“Do not present the blood for my sacrifice with anything leavened. The sacrifice of the Passover Festival must not remain until morning. Bring the best firstfruits of your land to the house of the Lord your God. You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Everybody worships something. We can’t help it. We were made for it. We are all going to worship something. It may be obvious what you are worshiping, or perhaps not, but it is happening. And, we tend to become like what we worship. That is, we gradually take on the characteristics of whatever or whoever it is. Because of this, it is not merely important that we worship the right things, but that we worship them properly and well. This was a concern God had for Israel. Let’s talk about how that concern is expressed here, and how to get it right ourselves.
For starters, it is worth noting that these two verses are an almost word-for-word repetition of Exodus 23:18-19 which we talked about in some detail here. The only difference is that where v. 25 here refers to the sacrifice of the Passover Festival, the earlier statement uses the word “fat.” Otherwise the two passages are identical. Does that mean we can just ignore these verses? Perhaps, but we’re not going to. God is reaffirming the covenant for Moses. If He felt the need to repeat a portion of it nearly verbatim, we’ll at least take a few minutes to reflect on it again. I’ll try not to repeat myself too much. How about that?
For modern followers of Jesus, these two verses are weird. And, like we did talk about back in May and at various other times along the course of our journey, we are not obligated to keep these commands because they are part of God’s old covenant with the physical nation of Israel that Jesus fulfilled and replaced with the new covenant. We don’t have to worry ourselves about leaven or bringing God the first part of our annual crop if we garden. And we definitely don’t have to worry about boiling a young goat in anything. In fact, violating a rather literal understanding of this command would take quite a lot of effort unless you happen to be a goat owner.
That all being said, the spirit of what God is trying to help the Israelites understand here is something to which we should give some consideration. What God is really talking about here is worshiping properly. He wanted the people to worship Him in ways that were right and true. He still does.
Okay, but does this mean it used to be right and proper to worship God by boiling goats (in something other than their mother’s milk, of course), but now He’s changed His mind and we don’t have to worry about that anymore? In a word, no. But He is concerned about the purity of our hearts and minds when we worship. He does want us totally focused on Him and not to have our minds drifting around to other things. Holiness still matters a great deal to Him because He is holy and we are to be as well (Lev. 19:2 and 1 Peter 1:15-16). He doesn’t want us mixing and confusing our worship of Him with any other sort of worship practices.
For Israel, getting this larger spirit right looked like the kinds of things we see here. Now, we can only guess at exactly why God prohibited or commanded these things, but our guesses are informed by a careful understanding to the best of our ability of the culture both of ancient Israel and of the world around them.
The first command here has to do with holiness and purity. Leaven was a symbol of decay. As far as it existed in the ancient world, it was a bit of spoiled bread. God is holy. He expected the people to be holy as well. Bread with a bit of something spoiled in it was a symbol of unholiness in the people’s hearts and minds, so God told them to keep it totally pure when using it as a worship offering.
The second command deals with receiving all of what God has to give them. The Passover was to be a celebration of the deliverance God gave to the people. He wanted them to receive all of it, and not leave themselves partially bound to the slavery of their past. So, when they made their Passover offering, they were to use all of it and not leave any of it behind.
The third command is all about offering God our best. He is worthy of that. He is the greatest being in existence. That’s part of the definition of what it means to be God and not merely a god. The people were to honor His greatness by bringing Him their best. They were to express their gratitude for the greatness of His provision by bringing Him the best of the first part. This both properly acknowledged who He is and also expressed their trust in Him to continue providing abundantly for them.
The last command is weird, and in at least both of its appearances in Exodus is the final thing mentioned in a section before the focus shifts somewhere else. As we talked about before, nobody is really sure what to make of it. I think the best arguments point to its having to do with the purity of the people’s worship.
As far as we are concerned, making sure that our lives are pure when we go to God in worship is still right and proper for us to do. Instead of worrying about keeping a whole slate of laws or killing an animal in order to have confidence we have reached that goal, we can simply put our trust in Jesus. Jesus was perfectly pure, and when we place our trust in Him, He extends His purity before God to us, so that we can stand before Him in humble confidence. This covers the first and fourth commands.
With the second command in mind, Jesus is once again at the center of things. We have to receive Him and place our full reliance on Him to have the salvation of our God. It doesn’t come from us. Any of it. We’ll only get in the way of the process if we try. So, we need to examine our own hearts. Are we fully dependent on Him, or are we still trying to earn our way there by what we do?
How do you know when you’ve hit that mark? Well, you don’t and can’t fully, but this is where our faith and God’s graciousness intersect. We to the best of our determination commit ourselves to trusting fully in Him, to placing our faith fully in Him, and living in light of that commitment by loving the people around us after the pattern of Jesus’ sacrificial, self-giving love for us. For His part, God is gracious and kind and receives our meager efforts, and makes them more than enough. And, if there are places in our hearts and minds where we aren’t totally surrendered, He will gently let us know when we need to, and He will help us get them right.
With the third command in mind, we always bring God our best. We bring Him our best resources, trusting that He will make what is left more than enough for our needs and to share with others. We bring Him our best time. We direct our attention toward Him all day, but we engage with prayer and with the Scriptures when we are sharpest and not merely when we can squeeze it in. Personally, that’s right when I wake up. It’s 6:06 as I write these words, and I got started at about 5:20 when I woke up. We bring Him our best talents. We do this by using the gifts, passions, and abilities He has given us for the sake of those around us.
All of this is part of worshiping Him properly. Worship is a whole life commitment. It is acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in the character of our God. That last element is what pushes it merely from being something that happens within the four walls of our worship space on Sunday mornings to something that encompasses all of our lives as God intends for it to be.
You are worshiping something. Everyone is. It may only be yourself, in which case you’ve got an awfully small world to live in, but you are acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in the character of something. Make sure it is the right thing because you will become like what you worship. God cared about that for Israel; He still cares about it for us. In Jesus and 3,000 years’ worth of culture later it doesn’t look the same as it did, but the care is still there. Let’s receive it and get it right.
The Nexus 