November 27, 2014
Thanksgiving Aroma
We are having a smoked turkey
for Thanksgiving, thanks to the efforts of my son, Troy. While I appreciate not
having to cook, I must confess I miss the smell of the Thanksgiving Day feast
baking for hours in the oven. I'm reminded of the consecration of the priests,
when Aaron and his sons were given specific directions for the slaughter and dissection
of a ram that was to be sacrifice to the Lord. “Then burn the entire ram on the
altar. It is a burnt offering to the LORD, a pleasing aroma, an offering made
to the LORD by fire” (Ex 29:18 NIV). As believers we still make sacrifices to
the Lord, but I wonder how many of those sacrifices have actually gone through
the fire and produced a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Interesting analogy you make, the association of the altar fire with the sacrifices we make to the Lord. I would wonder what on earth you mean, since the Bible makes no such association with the sacrifices it portrays us as being and making. Paul merely tells us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice and Peter speaks of us as being a holy priesthood making spiritual sacrifices to God. Of course, the concept of sacrifice set in religious contexts is commonly bound to the altar fire consuming it and sending it to God in the form of smoke. I can easily see the concept of giving up what’s mine to serve God’s purpose in Paul and Peter’s use of the term. But I see no smoke or fire in those analogies.
-----But there’s another book to be read within the Bible’s meanings. You can call it the Book of Stuff, or whatever, but it is simply the reality we live in, the things there, the happenings, etc. Reality is full of fire. I don’t think I need to expound. Everyone feels the heat of many tragedies in their lives and the lives of those they love. Sometimes tragedies are so profound we feel them even though we don’t know those to whom they’ve happened, like the little Muslim girl shot in the face for going to school. And life is filled with simple heartbreaks and difficulties and perplexities like little brush fires burning here and there and yon everywhere you go. Maybe the Bible doesn’t express life’s miseries as fire, I don’t know, maybe it does somewhere. But we all read of the fires of life in the Book of Stuff, and even more, we all write them into the Book of Stuff with our own experiences.
-----“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” (Heb 13:16) But, sacrifices made in the flames of tragedy, I presume, send profoundly pleasing aromas to God. I don’t know if this is what you meant. But it not only makes sense to me, the Bible seems to expound upon it a bit, even. Asaph stated in the Psalms the sacrifice of thanksgiving was desired by God, for God owns all the cattle and other yummy things to eat; so He can just go to the cupboard and get one whenever He’s hungry; He doesn’t need our sacrificial bulls to satisfy His munchies (Ps 50:9-14.) Then Paul does the audacious in telling us to be “always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.” (Eph 5:20) He’s telling us to give thanks for the fires burning up our pant-legs! And being our sacrifices, according to Asaph anyway, then quite often our thanksgiving to God will smell like the smoke of the fires for which they‘re given.
-----Thanksgiving is somehow an acknowledgment of good with an emotional attachment. It perceives the subject of the thanks as an element of something transcending our own awareness at the moment, of something more valuable than the things and thrills of life we attach to ourselves. To give thanks for the smoky, burning things doing us damage, as we presently perceive it, is to admit that the reality of our lives as known by God are always more refined, better defined, and indelibly tied into His kingdom. That is a welcome frame of mind in the heat of tragedy. And it invariably leads to the sacrifice of praise then given to the acknowledged, loving God.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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