The Smell of Sacrifice
The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. Genesis 8:21 NASB
Soothing Aroma – Can you imagine the scene? Noah brings the animals out of the ark. He takes one of each of the clean animals and birds and sacrifices them on the altar. How many dozens of animals and birds must have been killed on that day! How much blood flowed over the new ground! How big the fire must have been to consume all of these carcasses! Do you really think the smell was like perfume? Of course not. It was the smell of death, of burning flesh. But God said that it was a soothing aroma.
The Hebrew makes it very clear. The two words reyah and niyhoah are used many times in Leviticus to describe the same effect on the Lord. If we were standing there, watching those animals and birds being consumed by the fire, we might turn from the smell. The Lord’s reaction was not to the actual burning, but rather to the acknowledgement of His sovereignty. This is an act of worship, a sacrifice that recognizes the need for atonement. It is an act that honors the Judge of all Mankind at the same time that it acknowledges Man’s need for mercy. When Noah came out of the ark, he knew full well that the only thing that saved him from the destruction of the last year was God’s provision. Noah’s sacrifice acknowledged God’s grace as the only constant in the universe. God loves the smell of that kind of humility and dependence.
Once again we see that God’s perspective on life’s priorities are not the same as ours. If we stood alongside Noah, we might be tempted to think, “We must protect the life of all of these creatures. After all, they are the only links to repopulating the world.” After witnessing the destruction of the world, death would be the last thing on our minds. We would be thinking about security and development and provision. But Noah had God’s perspective on the matter. The God who could open the deep to flood the world was the same God who preserved his little group through all the destruction. God is in charge, even in the midst of scarcity and aftermath. Without God’s blessing, all efforts are doomed. If the Flood teaches us nothing else, it should teach us that God alone is our salvation. And if God is pleased for us to sacrifice what has been rescued in His honor, then who are we to hold it back?
The smell of the sacrifice is not earthly perfume. It is the heavenly scent of man’s confession of dependence. When we take what has been rescued by the Lord and offer it back to Him in sacrificial release, He is pleased. We have learned that all of it comes from His hand.
Topical Index: sacrifice, sovereignty, Genesis 8:21
The biggest, best, most freeing sacrifice that I have been learning to sacrifice lately (hand over at a cost to at least my paradigm, if nothing else!) is the relinquishing of outcomes. Of expectations. Of the OBJECTS of my desires, and that would include the objects of my love; my loved ones, too. He loves them more, and He loved them first, and He is the one sharing them with me, not the other way ’round. The future also is not mine to divine. I was listening to Skip’s series on the Ezer Kenegdo and he asked his audience if any of them had ended up where they thought they would have been ten years ago. Everybody just laughed. So, why do I vest the effort of acting and thinking as if I could control even the next minute of my life? Wasted. Noah’s sacrifice looks nothing like the effort I have wasted in my life on outcomes and expectations!
I have thought that expectations and the attempt to control outcomes are the sacrificial strange fire we consume with our own unholy lusts; desires that have not been handed over to be sanctified by His will in our lives. I think they are what we do to substitute for the real faith that is lacking in our lives, in fact. If you think about it (which I have been challenged to do by the abysmal failure I have experienced in my life of trying to implement them), they are all attempts to break our necks by straining to see what is behind the back of our heads, which is precisely that unknown future. Even the future of the next moment.
The Scripture tells me that anything that is not of faith is sin. Now, that is a very broad statement! What about some specifics?! What does that mean? I decided to go looking. If you set out a trap to catch what that Lack Of Faith actually looks like on the ground, you might start surprising yourself, like I did. What I kept catching myself doing in the places where I was lacking trust were those expectations and the attempt to control outcomes! I finally just decided that there were no ‘righteous’ ways to do either, and decided to give up (repent!).
Open-ended living is a very different way to go about things, that’s for sure! It is the essence of handing over my will to His. It is the ACTION of faith. Every moment must look like a foot in the temporal, muddy, floody Jordan if it is to be standing on the spiritual Rock of my salvation. Talk about counter-intuitive! To give Him the future in all the ways I have been trained by the world to try to ‘own’ it myself is the ultimate sacrifice of faith for me. It is the trade back that undoes that unholy deal I made with the devil at the crossroads of my life at midnight. Faith dissolves the spell; the bind on my life; the illusion that I have it all ‘under control’. Faith deliberately puts Him back in the place where the focus was on me. Faith is the correct filter, the right rosy colored lenses, through which to view my world. What is the price tag on the obedience to that injunction to not “take care for the morrow”? It costs me: Ta-da! My expectations, attempts to control outcomes, and worry! (Repent!) What a collection to strike a match to! The sacrifice that is pleasing to Him is the bonfire of my vanities (vain expectations). Still burning!
Laurita, Our desire to know and control OUR future is related to the observation made about prayer the other day in the Open-endedAnswers post. It is WITCHCRAFT. Now we see that we too are guilty. We also are witches and our craft is our prayerful “expectations with the desire to control outcomes” by “trying to dictate the help and answers”. We need not to be reminded that in the Torah the penalty for witchcraft or divining the future was death. Oy Vey. But there is a another remedy. Repentance. Obedience. Faith. Love. (rinse and repeat).
Preach it, brother.
Amen, Laurita! – How did “I” learn this? Four words to “God-slap” me into “His” reality: “It’s not about me!” – “I” was the known center of the universe and “I” am not. He (most certainly/assuredly) is. As the scriptures state (and THIS is how we roll)- ~ for of Him and through Him and to Him are (what?) – “ALL” things. Yes, Alpha and the Omega, and everything in between the two. He is the God of the now. Yesterday, today- (and in “this” day- the one that ends in “y,”-and (praise His Name) -forever.
If (and this one is a conditional “if”) we are to be “more than conquerors,” – it will be “by faith.” (only). Faith is (in simplest terms) our “right response to what God says.”
God said to our “not-so-great” great-grands, “don’t eat the fruit!” And when tempted to do so, what was the “right-response?” Yep. Just say so. (even the “why” is there..) – because our “always good” God said, – “Don’t.”
Nuff said. Go home, snake.
Thanks so much Skip. I have so many misunderstandings and questions about the sacrifices. This morning a little light bulb went off in my mind. Thanks!
The passage always reminds me of this.
1Kings 8:62-64 And the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the LORD.
And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the LORD, two and twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD. The same day did the king hallow the middle of the court that was before the house of the LORD: for there he offered burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings: because the brasen altar that was before the LORD was too little to receive the burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings.
Wow. Hard to imagine all those animals being offered up on the altar!!!!
Outstanding Skip ! Good Word!
” If the Flood teaches us nothing else ”
I wish to share ” something else ” please
Out of the ark and into the garden: The story of Noach in the Sabbatical year
There are three places in the Torah which talk about human beings and the animals – including wild animals – sharing one food supply. In Eden, in the ark during the flood, and in the Sabbatical year or Shmita. There’s a lot more to these stories, but you don’t really need to know much more to understand the basic message of the Torah.
We lived with the wild animals once, rather than carving out separate spaces for us and our domesticated fellow travelers. According to the Torah, that is the real truth, and all the owning and property and buying and selling is an illusion. We can return to that truth during Shmita, when we get to root ourselves in a real way in the land – not by owning it by being with it. Not by fencing it but by taking down fences. Not by hoarding but by sharing everything, with all the creatures.
Here are the relevant verses about eating:
In the garden of Eden, “Elohim said: Here, I have given to you all every plant seeding seed which is on the face of all the land and every tree which has in it tree-fruit seeding seed, for you all it will be for eating, and for every wild animal of the land and for every bird of the skies and for every crawler on the land in which there is a living soul (nefesh chayah), every green plant for eating. And it was so.” (Genesis 1:29–30)
In the story of the flood, “Elohim said to Noah: …from all life from all flesh, two from all you will bring unto the ark to keep them alive with you, male and female they will be. From the bird by their species and from the animal by her species from every land crawler by their species, two from all you will bring unto you to make them live. And you, take for you from all the food which is eaten, and gather unto you, and it will be for you and for them for eating.” (Genesis 6:19–21)
And in the laws of the Shmita or Sabbatical year, it says, “YHVH/Adonai spoke unto Moshe in Mt. Sinai, saying: You all will come into the land which I am giving to you, and the land will rest, a Shabbat for YHVH/Adonai…And the shabbat-growth of the land will be for you all for eating: for you and for your male servant and for your female servant and for your hired worker and for your settler living-as-a-stranger with you; and for your animal and for the wild animal which is in your land, all of her produce will be to eat.” (Leviticus 25:6–7)
There is a debate among the the earlier rabbis, about whether the tree fruit in Eden was just for the human beings and the grass for the animals, or whether it was all for all of them. Nachmanides says that humans dined separately, but Rashi says that it truly was one family sharing one food supply. As for the ark, according to the midrash Noah had to create one great store of every kind of food, because each animal needed its own sustenance, and Noah and his family had to spend every hour of the day feeding the animals, since some ate at dawn and some during the day, some at dusk and some at night.
After the flood, in between the ark and Shmita, comes the tragedy of human history. The wars and usurpations, enslavements and empires, the amassing of gold and land by some and the impoverishment of others. And in between the two are also the tragedies of our relationship to the wild animals: not just using but abusing, extinguishing whole species, and losing touch with our own wild selves.
That’s reflected in the flood story: when Noah and family emerge from the ark, they are told that “a terror of you and a dread of you will be over every wild animal of the land and every bird of the skies, everything which crawls the ground and all the fish of the sea, into your hands they are given. All that crawls which lives, for you it will be for eating – like green plants I have given all to you all. Just don’t eat flesh with its soul, its blood.” (Genesis 9:2–3)
This is no blessing but a curse. And it is no dominion: according to one interpretation, the meaning of dominion in Eden was that when Adam would call to the animals, they would come to him. Now it would be the opposite – they will run away in terror. (“Rashi” on B’reishit Rabbah 34:12)
One question for us today, in this year of Shmita, is: how can we get ourselves back to the garden? Back before our fellowship with the animals was lost? That can’t mean turn the hands of the clock back on history. Shmita answers a slightly different question: how do we get back to the garden as grownups, after having eaten from the tree of knowing good and evil? It’s not about feigned or renewed innocence, but rather about knowing our power to destroy, and not exercising that power. It’s about finding fellowship with the land and the other animals. And above all, it is about finding rest – rest from ourselves, and rest with each other, with all the other ones that inhabit the land.
A midrash says that during the twelve months in the ark, Noah “did not taste the taste of sleep, not in the day and not in the night, for he was busy feeding the souls that were with him.” (Tanchuma Kadum Noach 2) Another midrash, says that when Elohim was setting up the world, the earth heard Elohim say, “It’s not good, the human being alone” and she realized this meant that human beings would begin to reproduce. Then the earth “trembled and quaked”, saying, “I do not have in me the strength to feed the flocks of humanity.” Elohim promised the earth to feed humanity at night with sleep, and so share the burden with her. (Pirkei d’Rabi Eliezer ch. 12)
In our society, where almost everyone is racing to keep their jobs or make money or outcompete, we don’t really let ourselves sleep. As a society we never rest. We don’t get enough of this divine food. And it’s not because like Noah we are feeding all the creatures. But here’s what this midrash teaches us: a humanity that never rests is a humanity cut off from the unconscious, cut off from its divine sustenance, and it is a humanity that will destroy the earth.
It is time for us to rest, and to dream, as a whole society: Shmita.
It says in Proverbs 11:30, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and one who acquires souls is wise.” These souls are the animals, the midrash teaches, and it was because Noah was capable of caring for them that he was worthy of being saved from the flood. (B’reishit Rabbah 30:6) Are we worthy?
It also says in Proverbs 12:10, “A righteous person knows the soul of his animal.” It is time to practice this righteousness. Not just with the other animals, but also with ourselves. How will we know the soul of this animal within us? How will we make peace within, with each other, and with the land? How will we dream our animal dreams again? That is the door Shmita opens for us. That is the ark Shmita builds for us. And I believe that is how we get back to the tree of life in the garden.