This
is what the Sovereign LORD says: In the first month on the first day
you are to take a young bull without defect and purify the sanctuary.
The priest is to take some of the blood of the sin offering and put it
on the doorposts of the temple, on the four corners of the upper ledge
of the altar and on the gateposts of the inner court.
//In these verses, Ezekiel describes the new Temple in God’s glorious new
age (which he expects to occur as soon as the Jews are released from
captivity in Babylon and allowed to return to Judea), and explains how a
young bull is to be sacrificed as a sin offering in the first month of
the year (Springtime, on the Jewish calendar). The odd thing about this
is that this atonement sacrifice is supposed to be made in the Fall,
during the Day of Atonement. Instead, Ezekiel moves the sacrifice to
around the time of the Passover celebration. It is as if he merges the
Fall and Spring festivals into one, with Passover absorbing the Day of
Atonement.
Scholars
argue about the reason for Ezekiel’s change of instructions. Some feel
it illustrates nothing more than Ezekiel feeling free to creatively
describe multiple Old Testament rituals with a single brush stroke.
Others note that the instructions for applying the blood of the bull to
the “upper ledge” and “gateposts” sounds an awful lot like the
instructions God gave Israel for the blood of the lamb at Passover time.
I
see the same thing in John’s Gospel. John doesn’t write
chronologically, but purposefully tells the story of Jesus’ arrival at
Jerusalem over and over, under the banner of different festival themes:
The Feast of Booths, Hanukkah, Passover. It’s as if all of the feasts
have been merged into one. Why?
Perhaps
because nearly every feast has at the core of its tradition an
expectation of the Messiah’s arrival. A dream of the Messiah arriving
during that feast. But Jesus can’t come during them all, can he? He can
only come once.
So, John, and Ezekiel before him, combine the major feasts into one.
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