What Are You Looking For? Part 2: The Liturgy and the Sacraments

The Eucharist: There Is No Worship without a Sacrifice: Part 1

The Eucharist: There Is No Worship without a Sacrifice: Part 1

From the earliest times in the history of man we see the worship of God coupled with a sacrifice.  In Genesis 4 we find the story of Cain and Abel.  “Abel became a herder of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the ground.  In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the ground, while Abel, for his part, brought the fatty portion of the firstlings of his flock.  The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.” (Genesis 4:2b-5a NABRE)

            Now it wasn’t that God liked a good lamb chop better than fruit and grain.  God looked with favor on Abel’s offering for two reasons.  First, because to offer the firstlings from the flock Abel had to have faith, the faith that the other lambs (or whatever) would be healthy as well.  Secondly, to offer the fatty portions meant that Abel sacrificed those firstlings to God.  You can’t get to the fatty portions without butchering the lamb (or whatever).  Cain, on the other hand just offered God whatever he happened to have lying around at the time, because he thought he “had to” not because he wanted to.  In the offerings of Abel, we see God developing, in a very, very simple way, the mandate that you cannot have proper worship without a sacrifice of shed blood.

            We see this mandate of the necessity of a sacrifice of shed blood and worship further developed by God when he gives Moses the instructions for the Passover.  “Tell the whole community of Israel: …Every family must procure for itself a lamb, one apiece for each household.  Your lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish.  You may take it from either the sheep or the goats.  You will keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then, with the whole community of Israel assembled, it will be slaughtered during the evening twilight.  They will take some of its blood and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it….It is the Lord’s Passover.  For on this same night I will go through Egypt, striking down every firstborn in the land, human being and beast alike, and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt – I the Lord!  But for you the blood will mark the houses where you are.  Seeing the blood, I will pass over you; thereby, when I strike the land of Egypt, no destructive blow will come upon you.” (Exodus 12:3-7, 11b-13 NABRE)

            In Leviticus, when God give the instructions to Moses for the Day of Atonement, once again the shedding of sacrificial blood of the lamb is necessary for the forgiveness of the sins of both the High Priest and his family, and the for the whole Israelite community.  (See Leviticus 16)

            We can clearly see that from the beginning of time, well, from the beginning of time outside the Garden of Eden anyway, God has ordained that to worship him in spirit and in truth we must have a sacrifice of shed blood.  But how do we do that today?  How is that accomplished in Christian churches?  We are no longer bringing our lambs to the altar for the priest to sacrifice and sprinkle the blood, so how do we worship God properly in the 21st century?