Tuesday, January 24, 2023

24 January 2023 - shadow and substance


Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come,
and not the very image of them, it can never make perfect
those who come to worship by the same sacrifices
that they offer continually each year.

We should not pass over this mention of "shadow" too quickly, for from it we may learn a little about the mysterious ways in which the Lord works in history. This shadow that could never make perfect was nevertheless God's idea. It served a genuine though transitional purpose. We note with a degree of sadness that God's way is not typically that jumping straight to "the good things to come" without first preparing the way for those things. Thus the incarnation did not immediately follow the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Instead a vast amount of time was allowed to elapse during which humanity was forced to come to terms with their need for salvation, and, as they become aware of this need, were taught to hope for a savior.

Otherwise, would not the sacrifices have ceased to be offered,
since the worshipers, once cleansed, would no longer
have had any consciousness of sins?

It is interesting that the shadows themselves seemed very concrete at the time, even visceral. The blood of bulls and goats was more, we might say, in your face, than the realities contained in the Sacraments. But that particular aspect of the shadows is redolent of pedagogy, as trying to make a lesson as apparent and difficult to miss as possible. 

But in those sacrifices there is only a yearly remembrance of sins,
for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats
take away sins.

No doubt the constant and almost countless animal sacrifices, combined with a lack of progress in the holiness to which the people of Israel were called, led them to realize that something was missing. And if they did not realize it on their own God began to gradually teach them that these sacrifices themselves were pointing to something more that he wanted, something that could not come from animals.

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no delight.
Then I said, As is written of me in the scroll,
Behold, I come to do your will, O God.

The sacrifices pointed demonstrated that life was meant to be surrendered, transformed, and shared, but were unable to make this possible for humanity. Instead they only demonstrated the ongoing need for it. Human nature was not in a condition to respond wholeheartedly and completely due to the concupiscence caused by original sin. But Jesus himself did not share this limitation. And he himself would offer what no one else could: perfect obedience.

These are offered according to the law.
Then he says, Behold, I come to do your will.
He takes away the first to establish the second.
By this "will," we have been consecrated
through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The offering of Jesus was not offered instead of our own obedience. For the idea of sacrifice was always supposed to mean that each individual was in need of transformation. A forensic appropriation of only the status of Jesus of righteous would not make sense of the meaning of these shadows. Rather, he offered obedience first and for our sakes so that we could then, in union with him, participate in his own obedience. His one sacrifice, his perfectly obedient will, henceforth consecrated all of those united to him by faith in baptism to live as true sacrifices, to embrace all the demands of love.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (see Romans 12:1).

It is in embracing this heart of Jesus for his Father's will that we embrace his gift of himself to us, by which it becomes not just a promise, but a reality in our lives. We have been made daughters and sons by his gift. But we taste the full reality of this promise only when we allow him to share that which is deepest in his heart with us.

"Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother."



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