March 5th: Leviticus 11, Psalm 110-112 and 2 Corinthians 3-4

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

This speaks into a lot of the things that I have been thinking about in the last couple of posts. See, I love grace. The concept is awesome. It's a pardon, an over-looking of things done wrong. Unwarranted. Unearnable.* Like Phillip Yancy said, it's some pretty amazing stuff. It really is hard to thing of a negative connotation attached to "grace."

Specifically, in 2 Corinthians 3, Paul is contrasting the law and grace when he speaks of the freedom of the Spirit. We don't need the sacrifices, we don't need the ceremony. We can mess up. And that's awesome. Sure, there is a little mystery lost in the ceremony. There is a holy terror that isn't quite a striking because of grace. Because, there is forgiveness that doesn't require blood to be shed again... because it was covered, once and for all. It truly was finished. Now, there is a lot less, "drag-him-out-of-the-camp-and-stone-hims." What used to be in the shadow of the ceremony and the sacrificing is now illuminated.

I can eat a shrimp cocktail. I can eat scallops wrapped in bacon. I guess I can eat that spotted owl after all. Not really on topic but c'mon! The clean and un-clean list is like the only comedic gold in Leviticus.




*Not a real word... how 'bout some grace? See! The grace thing totally works.