Finished at 3PM

The Older Testament is a bloody book. Ever since God had Abraham walk in blood there has been this promise or covenant that sacrifice would be a part of the promise. That God would deal with sin. Throughout the pages of the OT there were 5 animals that were sacrificed, cow, goat, sheep, pigeon, ram, and dove. The Jews believed that whenever they killed an animal and threw it’s blood on the altar, they were saying – “God you made a promise that you would take care of my sin.” God wanted his people to be reminded that he would deal with sin.

So God built rhythmic reminders into their calendar. In a reoccurring appointment with him everyday at 9AM and 3PM there would be a sacrifice in the temple to serve as a reminder of His forgiveness. Every day the priest would make the sacrifices. Regardless the priests mood, the weather, political conflicts, war in their land, famine among the people, economic turmoil, every single day the priest would keep the appointment by making the sacrifice: on holidays, on the Sabbath, there were wasn’t a break from sacrifice. When Jesus came along they had been keeping these appointments with God for sacrifice in the temple for roughly 1,500 years.

Ray Vander Laan writes about how in Jesus’ day the sacrifice in the temple involved 3 people, one priest would stand with a lamb (with a knife to it’s throat), one priest would stand with a shofar (a horn made from a ram’s horn), and another with an sundial (or hourglass when it was cloudy). At 9 and 3 the timekeeper would signal to the priest who would signal with the shofar and everyone in earshot of the horn would stand still in silence as blood was being shed.

It’s Friday in Jerusalem and it’s a holiday. Two million people have packed themselves into town for Passover. It’s 2:55 PM and just outside the city gate three men hang on Roman crosses. The one in the middle, struggling for every breath is a Jew. He has been hanging there on the cross since 9:00 AM, when they nailed his feet and hands to the beams.

The hour glass ran down and it was 3 o’clock. The signal was given, the shofar sounded and the man in the middle raised his head and screamed, IT IS FINISHED. It is all finished, his suffering, his life, but most of all the promise and covenant of the Father 1,500 years earlier. God finished the system of blood sacrifice at 3 o’clock on Passover.

We don’t sacrifice an animal at 9AM and 3PM because IT IS FINISHED. I made an appointment on my calendar today (Friday) at 3PM to take a break and do absolutely nothing for a couple of minutes and just be grateful to God for keeping his promise. Maybe just by avoiding doing anything I can let the reminder sink in a little deeper that there is nothing I can do to earn his forgiveness. You can’t buy it, you can’t crawl on your knees through the holy city, you can’t go on a pilgrimage, you can’t offer your righteousness, there is nothing you can do, but bow in humility and confess and accept it. That’s grace.

But I like what Dallas Willard said, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it’s opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is action.” Out of gratitude and grace, let’s go put effort and action into our worship by presenting ourselves as living sacrifices.

He took our sins in His body.

He took the curse and wrath of God on Himself.

He took our sins and His heart was broken so that ours would be healed.

He was an outcast so that we could be brought in.

He suffered without the gate that we might enter into heaven and said,

IT IS FINISHED!

-Leonard Ravenhill