 Life in LeviticusHow my church is different after a year in this often overlooked book.
In February 1999 we planted a church to reach the unchurched and disillusioned people of Grand Rapids, Michigan. For the first year, I preached through Leviticus—verse by verse.
Why start a church with Leviticus? Why not a series on relationships or finding peace? That would be the safer approach. Leviticus cannot be tamed. Its imagery is too wild. We ventured into its lair and let it devour us, trusting that God would deliver us with a truer picture of his Son. Why Leviticus? Two reasons. First, I didn't want the church to succeed because we put together the right resources. I wanted the church to flourish on the power of the Spirit alone. I knew opening with Leviticus—foreign words to today's culture—was risky. But the bigger the risk, the more need for the Spirit and the more glory for God to get. Second, unchurched people often perceive the Bible as obsolete. If that crowd could discover God speaking to them through Old Testament law, it would radically change their perception that Christianity is archaic. I wanted people to know that the whole biblical story—even Leviticus—is alive. The Scriptures are a true story, rooted in historical events and actual people. But many people don't see the connection between the Moses part and the Jesus part. But Moses' Leviticus is all about Jesus. The Whole StoryEvery message in my series ended with Jesus. Every picture is about Jesus. Every detail of every sacrifice ultimately reflects some detail of Jesus' life. This teaching hit home. Many of my listeners wanted to make sense of the Bible, yet they knew only fragments of the story. Leviticus taught us all to ask the difficult questions: How does this connect with entire biblical narrative? How does this event point to the cross? How do I fit into the story? We discovered that the Bible is an organic whole: these concepts do connect, these images do make sense. For the first time, many in our congregation began to realize, This story is my story. These people are my people. This God is my God. One middle-aged couple had grown up in church. They'd heard hundreds of sermons. One Sunday they wore a disgruntled look. "How come we never heard this before?" they asked. The Jewish roots of our faith from Leviticus consistently gave them fresh insight into the passages they already knew. Paul speaks of "offering yourselves" and being a "pleasing aroma." Many of these phrases come from Leviticus and give them their context. What did the unchurched think about it? I found out at a high school football game. It was late Friday night. The cheers had subsided, and I was walking home when I heard a man call out: "Hey, Pastor! Leviticus is turning our world upside down. We're getting rocked to the core." The family had just started attending, weren't Christians, and had never been interested in church. But somehow, Leviticus got their attention. Then two high school kids caught up with me. They too came from pagan backgrounds. "We've been talking about what you said. That was awesome! Can't wait for Sunday. See ya!" These people were excited—by Old Testament law. Mike was a police officer who came to Mars Hill the Sunday I preached Leviticus 23. The chapter summarizes the feast calendar and gives the Israelites a concrete preview of the first and second comings of Christ. Every verse speaks of Jesus, and for many this was the first time they'd heard it. Mike later told the congregation: "I was a skeptic. I didn't believe in any kind of god. But that Sunday everything changed. I realized the whole story, the whole Bible, wasn't just a bunch of old books. It all fit together through the whole history. I knew I needed to learn more, and I learned I needed Jesus." Each week when I invite people to open their Bibles, they cheer! When I say, "Please turn with me to chapter … " the congregation will erupt, "Five!" and a flurry of page turning begins. It's become a tradition. People are beginning to study ahead, trying to figure out the next passage. They even egg me on before the service, telling me they're stumped with this week's text and they can't wait to see it come to life. Spontaneous study groups sprang up during the week. My teaching is just a start, the beginning of the wrestling. The true transformation begins when they take the Word home to grapple with its meaning. Graphic Images of SalvationThe Leviticus series has been successful in part because it's so visual. We see biblical theology with flesh and blood (literally) in Leviticus. Instead of a treatise on the nature of the kingdom of death and its opposition to the kingdom of life, God instructs people with strange skin diseases to steer clear of the temple until they are clean. Brilliant. Instead of trying to describe an abstract concept like substitutionary atonement, Leviticus gives instructions on when, where, and how to slit the throat of a lamb. The picture of blood spattering on your cloak as the lamb is placed on the fire lends vivid imagery to the penalty for sin. The entire sacrificial system becomes one giant prop, a visual aid to explain what it means to be in relationship with the one true God. We didn't just talk about the pictures, we experienced them. I covered myself with fake blood, built fires on the stage, climbed atop a giant wooden altar. We had "priests" wearing linen ephods marching up and down the aisles and brought in a live goat for the Day of Atonement. We even traced the agricultural cycles to help our city dwellers understand the environmental roots behind the Creator's appointed feasts. My generation thinks and converses visually. Film is the dominant language of our culture. We relate with images and pictures and metaphors. Leviticus is perfect for us. It's one image after another. Blood, animals, and clothing of certain colors—provocative pictures a person can ponder forever. Another reason Leviticus is so effective: it speaks to our longing for community. The individualistic culture of the West has deeply affected Christianity. Sermons are more likely to mention a "personal relationship with Jesus" than to call a people to repent for communal sins. Yet younger generations identify with "group guilt." The most obvious example is environmentalism. Leviticus taps this community mindset. The Day of Atonement was a communal ritual. Certain sacrifices were offered on behalf of the "entire assembly." And one of the gravest punishments in Leviticus? Being cut off from the community. On the Day of Atonement, the priest placed the sins of the community on the head of a goat and then sent the animal out into the wilderness. So on "Scapegoat Sunday" we reenacted this ritual. A man dressed as the high priest brought in a goat and I explained the instructions in the text. Then I compared these to Jesus and his interactions with Pilate in John 18. We had a vivid picture of Jesus as the ultimate scapegoat. The metaphor clicked. Awestruck, we saw how Jesus was taken outside Jerusalem to bear the sins of us all. When the goat was taken outside, and the "priest" announced that our sins were forgiven, the place went nuts with celebration. By the time the band broke into "The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power," I thought angels were going to crash through the ceiling to join us! A year after beginning, the series on Leviticus came to an end, and it was time to move on. Now I'm preaching Numbers. Rob Bell pastors Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan. Excerpted from our sister publication, Leadership journal, © 2002 Christianity Today International. For more articles like this, visit www.Leadershipjournal.net |              | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
