Daily Lectionary: Ecclesiastes 4:1-16, John 7:32-53

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Have you ever struggled to find a gift to give someone? Sometimes, picking just the right thing can be a challenge, it might even feel impossible. What do you buy for the person who has everything? Now, consider a gift you might give God!? Psalm 24:1 says “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” In other words, God owns everyTHING and everyONE in all of creation. In our text today, it says the cattle on a thousand hills belong to God. I feel like I should add that the cattle on the 1,001st hill belong to Him, too. All of the cattle on all of the hills—and everything else in creation that’s not cattle or hills—it’s His, too. I think I’ve made the point, God owns everything.

 But when God says that He won’t accept His people’s sacrifices, it’s not just that He doesn’t need what they’re offering. It’s that “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) God isn’t looking for us to impress Him with our very best works, with our very best sacrifices, or our very best efforts. He’s looking for faith. He’s looking for us to die to our self-centered, idolatrous way of life. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving…” Sacrifices are an interesting subject in the Old Testament. If you read through the Pentateuch, you’ll see sacrifices all over the place. 

If you read through Leviticus, you’ll see an entire sacrificial system that is set up in very specific detail. But the point of sacrifice was never the sacrifice itself. It was always a looking-forward-to event. Every sacrifice in the Old Testament was intended to point toward the one and only sacrifice that actually took away sins. The writer to the Hebrews wrote about this when he said that “Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.” (Hebrews 10:12) So maybe  we’ve been asking the wrong question this whole time…maybe there are times when we feel like we should give God a gift…but our God is in the business of giving, not receiving. He rejoices to give You the gift of His Son, the perfect sacrifice for the removal of sin. And that is the perfect gift for each of us. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.