The Shape of Worship
At the beginning of the Bible, the Triune God constructs a temple to dwell with humanity. He builds a house by His Word - designing the domains where life can flourish and then filling the wide world with creature kings and queens to govern space, the skies, seas, and shores. He even sets a table, providing food in abundance. The whole purpose of creation was for us to enjoy the divine hospitality and glory of God and to answer back in wholehearted gratitude. But when the pollutant of sin and death defiled the creation temple, the goal of creation becomes the mission of salvation: God with us. For this installment, let’s explore how God provides a way into His presence; a sacred journey that culminates in God feasting with us.
In Exodus Old and New, Michael Morales shows that in the Old Testament, God’s mission shaped the liturgy, or the regular, structured, public worship of God’s people. Exodus is all about Yahweh’s rescue of Israel, His firstborn son, so that they could worship Him at the mountain of God as a light to the nations. It’s a movement from slavery to sanctuary. But at the end of Exodus, there’s tragedy: not even Moses, the covenant mediator, can enter God’s house, the tabernacle (Exodus 40). How can God’s mission and purpose for His people be accomplished if nobody can enter in?
Ever had trouble reading Leviticus? Me too. It’s the place where all Bible-reading plans go to die. But our confusion about some of the weirdness of this cultic book masks its riches. In Leviticus, Israel’s manual on worship, we discover the shape of God’s liturgy. Leviticus is the way God makes for people to meet with Him. What the reader of Leviticus discovers is that God’s liturgy is a kind of reliving or re-enactment of Yahweh’s rescue operation out of Egypt.
In Leviticus 9, we see several movements in God’s liturgy. First, Yahweh calls his servants through Moses to draw near (9:1-7). God’s call is critical. As the entire Bible makes clear, Yahweh is a consuming fire. He is ablaze in glory, beauty, and transcendent majesty. This God dwells in unapproachable light. To enter His presence without invitation invites disaster. But the transcendent God is also the covenant Lord who delights to call people to Himself. He calls people into worship.
Second, God’s servants, the priests, are commanded to make a cleansing offering. This offering of purification, or “sin offering,” was not for the faint of heart. The cleansing offering involved the killing of a calf and the collection of its blood. The priest used the blood as a kind of cultic cleaning agent. While gruesome, the blood communicated something necessary. Blood was symbolic of life. And a person’s whole life was what God required. The sacrifice of an animal was then a ritual exchange, life for life. It was a blood substitution that testified to the reality that the pollutant of sin and death required cleansing.
Next came the whole burnt offering. The fascinating feature of this liturgical movement was that the entire animal was offered to God. God’s Law required a life of total covenant love and loyalty. Because of God’s supreme worth, nothing less than one’s entire devotion in heart, soul, and strength was acceptable. In the sacrifice of the whole burnt offering, the substitute would be transformed by the altar fire into a sweet-smelling smoke, ascending to God’s dwelling as a pleasing aroma. Like the smells of a 4th of July cookout or an essential oils diffuser, the whole burnt offering symbolized a consecrated life pleasing to God. The rising cloud of smoke was a pointer to a return to God’s house; a return from exilic exclusion. But here too, the burnt offering pointed toward substitution. The worshiper placed their hand on an unblemished animal in an act that communicated that the animal took the place of the human.
Having been called, cleansed, and consecrated, the final and culminating act was the peace offering. After this sacrifice, a portion of the meat would be given to the worshiper who would dine with God and enjoy His presence. Here the goal of the covenant was expressed: a feast with God. The consecrated and holy food was served as a means of consecration and for the enjoyment of the worshiper. At last, the journey was complete. The table was set. Communion with God had been sealed. Then the priest raised his hands and blessed the people by putting God’s Name on them and commissioning them to bear the Name as royal priests.
What we’re meant to see in Israel’s liturgy is a movement from famine to feast, slavery to Supper. In the levitical worship service, there was call, cleansing, consecration, and communion. The Hebrews were meant to see in that journey a reenactment of their own story of salvation. God had called Israel, His firstborn son, out of Egypt. Yahweh had provided cover and cleansing through the blood of the Passover Lamb on the eve of freedom. At Sinai, God consecrated Israel as His people through covenant. Climactically, the covenant was ratified and confirmed through a meal in God’s mountain abode. It was the feast we were destined for. A banquet at the Tree of Life. The everlasting party in the Father’s house at the son’s homecoming.
You and I have gone through an even greater exodus. Through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth, we have experienced the fulfillment of Israel’s story and where the pattern of their worship pointed. God has called us. We’ve been summoned out of the darkness of sin and slavery to death by God’s creative and redemptive Word.
God cleanses us. The Lamb of God, Jesus, has done what no other blood could ever do: purifies us from our sin and its defilement. He is our Passover. God’s Son, the Firstborn of Heaven, the true Israel, lived an utterly devoted and consecrated life to His Father. In life and finally at the cross, the pleasing aroma of Christ’s sacrifice ascended into heaven to the smile of His Father. Through the sweet exchange of the gospel, his life becomes our life. As we behold him in His Word, we are transformed and consecrated to God.
Jesus enacted a new and better covenant through a meal of bread and wine; the sign and promise of eating and drinking in God’s presence in a new creation. He set the table with His broken body and shed blood - the covenant oath that ratifies our belonging to God, body and soul. And lastly, just as God gets the first word of creation and redemption, He also gets the last word, the good word, the benediction. He puts His Triune Name on us and commissions us again into the world to the glory of God and the good of neighbor.
