mean to be holy or common, clean or unclean Now you have to know this or unclean Now you have to know this.
Speaker 2:Leviticus 11 through 15 is dealing with various kinds of uncleannesses and how people might be cleansed from them. Here's a flyover Chapter 11 is dividing the animal kingdom into two groups Clean animals you can eat. Unclean animals you can't eat. Chapter 12 treats the issue of purification after childbirth. Chapter 13 and 14 deal with fungi, skin diseases and infections, and chapter 15 uses the word discharge 25 times in 33 verses to address bodily fluids, all of which I spared you. You are welcome. You can go read it on your own if you're interested. Leviticus, chapter 15, go for it.
Speaker 2:Now, all five of these chapters are looking back to Leviticus 10, chapter 10, verse 10. So if you want to scroll there real quick, you can look. Leviticus 10, 10 is talking to the priests and it says this that they are to distinguish between the holy and common, that they are to distinguish between the holy and common, between the unclean and the clean. That's where I get the words from our main points. Now, this is a double contrast. It's setting holy and common as opposites and it's setting clean and unclean as opposites. Okay, that's significant.
Speaker 2:Everything that is not holy is common, and everything that's common is divided into two groups the clean and the unclean. Now let me make this a little bit more confusing. For a person or an object to go from common to holy, it must be sanctified. For a person or object to go from holy to common, that means that it's been profaned. From unclean to clean, it must be cleansed. And from clean to unclean, it means it's been polluted or defiled. This is me just giving you the overview of what's happening in these chapters. Now, this is important. For something to be unclean does not mean sinful or morally wrong. That's important. In fact, cleanness is the normal condition of most things in people, but sanctification elevates that which is common and clean to being holy. That's important. Now, in Hebrew, thinking in the way that God is forming the instincts and intuitions, everything was either clean or unclean, holy or common Everything.
Speaker 2:There's nothing outside of the stretch of these words, and this isn't so archaic. Bear with me for a moment. Consider healthcare Like. Imagine if you had a surgery scheduled and you showed up and they said, hey, listen, we're super sorry, but all of our operating rooms, our ORs, they're actually booked today. But the men's bathroom has just been cleaned really well. What do you think Now, listen, listen, we'll use the little fold down diaper changing table thing. We'll just lay you out there, we'll just lay out there, we'll just get it done.
Speaker 2:What's the problem? Well, everything in you recognizes that there's something not okay with that. Why? Well, because a sterile operating room is treated with reverence, while the waiting room is common. Waiting room's not necessarily unclean, although it might be. It could be sterilized, that's great, but it doesn't have that same elevated status that the OR has. And there are checklists of purification rituals that would rival Leviticus, that elevate the status of a room from unclean to clean, from common to holy. And you'd wanna know, have all of those purification rituals happened to this men's bathroom before I get surgery in there? Even then, you probably wouldn't be game for it. And so there's something happening here.
Speaker 2:Why does that matter? Well, because life and death stakes are involved in this. It's significant because, if these distinctions are not kept, a contaminated environment that fails to follow what are called quote health statutes Levitical language. They could lead to infections or disease outbreak or death, and so it matters. Or consider this we even use the Levitical language when we talk about environmental conservation. Right, we have city parks that are common, and then we have wildlife sanctuaries, which are holy, set apart for a particular purpose, to protect a particular species of animal. Do you see, we even use sanctuary has the same root of sanctified or holy. This isn't so archaic. We use these distinctions to this day.
Speaker 2:So, number two, why does it matter if we are holy or common, clean or unclean? Why does this matter? Well, scholars have offered this was the hardest part about preparing for this. Tim Mackey from the Bible Project said these chapters are the hardest in the entire Hebrew Bible for him to understand. So if you have a hard time, or if I have a hard time this morning, just bear with me. He's got a PhD in Hebrew, all right.
Speaker 2:Scholars have different opinions about what's really going on in these passages and they propose here's some of the purposes of these laws. One would be that it's emphasizing death avoidance. God is a God of life and everything here is about death avoidance, possibly. Here's another one. These are actually really about practical hygiene. God knew that these were like if you had a skin boil that erupted, you should probably be quarantined for a moment until you take care of that, until you're around other people, possibly. Another one is that these are symbolic boundaries to describe and define Israel over and against all the other nations. Possibly.
Speaker 2:Here's the problem. All of those are really legit. They make sense of some, even most of these laws, but not all of them, and that creates a difficulty to interpret these things. But if you're like, hey, what's the deal here? Is this incoherent? Just bear with me about your own incoherence for a moment. You don't make breakfast in your bathroom, but you brush your teeth in there and you leave your toothbrush on the sink sometimes, where fecal matter is most likely catapulted into the air every time you flush the toilet. So you have a little incoherence yourself.
Speaker 2:Don't just blame Leviticus for this. Okay, clean and unclean, holy and common and all the things right. But here's what we do know about these passages and this really matters. We know that these laws only existed from Mount Sinai to Mount Calvary, from Moses to Jesus. So then, the question is why did God give this people in this place, in this time, these laws? That really matters. You see, noah and Abraham could eat anything they wanted. Genesis 9 says it like this every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. Nothing was out of that, which means there's nothing inherent about an eagle that makes it unclean, because Noah, abraham, they could eat it. But God had a purpose in this time period for this people in this place, and we got to ask what was that purpose? That's really what I'm getting at when I say why does it matter?
Speaker 2:Well, listen, as always, the Bible interprets the Bible. This is the most important first rule of hermeneutics the study of how you interpret biblical texts, or any text for that matter. The Bible must interpret itself, and we have the luxury of having a divinely inspired commentary on the Old Testament. It's called the New Testament, so this is how Paul said it in Galatians 3, 24. He says this the law was our guardian. You could say tutor, or schoolmaster or trainer until Christ came. Okay, paul, so what did Israel need to be tutored in?
Speaker 2:Well, listen, if Leviticus had a motto, it would be this be holy as I am holy, be holy for I am holy. That's the motto of Leviticus. By my count, that phrase shows up seven times in the Bible and the first time in all of scripture it's recorded right here in our text. Look with me at Leviticus 11, verse 44. Leviticus 11, 44 says this For I am the Lord, your God. Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground, for I am the Lord, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy for I am holy. Seven times this phrase shows up in the Bible. By my count, seven times. That's the number of wholeness, completion, perfection. Seven times, six of which are in the book of Leviticus. The seventh is in 1 Peter, where Peter is quoting Leviticus 11,.
Speaker 2:What we just read, the motto, the theme, the banner over the book of Leviticus, is be holy for I am holy. This we do know. That's why Leviticus 11, 15 exists, so that the people of God in this time and place could be holy as God was holy. So this is one of those Bible words that we might know but not really understand, and our ignorance is masked by our familiarity with it. So let's talk about it.
Speaker 2:What does it mean that God is holy? Well, in scripture, holy is the most intimate and accurate word to describe the nature of God. There's no better word, no more intimate or accurate, really getting to the heart of who God is, than to use the word holy. It means that God is from a different order. It means that God is separated, separated from what, from all that is common or impure or sinful. It means that God is holy other, w-h-o-l-l-y holy other from us. Now, theology is full of knowledge about God, which is good. It gives us distinctions and definitions. But knowledge of God is different from knowledge about God and everyone everywhere in this course of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, when they encounter God, the best word that they grope and grasp for to describe the encounter with this God is holy. They have no better word to describe who this God is when they don't just have knowledge about, but knowledge of that God.
Speaker 2:Alexander Schmeman, in his book for the life of the world, puts it like this when we call God holy quote we express both that God is the absolutely other and that he is the goal of all our hunger, all our desires, the inaccessible one who mobilizes our wills, the mysterious treasure that attracts us. Holy is the word, the song, the reaction of the church as she enters into heaven, as she stands before the heavenly glory of God. Be holy, for I am holy, god says to his people. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean for us to be holy? If all of that's true about who God is, what does it mean for us to be holy? Well, that's the aim of Leviticus.
Speaker 2:The aim of Leviticus is a holy God in a holy room, in a holy building, in a holy land, among a holy people. That's the aim of Leviticus, that's the purpose, that's what it's after, and this is why these laws seem so invasive. If you read through Leviticus 11 through 15, you'll see that it's about what you eat and what you drink and what you wear, your work life, your sex life, your hygiene, your life and your death, even about your pets. There is nothing that is excluded when God says be holy, for I am holy. There is nothing off limits from God's command to be holy as he is holy. One commentator puts it like this God is present not only in worship, like this right here, but at all times, even in the mundane duties of life. Leviticus knows of nothing that is beyond God's control or concern. The whole of man's life must be lived out in the presence of God. Be holy, for I am holy.
Speaker 2:In a book aptly titled Holiness, the theologian John Webster says this the unholy is the absurd affair in which the creature seeks to be creature in a way other than that which is purposed by God. Doing life on your own terms, in your own way, without reference to God, is what it means to be unholy. This is why this matters. For us to make sense of sin and grace, we have to make sense of the word holy. Another way to put that is that when we trade the holy God for a tame God, we lose the gospel of God, the one in which he calls us to be holy as he is holy. Pt Forsyth says it like this, and I'm quoting these people because they say it better than I can, and I tried hard to say it better than them. Didn't work. Here we go, pt Forsyth.
Speaker 2:The holiness of God is the ruling interest of the Christian religion. Neither love, grace, faith nor sin has any but a passing meaning, except as they rest on the holiness of God, except as they arise from it and return to it, except as they satisfy it, show it forth, set it up and secure it everywhere and forever. When it comes to God's holiness, love is but its outgoing, sin is but its defiance, grace is but its action on sin, the cross is but its victory and faith is but its worship. Can't say it better than that. So why does it matter if we are holy or common, clean or unclean? God calls Israel to mirror his holiness in every aspect of their life. Because he's saying set yourselves apart, because I am set apart. No one is like me. Therefore, no one shall be like you. That's what's going on in Leviticus 11 through 15. That we do know. Number three how do we move from common to holy, unclean to clean? Look with me at Leviticus 15.31, 15.31. Leviticus 15.31 says this quote thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.
Speaker 2:Now some of you in this room may ask a good question, something like isn't it true that these purity codes about who's in and who's out are really at the root of much of our social conflict these days. My question or my response would be probably, but that's not a Christian problem, that's a human problem. Let me make that plain for a moment. I bet each one of you could imagine yourself in a particular room, with certain people in it, where, if you expressed who you're voting for in November, or what you eat and don't eat, or maybe your view of sexuality, you would immediately be labeled as other and as somebody who is maybe suspect, and they probably wouldn't use the word unclean. But that would be your experience of it. We can all imagine ourselves in rooms where that would happen. This is a human thing. This isn't a Christian thing. God gives us something that our culture lacks, which is a way for someone to go from being unclean to clean. That's a gift that this particular religious way of describing these boundaries gives to us.
Speaker 2:In Leviticus 11 through 15, here's a summary If someone was unclean, there was always three ways, three things they had to do in order to get back. Here were those three things waiting, washing and sacrifice. Waiting, washing and sacrifice. Now, again, this is not so archaic. Do you remember COVID? Do you remember if, even if you weren't tested positive. You were just exposed. What did you have to do to get back? You had to wait, you had to wash and you had to take a test. We'll call that a sacrifice, because you had to do it all up in your nose, right? There was some sacrifice in that. I know that was a pinch. I'm trying on this. Okay, listen, this isn't so crazy, it's not so archaic.
Speaker 2:And let me add to it, people became morally so archaic and, let me add to it, people became morally charged about this topic. There was a certain religious fervor surrounding it. Was there not? This is not a religious thing, this is a human thing. We do this. We set up boundaries of clean and unclean, in and out, pure and impure, and then we enforce them through social codes. God's just honest about it. Brene Brown said something which is clear is kind God's just being kind about it, and he gives you a means to go from unclean to clean, something our culture has nothing like. And so some of you, rightfully, might push back again. You might say yeah, but when you choose to use God to justify who's clean and who's unclean, who's in and who's out, it's like pouring gasoline on that human tendency, isn't it? To which I would reply yes, and I think Jesus would say the same, which is always a little scary to speak on his behalf unless it's clearly rooted in the text of scripture.
Speaker 2:Let me look with you at Leviticus 13, and then we're gonna see what Jesus thinks about this. So Leviticus 13, 45, flip there, if you would. Leviticus 13, 45 says this the leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out unclean, unclean. He shall remain unclean as long as he has this disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. If that's not ostracization, marginalization, I don't know. I don't know what is in this way. And so you got to ask why. What's going on? Well, by Jesus's day, these good laws, these are good laws. Because there's this kind of silly thing that some people do because they don't understand how the Bible works. Well, they pit the New Testament against the Old Testament, jesus against all that back there, and then, to which Jesus, the apostles and everyone in church, history would say that's borderline heresy, that's not the move. Right here, it's not the move. So what is the move. Well, jesus was aware that people use these laws in Leviticus 13 in order to ostracize and exclude people. And so let's look at how Jesus responds In Luke 5, 12 through 13,.
Speaker 2:Jesus heals a man full of leprosy. That's what this text was just about. Right, a man with leprosy. This is what it says, quote when the man saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him. Lord, if you will, if it's your desire, if it's your wish, you can make me clean. You hear this. He knows Leviticus. He asked Jesus for what his deepest desire was make me clean To which Jesus replies by stretching out his hand and touching him, saying I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him. The man says my deepest desire is to be clean, and Jesus replied my deepest desire is to make you clean. He reaches out and touches the unclean man, something forbidden to do. This man belonged outside alone, crying out unclean, unclean, and Jesus moves towards him and does something he maybe ought not to have done. Well, let's look again In Luke 7, 11 through 15, jesus raises a widow's dead son.
Speaker 2:This is how it goes, and when Jesus saw her, he had compassion on her, the widow. He sees this widow, he has compassion. Then he came up and he touched the coffin. Unclean. You shouldn't do that according to Leviticus 11 through 15. He comes up, he touches the coffin and the bearers stood still and Jesus said young man, I say to you arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak and Jesus gave him to his mother. Just as disgust is a visceral action, reaction in us to what is unclean, so Jesus had a gut reaction to the unclean. This text says it's compassion, it burns something within him that causes him to move towards. It's almost like he can't help himself but to touch the unclean.
Speaker 2:Third and finally, in Luke 8, 43 through 55, jesus was this time touched by a woman who had a quote discharge of blood her entire life. No doctors, nobody could do anything about it. And as soon as she touches the fringe of Jesus's garment, boom. She's immediately healed and made clean. In that moment, in every instance, jesus could have simply spoken and healed the person, but he refuses to do that. He moves towards them and he touches them, seemingly to subvert the laws of Leviticus 11 through 15. Why? What is he up to in this moment?
Speaker 2:You see, in Leviticus, when an unclean person comes in contact with a clean person, the clean person becomes unclean. Moral dirtiness is contagious, but when Jesus the clean one touches the unclean sinner, his cleanliness touches them and makes the sinner clean. Jesus himself does not become clean. In fact, they become clean. He doesn't get unclean, dirtied by them, he undirties them.
Speaker 2:You can't imagine. This is where this really matters. Jesus is the perfect son of God, the God-man in human flesh, and we cannot imagine his purity and holiness and cleanness of heart and mind because we don't know anything about it. You can't imagine how unfathomably clean Jesus is. And what does he do? When he sees the unclean? What's the first impulse? What wells up in him? When he sees prostitutes and lepers, he's moved with compassion. It floods his heart and he almost can't help himself but move towards them and touch them in their uncleanness, making them clean. He spends time with them, he eats meals with them, he touches them.
Speaker 2:Jesus had a ministry of rehumanizing those whom we have dehumanized he. There's few things more humanizing than a touch, than a hug, than a hand on the back. Jesus knows this. He moves towards people who maybe for days, weeks or years, have been untouchables in their society. And now the Holy One of God comes and touches them and in a moment they're healed and purified.
Speaker 2:We have to ask, when we see that, rather than Jesus becoming impure, his purity cleanses, when we see that Jesus is contagious holiness, what is going on here? Why were these laws given in the first place, if this seemed to be upended by Jesus when he steps on the scene? Well, let me read the last part of that verse we talked about earlier Galatians 3.24,. This is what Paul says the law was our guardian, tutor, schoolmaster, trainer, until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. You see, what's happening here is that God gave these external rituals to point to internal realities. You see this, this is what's happening here, and it shows up because in Matthew 15 and Mark 7, the Pharisees criticized Jesus and his disciples because they don't wash their hands properly, to which Jesus replies quote to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. Oh, really Jesus. He goes on.
Speaker 2:What comes out of a person is what defiles him, for from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. This is Jesus, not me. All of these evil things come from within and they defile a person. In other words, if you think the worst thing that's happened to you is you ate without washing your hands. That's just adventures and missing the point. A real temptation for religious people all the time. You see, in Matthew 23, jesus challenges these religious leaders by saying things like this quote you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Or quote you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. Your inside needs washing, not just your outside. We all know this. We all know this is true, even those of you who don't believe any other thing.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about right now, and let me just prove it to you. This is what's beneath the secular notion of forgiving yourself, something that is nowhere in the Bible, nor anywhere in the history of humanity, until about the 20th, 21st century, when it skyrockets. Why? Because secular psychology is trying and failing to address the question how do I become clean on the inside? How do I deal with this dirtiness I feel within? Forgive yourself, trite as it sounds, 100% ineffective, completely unchristian. 100% ineffective, completely unchristian. Why? But I get it, I get the attempt. I get the attempt to deal with that issue because it's a real issue.
Speaker 2:And so, in compassion, therapists are trying their best to try to heal the dirt that's inside of people. And they can't do it, just like the laws in Leviticus couldn't do it. And we know that this is true because these laws only served this temporary purpose of pointing to God's holiness and humanity's need for purity. That's what they existed for and it's even inherent in the laws themselves. It's why uncleanness the answer to uncleanness was not merely taking a bath, it was sacrifice, because the issue is not that you are dirty, but that you are guilty, and Leviticus knew that. That's why, when Jesus steps on the scene, he doesn't abolish Leviticus 11 through 15. He fulfills it, he fills it to the full. That's what Jesus is doing in this moment. When Jesus comes, he fulfills these laws by demonstrating that the ultimate purity comes through him and nowhere else. That you could clean the outside of the cup ritually, but the inside hasn't been dealt with yet. You remain dirty and putrid and defiled. That's the point that Jesus is making here. He knows that adherence to external rituals can never do what he alone can do through internal transformation. If you read Hebrews 9 through 10, I don't recommend reading Leviticus 15, but read Hebrews 9 and 10,. Okay, it says this, the kind of. The primary point is that these external rituals and even the sacrifices could never quote take away sins, end quote. Only Jesus could do that. How Well Matthew, mark and Luke all record that before Jesus was crucified, the soldiers spit in his face.
Speaker 2:We already established that that's disgusting. They spit in his face why? Because it was a sign of disgust. Jesus was reviled and defiled on the cross. Jesus became unclean. It's better to say it this way Jesus took our uncleanness upon himself and in the words of Leviticus 13, jesus was crucified alone, outside the camp, treated as if he was unclean, treated as if he was what the leper deserved.
Speaker 2:That's how Jesus can move towards and touch the unclean, because he knew this is just a foretaste of what I'm about to do on the cross, because on the cross of Jesus I'm gonna take all of your uncleannesses from you On the cross of me. I guess he could say when Jesus dies on the cross, he removes our transgressions, our uncleannesses, as far as the east is from the west. Imagine those arms stretched out wide as far as the east is from the west. That's how far he removes our uncleannesses, the internal moral dirt that we carry around, the guilt that weighs us down. He removes those things from you. As far as the east is from the west. Here's another metaphor, maybe for you, fishermen. Far as the east is from the west. Here's another more metaphor, maybe for you, fishermen.
Speaker 2:Micah 7 says it like this he takes our sins and he casts them in the deepest parts of the sea. Do you see this removal of uncleanness, this removal of what is dirty and defiled in you, because he takes it upon himself? Or another way to put it is in Hebrews 8 and Jeremiah 31 that he will remember your sins no more. In other words, the blood of Christ cleanses our sins from God's memory. But good news, the blood of Christ can cleanse our sins from our memory. It can do for us what forgive yourself was always trying to do If God's forgotten it. So can you receive the cleansing of Jesus, receive down into your conscience the cleansing of the cross of Christ, the friend of sinners.
Speaker 2:Now, I said earlier that in Leviticus you have to wait and wash and sacrifice. Jesus reverses that order. His once and for all sacrifice accomplishes what the Levitical sacrifice has only symbolized true at-one-ment with God Jesus washes us through his blood, but also through giving us the pouring out of the renovating work of the Holy Spirit within us. The Spirit's job is to cleanse our consciences, and so not only is there sacrifice, there's washing, but there's also waiting. In the here and now, we wait and participate in the remaining work, this progressive work called sanctification that the Holy Spirit's doing in us, where he's progressively making us. What is already true about us, where he's progressively making us, what is already true about us? That you are holy in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2:And so, time and again, it's the morally disgusting, the socially reviled, the inexcusable and undeserving to whom Jesus naturally gravitates, deserving to whom Jesus naturally gravitates. His enemies tried to use an insult. The best insult they could come up with was his greatest honor. This man is a friend of sinners and he eats with them, and Jesus' earthly ministry was one of giving back, rehumanizing what was taken from us in the fall, in the dehumanization of sin and evil and moral pollution. He's done that there and then, but he still does that here and now, even this morning.
Speaker 2:Let me close with a story. It's a story about a father who woke up to a phone call in the middle of the night and it was the police department. He said, sir, are you so? And so he said yes. He said well, your son is down here at the department. You need to come and bail him out. Father, delirious in the morning, wakes up, gets dressed, drives down to the police station, asks hey, I got a phone call about my son is supposed to be here. They said we don't have anybody by that name here and nobody called you. Confused, he leaves the police station and goes to his son's apartment and as he walks up the steps to the front door he sees that the door is slightly ajar and as he pushes it open he sees a bunch of people drugged out, strung out, strewn about the apartment and he sees his son at the back of the apartment on a sofa and he walks through, stepping over people who are passed out, and he gets down to his son, who is dirty and disheveled, and he leans forward with tears streaming down his face and he kisses his son on the forehead and he walks out and he goes home.
Speaker 2:A few months later he gets a phone call from his son and his son says dad, can we meet for breakfast? Excitedly, the dad says yes, of course, and so they sit down and he gets there a little bit early and when his son walks in he looks radiant. His son walks in, sits down and he says dad, I've become a Christian and I took a little while to tell you because I wanted to make sure it was the real thing. He said do you want to know how it happened? Which his dad excitedly was like. Of course I do. He said that night you came in my apartment and you thought I was asleep. You thought I'd passed out. You leaned forward, you kissed me on the head and you walked out. And I thought, if he can see me at my worst and still love me, maybe there's hope.
Speaker 2:Brothers, sisters, friends, jesus sees you at your worst. He still loves you. He moves towards you with compassion. He brings his nail-scarred hands forward to touch you with his healing touch. Receive it from him this morning. Let's pray. Let's pray. Spirit of God. We call you the Holy Spirit for a reason. Would you come, do in the hearts and minds of men and women and children in this room what mere words could never do? Break past the defenses of shame and guilt. Deal with the defiling lies of the evil one. Open us now to receive the good news of Jesus, the friend of sinners. Jesus, we want to lift you up in your ministry of cleansing the unclean. It's for your holy name we pray Amen.