Understanding Sacrifice
This is the ritual of the sacrifice of well-being that one may offer to the LORD: Leviticus 7:11 (JPS Torah)
Sacrifice of well-being – In Hebrew, this is the zevah ha-shelamim. There are several ways of interpreting this particular word combination. Most English translations don’t follow the Hebrew text but rather take their clues from either the LXX (eirenikos) or the Vulgate (pacificus), rendering the words with something like “peace offering.” Nahum Sarna points out that “peace offering” doesn’t capture the ritual aspects of the occasion. There is evidence that this ritual was associated with a formal ceremony when someone entered the presence of a king. It was a greeting protocol requiring the parties to follow prescribed actions in a certain order. You can see an example of this in 1 Samuel 9:12-25. This little bit of historical evidence offers us a deeper insight into Yeshua’s last supper.
According to the ritual of zevah ha-selamim, the slaughtered animal was divided into parts that could be boiled and eaten by the people and parts that were burned on the altar for God alone. Furthermore, no one could eat their part of the meal until God’s part had been completed, and everyone in attendance was expected to eat some part of the remaining sacrifice. The order and the conditions of participation were extremely important. In fact, not following the protocol could result in death (1 Samuel 2:12-16).
The ritual of the sacrifice of well-being meant that God was offered a spotless animal, God’s portion of the offering was destroyed, the portion for human beings was prepared in another way and was consumed by everyone. Consider the parallels with the Last Supper. The meal is prepared according to a set protocol. Yeshua sets aside some elements of the meal as particularly sacred. That sacred portion is not the bread and the wine. It is Yeshua Himself, the portion that is to be destroyed on the altar of the cross. The bread and the wine are the portion given to the participants. Each person is to eat and drink until all of it is consumed. The one significant difference is that this zevah ha-shelamim is not to be repeated. Yeshua is offered only once. The fact that we celebrate this single offering in communion only means that we continue to share in the same meal until He returns. In other words, the last supper isn’t over. It won’t be over until God’s portion returns to us.
With these parallels in mind, we can recognize that the Last Supper is a greeting ritual before the King of Kings. Its performance acknowledges that we stand before royalty. By following its protocol, we realize that God’s portion of the sacrifice is exclusively His. We participate because we are invited to participate, but we do not share in the portion set on the altar. We share in the portion God assigns to us. Each time we repeat our portion, we are conscious of the fact that God’s portion has already been taken in order to insure that we may experience favor from the King. The ritual, the protocol, the awareness are all crucial elements in this on-going meal. Until He comes again.
Topical Index: communion, well-being, sacrifice, zevah ha-shelamim
Want to know where Skip will be speaking – teaching after he gets home from Puerto Rico? Go here to see.
Moved to tears…Peace
In anticipation of the return of the Sar Shalom, may you and I share in fellowship over communion.
That’s pretty awesome! Thanks for giving insight into the significance of communion.
Part IV:
Some of the many, many lessons learned:
1. Waiting on God- hard thing to do sometimes, but well worth the wait
2. Trusting without having to understand “why” whatever is happening is happening
3. Learning that God is in control and knows what He is doing, even if He hasn’t let you in on it yet
4. To be patient
5. Not to push yourself so hard for so long that your body eventually breaks down and collapses
6. Not to “expect” anything but to be thankful for everything
7. “In all things give thanks, for THIS is the will of our God”
8. To know that no matter what happens, God is still on the throne
9. That there is a plan that will unfold but it may not happen in the timeframe your want/expect
10. Faith is NOT the same thing as Belief
11. You can want something very badly, but that does NOT mean that it is God’s best for your life
12. That beyond God and family and relationships, not much else really matters in the end
13. That you cannot take ANYTHING for granted, including your health, finances, etc.
14. God did not promise to keep us from going thru things- He said he would go thru them with us
15. You learn very quickly who your true friends are, and those that are in it for themselves
16. That God is the only one that you can truly count on, no matter what odds you are up against
17. And many, many others.
I could write a book of all the experiences just in the last year, but I would have to list it in the “fiction” section, because NO ONE WOULD BELIEVE all the things that can go on in a life in that period of time. You cannot “wish” yourself out of a situation. Prayer is more than asking God for “stuff”. I could go on, but I hope that this gives you the idea and encourages you if you too are going through something in your life that is well beyond your control. It does NOT mean that God is not in it- you just may have to spend more time on your knees (or in bed!) than you have ever spent in your entire life. Keep looking, keep searching, keep asking, keep seeking- your answers will come.
Thank-you Skip. This led to a deeper study for me into the Last Supper being on-going. I missed Part I and Part II of Dr. Tom Bolan’s sharing his life experience .Could you please advise me on where I could find sed comments. Shalom: Linda
“Understanding Sacrifice”
Very interesting concept, which came at a very propitious time.
Sacrifice of “well-being” can seem like something of an understatement.
But it is actually very precisely stated IMO.
“Yeshua is offered only once. The fact that we celebrate this single offering in communion only means that we continue to share in the same meal until He returns.”
Hi Skip,
This seems very Catholic to me and not Jewish at all.
Can you elaborate a bit ?
Thanks,
Mike
Participating in the meal as a symbolic representation of loyalty and identity is certainly Jewish. Catholicism transformed this Jewish experience into a transmuted reality. When a Jew ate the sacrifice, he knew he was eating food as a symbol of his repentance and acceptance. Catholic theology took this idea and converted it into eating something more than food. The important question to ask is not if the two rites are similar but rather where did the concept of the food becoming the real body come from? That transmutation would make it impossible for any Jew to participate since it was the equivalent of cannibalism. So why did the Church adopt this view and who introduced the idea?
Not Catholic: “That sacred portion is not the bread and the wine.”
Not Jewish: “It is Yeshua Himself, the portion that is to be destroyed on the altar of the cross.”
Jewish: “When a Jew ate the sacrifice, he knew he was eating food as a symbol of his repentance and acceptance.”
“So why did the Church adopt this view and who introduced the idea?” (Paganism)
Hi Skip,
Thanks for the great explanation!
If you can bear with my tortured logic above, I guess my point was that Jesus as “mediator”
Has nothing to do with Judaism
And that the Jewish followers of Jesus were not waiting for the Messiah ben David
Thesis: Jewish priesthood in collaboration with Rome
Antithesis: Jesus (Judaism)
Synthesis: Catholicism
Knowing that there are some young students of philosophy in the audience.
And being something of a “dilettante” in the mode of philosophical thinking myself.
I used two different modes of philosophical discourse in my comment above.
Starting out in the “analytical” mode, I put the Jews and the Catholics in two different “boxes.”
Logically speaking, either you believe that the bread and wine are sacred or you don’t.
To make my point about Jesus in relation to Judaism and Catholicism, I used a different approach.
I used what they call a “dialectical” mode of thought.
Like the Hebrew worldview, the dialectical mode of discourse is “dynamic.”
You end up with an endless series of syntheses and negations:
> thesis > antithesis > synthesis > thesis > antithesis > synthesis
So in my example, Jesus negates the practice of the Jewish priests who collaborate with Roman imperialists.
But Jesus does not negate Judaism, or so my argument goes.
In my argument, Judaism is negated by the Jewish priests and the Romans.
Together they synthesize the Jewish and Roman ideologies and create a new religious ideology called Catholicism.
In my argument, Jesus was the antithesis or “negation” of this emerging ideology and was crucified as a result.
To put this in networking/militaristic terms, we could argue that there were two different “deployments” available in the “world” of Jesus:
– Stand-alone Mode
– Under the Controller
Ironically, at first glance, it would appear that Jesus was in stand-alone mode.
And that the Jewish priests were protected by the powerful Roman Empire.
But in the Hebrew worldview (Yahweh’s world), it was actually just the opposite.
The Jewish priests and Romans were deployed in stand-alone mode.
And Jesus was deployed under the Master Controller (Yahweh).
Under the Master Controller, Jesus found the courage to do the right thing.
And face certain death.