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A long long time ago in the old-timey Bible days, back when the Nation of Israel was wandering in the desert, God handed down to Moses the Ten Commandments. These were mostly a bunch of "Don'ts", like Don't Lie, Don't Steal, Don't Screw Around. But even the ones that said "Do" weren't a lot of fun, kind of like when you're little and your parents tell you sit up straight, or comb your hair, or spit that out. Anyway, these were God's Chosen People, and the Ten Commandments were the first part of what would come to be known as The Law. That's The Law, in Capital Letters.
Now, you'd think that being God's Chosen People would make them feel like something special, and that receiving His Law would be like a really great prize. But I don't think that's how they saw it. I think they reacted more like you would if, say, you're in hot water at work and your boss gives you a really ugly tie for Christmas: You know you'll never use it, except maybe to keep him happy, but you can never tell him how much you don't like it. So you just kind of grimace and go "Oooo, yeah, it's....real, um...niiice..."
The Law was kind of a funny thing, and on the surface of it, included a lot of things that we might find strange. There were the Ten Commandments, of course, which talked about how they ought to live, and treat one another, and behave towards God. They also had a lot of dietary laws, like with the clean and unclean animals, you know, the whole Kosher thing, although I don't know if that's what they called it back then.
It also included specifications on how to build the Temple. Inside the Temple was a big sheet made of heavy cloth like a foot thick and hung up crossways dividing the Temple, kind of like how on TV people might get mad at each other and divide the room in half and say "This half is yours, and this is mine." Behind that curtain was the Holy of Holys, what they called the Tabernacle. I'm not sure what a Tabernacle is, but anyway, if you stepped back there they believed you were standing in the very Presence of God. In a way then it kind of was like those TV shows, with one half being God's side and one half being man's. The only people allowed back there were the High Priests, the Tribe of Levi, so they took it all pretty seriously. It took them a long time to build it, even though they had the plans, and I'm not sure what they all thought about that, but I imagine it would kind of have been like Jodie Foster in that movie Contact, when the aliens sent her plans to build this machine, and she didn't quite know what it was but she reckoned the aliens were smarter than her so she went ahead and built it anyway.
All this might not seem like quite enough, so they had one more thing. It was called a sacrifice. Sacrificing animals wasn't anything new, even the pagans did it, and it had even been a part of their own tradition as far back as Cain and Abel. But this was a little different. The Law provided for a number of sacrifices on several different occasions, but the really big one was the lamb. The sacrificial lambs had to be physically perfect, without blemish (I guess that means spots and moles and stuff, I don't know too much about barnyard animals), of a certain age and size, and they sacrificed these lambs to take away their sin.
I don't think they really understood it. To be honest, I don't really understand it all. But they say it worked like this: Because God is sinless, and man is totally totally not, and no sin can stand before Him, He worked out this business of sacrificing an innocent. The blood sacrifice, as gross and as brutal as it sounds, was what He required of them.
I told you it didn't make much sense. But you know how you might go to a fancy restaurant and to get in you have to have on a tie? And sometimes they might have ties there that you can borrow when you come in, just in case you don't have one? It's sort of like that. Or maybe not.
It sounds really elaborate, and it was. The Law was very rigid, and strict, and it didn't leave a lot of room for being creative. Certain transgressions required certain punishments, and certain things you did had to be done in certain ways, and it was all right and wrong, black and white, clean and unclean, and you had to keep all of it and stay on top of everything.
But it's funny, in a way, how the Law turned out. You'd think that something that came directly from God would make it easier for us. But you know, when someone says to me "You shouldn't ought to lie," I don't think "I don't lie" or "Yeah, that's a good thing," instead, I think of all the times I lied even just today. When someone says "You shouldn't ought to covet your neighbor's wife," I don't think about how good a thing that is to do, instead, I think about how good-looking my neighbor's wife is. Like when you see a sign that says "Keep Off The Grass," even though you never might have even thought about walking on that grass and you're not even headed that way, don't you just want to go step on it anyway?
Or think of it this way. Think of someone who doesn't know God, or someone who's made a mess of their own lives, crying out to God and saying "God, make me like You!" And then God saying "OK, you wanna be like Me? These ten things are all you have to do." And then you would be like "Screw this!"
I mean, the Law was impossible to keep. And it sure wasn't fun, with all the do's and don'ts, and they had to keep on top of that sacrificing business, all the time. And it didn't so much make anything better, maybe, but it did kind of show them what God was like, and anyway Christians believe that it pointed the way toward "things to come".
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