I found some cool hidden Biblical stuff and it gets me excited so I’ll share it.
Do you remember that guy named Barrabas who the Romans released instead of Jesus when they crucified him? Well, this is weird but his first name was actually “Jesus” too and his last name, Barrabas means “Son of father” (Bar-Abba). So, it’s interesting that “Jesus, Son of the Father” was released while “Jesus, Son of Man” (which was Jesus’ name for himself) was crucified. It’s kind of like the image of Himself that God sees even in the worst of us vindicated us while the part of him that represented human-ness took mankind’s punishment.
And did you know that Leviticus 16 instructed the Jews to use two goats to take away the sins of the people? One was to be let free into the wilderness and the other was to be sacrificed. The one that is let free is where we get the word for “scapegoat.” It’s kind of like Jesus and Barrabas were the two goats atoning for our sin- Barrabas set free, Jesus killed. Maybe all that old boring Old Testament stuff was partly foreshadowing.
Nice. That’s good story writing, God.
Well, after I discovered that stuff I dug a little deeper and found a couple other interesting parallels.
In that same passage of Leviticus the priest must first sacrifice a ram for his own sins. Then he must wash himself before he is ready to present the sacrifice for the rest of the people.
It kind of makes me think how, before sacrificing Jesus, the government kind of killed John the Baptist for their own sin. Remember how Herod had to kill John the Baptist to cover for a promise he flippantly made. And then the government also sort of symbolically washed when Pilate washed his hands before giving Jesus over to be killed.
And maybe this one is stretching it but in that same passage in Leviticus it says the priest must burn incense to create a cloud around the altar so he cannot see the ‘mercy seat.’ Because if the priest saw God come down to receive the sacrifice it would kill him. This seems a little like how when Jesus died darkness covered the whole land. Like God was shrouding himself as he came down to receive the sacrifice we just made for him.
Anyway, the religion we believe in, is quite literary. These parallels are all over the Bible. That’s one of the reasons I love it. Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m living in a brilliantly orchestrated novel.
God, I’m a fan. So where can we leave our amazon reviews?
Raw Spoon, 4-5-16
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