The church is God's holy and set apart people; called to reveal the transforming power of his life in the world. The medium and message we are sent with are the same: the cross of Jesus.
Leviticus ends with an invitation to choose life with God rather than curse.
The Jubilee was the 'hard reset' button for life in Old Testament Israel; designed to maintain equality and teach people that life in the land was a gift from God. Putting jubilee into practice required a giving heart, not a grasping heart.
The bread, the lamp and the blasphemer in Leviticus 24 are a symbolic picture of who Israel are, and aren't, meant to be.
God's holy people are called to live in holy space and spend holy time eating with God and learning to view the cosmos through the lens provided by these meals.
The book of Leviticus calls for God's people to be holy; to separate themselves from the serpenty ways of the nations around them where people seek to merge heaven and earth on their own terms, and to learn to dwell in heaven and earth space on God's terms; listening to and obeying him.
Atonement is at the heart of Leviticus. But what is the heart of atonement? And how does atonement reveal God's heart to dwell with his people?
Human bodies are flesh and blood held together by skin. When things attacked skin or life leaked out of holes in our skin Leviticus marked a person as unclean as a reminder of life under the curse of death. Jesus makes people whole so that we can be made holy as his Spirit dwells in us.
God's priestly Old Testament people are called to separate clean from the unclean; to eat food that isn't tainted by the ground or 'serpentlike' in its connection to death. God's priestly New Testament people are invited to see holiness as a matter of the heart and separate clean from unclean desires.
For the God of Heaven to dwell with his earthlings)on earth there needs to be atonement, and for atonement to happen there needs to be a priestly heavenling operating in holy space.
Leviticus sets up a system to solve a problem where Moses and Israel can't draw near to God in order to be his holy people living in his presence.
Jesus' last words in Matthew are a promise that makes the hard words from the Gospel possible.
Does God forsake Jesus at the cross? And what does it mean for us when we feel abandoned?
Jesus says whatever we do for the least in the kingdom, we do for him — and our future depends on it.
The kingdom of heaven turns our priorities upside down. Jesus invites us to let go of treasures on earth, empty our hands and grab hold of him to receive treasures in heaven.
Jesus calls us to be captured by the vision of the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus says his kingdom is built on forgiveness.
Jesus calls his disciples to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him.
When the pharisees say Jesus is blasphemously driving out demons by the power of Beelzebul, he responds by raising the stakes on them.
As he sends his disciples out as sheep among wolves to announced his kingdom, Jesus declares that he has not come to bring peace, but a sword.
