Trading Places

An Israelite mother sits quietly in her home, cradling her newborn child. The mother and her family are jubilant. Her baby is healthy. New life has entered the world. It is a gift and blessing from God. And yet, according to Leviticus 12, this mother must wait. She cannot simply rush back into her life of worship, into the sanctuary, into the presence of God, because she is considered unclean. She must be set apart for a time and must bring an offering to the Lord before she can be declared clean again. This feels strange to us today, as we tend to separate the sacred from the ordinary. We think uncleanness belongs in the spiritual realm, not in our diet, not in our delivery rooms, and not in every ordinary part of our lives. But Leviticus reminds us that God speaks into all of life, into the most intimate, fragile and even ordinary moments. So, we ask, why would a mother need cleansing after bringing life into the world? It’s not because sex, or childbirth or the child is sinful or dirty, it’s because God is teaching His people something deeper than the event itself. He is teaching them and us that even in one of the most beautiful moments of human life, there remains a problem that cannot be ignored: we live in a fallen world and sin touches everything. Even from birth, as wonderful as the blessing is, there is something that is wrong with us. The shadow of sin is there, and every child is born into a fallen world. Not only are we born sinful, but the blood, the pain, the separation, the offering—all of it was meant to impress one truth upon the hearts of God’s people: we are not naturally fit to come into God’s holy presence.

Leviticus 12 is God’s way of saying, “From the very first breath, you must remember this: I am holy, and you are not. And you are unclean and in need of cleansing.” We want to believe that deep down we are fine, that all we need is a self-help book, education, or a better environment. But God says no—our problem is deeper than behavior; our problem is that we are sinners by nature. This means that Leviticus is not just about ancient ceremonial law and just for the ancient Israelites. It is written about us and for us. It is about the fact that from our very entrance into this world, our greatest need is not merely health, family, or blessing—but redemption. And that is where the gospel comes in. Because if a mother in Israel needed cleansing after bringing life into the world, then all of us must reckon with the deeper truth: We are all unclean, and we cannot make ourselves clean. No ritual and effort of our own can make us clean and bring us near to God. But the good news of Scripture is where Leviticus and the Gospel meet. Leviticus teaches us that every sinner must come to the end of themselves and confess, “I am unclean” and the Gospel teaches us to believe that Jesus can and will make us clean. That brings us to our big idea that God desires His people to admit their uncleanness and believe that only Jesus can make them clean.

Let’s Pray: Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us another day to live life on this earth, an opportunity to fulfill your calling on our lives and to fall deeper in love with you. As we gather to worship you, this morning, through the hearing of your word, we humbly ask that you open our hearts and minds to receive your message for us. Let us be attentive to the working of the Holy Spirit within us. In Jesus' name,

I want to play a little word association with you this morning. I am going to say some words, and I want you to think about the first word or image that comes to your mind. Contaminate, corrode, corrupt, decay, defile, desecrate, infect, pollute, rot, spoil, taint. I would believe that the words or images that came to mind were probably “gross”, “yucky”, “nasty” or “disgusting.” Over the next several chapters, you may find yourself saying once or twice, “T.M.I God, that’s too much information.” I actually almost titled this sermon, T.M.I. In review, the first ten chapters of the Leviticus, taught us that if a great, gracious, and holy God is to dwell amid fallen, selfish, stubborn people, their sin must be addressed. He instituted animal sacrifices and priesthood. Then chapter 11 began the section that could be called the “Cleanliness Manual.” This manual taught the people how they could become unclean, how to become clean and how be restored to fellowship with God. Being “unclean” was not the picture of someone jumping in a mud puddle and getting their clothes dirty or a child covered in spaghetti sauce. It was about being “ritually unclean” that included bodily fluids, sores, mildew, scabs, mold, and disease. These things are gross and there’s no way around it. God in His infinite wisdom put Leviticus 12-15 in His Word for us for a reason and we know it is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. We will learn that these chapters have a rhythm: chapter 11 was about what goes into you, chapter 12 is about what comes out of you, chapters 13 and 14 are about what is on you, and chapter 15 is again about what comes out of you.

Before we turn to our scripture this morning, there are three things I want to help us try to understand as much as possible. The first is holiness and wholeness. They both come from the same Old English word meaning completeness and health. To be holy as God is holy means to be as whole, healthy and complete as He is. When we experience God’s wholeness and holiness, we become fully functioning as He intended us to be. And when we sin, our longing for holiness should make us aware of our brokenness and we should yearn to be whole, healthy and complete again. The second is the definition of the words clean, unclean and purity and impurity. In ancient Israel, purity was the result of avoiding contact with uncleanness, and impurity was the result of encountering uncleanness. Purity equaled “wholeness of body”, “absence of contagion” and “full life.” When you became sick with leprosy or a skin disease you became unclean and were in a state of impurity. If you encountered a contagion such as the dead body of an animal or human, by eating something unclean, or by coming in contact with someone unclean you were in a state of impurity. And lastly after childbirth, menstruation and bodily discharges you were unclean because it signified death and a loss of life. The third thing is the Holiness of God. It’s hard to fathom the holiness of God and how far apart we fall short of His holiness. At its most fundamental level, the ritual purity laws God gave the Israelites, reminded God’s people that the Lord is holy and they are not. Leviticus is about God living in among His people in a place with a plush, pristine, white, new carpet, and His people have muddy, filthy feet. Every single day God challenged them, as they were bombarded with very real everyday things they needed to be cognizant and wary of, because at any moment they could become defiled, unclean and be in a state of impurity. God used some of the grossest pictures to teach his people about how gross their sin and depravity was. He desired them to live pure lives, “to be holy as He is holy”, and when they did become defiled or impure He commanded them to obey His ritual purity laws, which they needed to do, to once again be able to come into His holy presence in worship.

So why is God’s holiness so hard for us to fathom? How often, during your day, do you think about how you are living, whether pure or impure, clean or unclean? I am not talking about being paranoid about sinning. I am talking about always being aware that we are sinners, not only born into sin but actively sinning on a daily basis. If we are not aware of our depravity and sin daily, then we will begin to compromise, we begin to defer asking forgiveness for our sins immediately, and we begin to be tolerant of sin in our lives. We’ve learned uncleanness is not about what we digest physically. It's all about what comes out of our hearts. For the Israelite they had to be careful about what went into their bodies, clean or unclean animals. We need to be careful about what goes into our hearts and minds, purity or impurity. They had to be cognizant of what came out of their bodies, bodily fluids and discharges. We must be cognizant of what comes out of us, what we say, think and do. God is now living inside every Christ-follower. And our hearts can be a place with a plush, pristine, white, new carpet, and it can be a place where our muddy, filthy feet are stepping all over that carpet. This should bring us to our knees, realizing we first need Jesus and then we need to continue living a life of confession and repentance so that we are obedient to God’s command to “be holy as He is holy.”

Now to our scripture. Our first point is Uncleanness Inside and Transmitted and is found in Leviticus 12:1-5. This is what God’s Word says, “The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.”

I am going to explain this passage by trying to answer a couple questions that may already be forming in your mind. In chapter 11, being unclean came from what went into a person. There was nothing sinful about what they ate except that God commanded what they could or couldn’t eat. In chapter 12, being unclean came from what came out of a woman after giving birth. God is not saying there is anything sinful about procreation, childbirth or babies. God simply chose them as tools to teach His people about His holiness because they were very immature when it came to holiness. So, the first question you may be thinking is, “Why would a woman be unclean after giving birth?” If we look at the chart I had earlier, we see that impurity happened when there was loss of life. The woman’s impurity came because of a loss of blood and to lose blood was to lose the essence of life and that was equated with death. Leviticus 17:11 from the NASB says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Now why would childbirth be equated with death? Rabbi Lauren Eichler says, “There are several compelling suggestions. First, childbirth in the ancient Near East was fraught with danger to the mother and there were high infant mortality rates. Thus, every childbirth was an encounter with potential death. Secondly, the pregnant woman is a vessel of abundant life. Following delivery, the mother experiences a loss of this powerful presence of life within. Her discharge of life leaves a void and creates the ritual necessity for purification.

In the Torah, a state of “uncleanness” resulted from a departure from holiness. When you became defiled you were no longer holy or clean but unclean. When death occurred, a potential for life and its holiness was lost and the void created by that loss of life was spiritually filled with uncleanness. After a woman gave birth, she continued to bleed for a certain period, and this bleeding is what verses 2, 4, 5 and 7 say made her unclean. Also, there was a loss of life when she gave birth. Although a child is born, the baby is no longer carried inside her. Her own body is not whole anymore because it has less life inside her and as a result there is a void within her that becomes replaced with impurity. Then we have this interlude where circumcision of the son is mentioned. This is the only time circumcision is mentioned in Leviticus so it must be important. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that identified every Jewish male as part of God’s chosen people. For seven days after the birth of a son, the mother was ritually unclean and contagious. This meant that anything she touched or touched her became unclean. She could not touch any holy thing or go to the holy tabernacle. Then on the eighth day she was able to take her son to the tabernacle to be circumcised. This shows us that the law of circumcision superseded the ritual purity laws. After the birth of a son and his circumcision, the mother had to wait an additional thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She could now resume her daily life as she was not contagious, but she still was not allowed to touch anything holy or go to the tabernacle. The total days of her purification for the birth of a son was forty days. In the Bible, both seven and forty mean “completeness” and so this meant that her purification was complete and she was now ready to sacrifice and be brought back into a state of cleanness and holiness. She could resume worshipping the Lord at the tabernacle and with her fellow Israelites.

Now the second question you may be thinking is, “Why is she unclean twice as long for a daughter as for a son?” After the birth of her daughter, the mother was considered unclean for two weeks. Why the two weeks? Think about what happened after seven days to her son? He was circumcised. This would have been cruelled to do to baby girls and so the period of uncleanness and being contagious was doubled to fourteen days. The daughter was automatically a part of the covenant because her father had been circumcised. After fourteen days she would cease to be ritually contagious. But she remained unclean for another sixty-six days for a total of eighty days. She still could not touch anything holy or approach the holy tabernacle. The best reason why the mother had to wait sixty-six days, double the time she had to wait for a son, was because birthing a daughter brought on twice the impurity of birthing a son. Rabbi David Rosenfeld says, “But when she carries a daughter, not only does she have a life within her, but she has a life, a daughter, which itself can create more life. For the loss of that even greater potential, the mother becomes doubly impure, so to speak, and must wait even longer to reestablish her purity.” Notice that fourteen is a multiple of seven and eighty is a multiple of forty, again, showing completeness. The woman was completely purified after the eighty days and could now make the sacrifices required to put her back into a state of purity and holiness. She would also be allowed to come again in the presence of God. All the “down time” was a compassionate act on God’s part so mother and child could recover physically and emotionally from the birth. Clearly, God wanted His people to learn something about being defiled and contagiousness. Just as they sought ritual purity and dealt properly with it in every area of life, they were to seek moral purity and deal properly with it every area of life, as well. Sin defiles us and is contagious. It is contagious as we compound sin upon sin. And our sin is contagious to those around us, as the things we say, think and do, are like leaven, causing others to be infected or we allow their sin to infect us. God has called His people to be holy as He is holy. And we are to do so by acting with moral purity in every sphere of life: from family, to work, to school, to social interactions, and in every part of us: our minds, our bodies and our souls. That brings us to our first next step that I will act with moral purity, reflecting the holiness of God in my mind, body and soul.

That brings us to our second point, Uncleanness Cleansed and Covered, found in verses 5-8. This is what God’s Word says, “‘When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering. He shall offer them before the Lord to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood. “‘These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl. But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’”

Once the mother’s forty or eighty days of purification were up, she was to bring a year-old lamb and a young pigeon or dove to the priest at the tent of meeting. The lamb was for a burnt offering, and the pigeon or dove was for a sin or better translated “purification” offering. Notice that the woman herself brought the sacrifices to the priest. The priest would offer her sacrifices before the Lord to make atonement for her, and she would be ceremonially clean from her bleeding. The burnt offering would have been given for her consecration and in thankfulness for and dedication to the new life. The purification offering was to remove the final traces of impurity from the tabernacle; it’s holy contents and from the woman. Even though it was not for sin, there was still a sense that she was being purified from sin at some level. It may have been symbolic of cleansing her from her sin nature and or from her inadvertent sins she had accumulated during her time away from the tabernacle. Lastly, we see God’s compassion for the poor Israelite family. If they could not afford a lamb, they could bring either two doves or two pigeons. Interestingly, this may not happen frequently for two reasons. First, in such a case of rejoicing, the family would have extended family who could help with such a thing. Secondly, there was an extended time to prepare for the offering: from the time it was known a child was due, until the time of the days of purification were over.

We see in Luke 2:22-24, that Jesus’ parents were considered good Jews who followed the Levitical law. When it was time for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took the baby Jesus to present him to the Lord. In Exodus 13, God commanded that every firstborn male was to be consecrated to Him. Joseph and Mary offered what the Law of the Lord required: two doves or two young pigeons. God Incarnate, himself, and his human family followed the law to the letter. And they must have been the poorest of the poor because of the sacrifices they made. The One who possessed all of heaven’s riches condescended to come to earth to dwell among men. But he didn’t do it in a king’s house, at least not in the house of an earthly king. Instead, he came to the poorest of the poor.

In conclusion, it’s important to see how Leviticus connects us to Jesus and the Gospels. Once we understand the Jewish world of clean and unclean, a lot of the stories in the Gospels become clearer. There’s a story in Mark 1 where Jesus encounters a leper. We will talk more about leprosy and skin diseases next week, but I want to notice the interaction here. “A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” The leper believed one very important thing and said one very important thing here. He believed, he knew, that he was unclean and needed to be cleansed. This begs us to ask ourselves a couple of questions. One, do we believe we are dirty, filthy, muddy and unclean because of our sin? Sometimes, we will do everything to convince ourselves that we are ok or at least not as bad as other people. We don’t want to look deep into our heart and search for it because we know what we’ll find. Two, are we ever broken because of our sin? We are all sinners and sinners all the time, so we all should feel broken at times. Then the leper says something very important. He not only believes he is unclean, but he knows that Jesus can make him clean. The leper knew that his muddy, filthy feet had trampled all over God’s holiness, all over His plush, pristine, white, new carpeted, home. And he knew the only way his muddy, filthy feet could be made clean was only by Jesus. Do we believe that only Jesus can wash our muddy, filthy feet and cleanse us from our sin? If we learn nothing else from our study of Leviticus, I hope we learn that one, we are all unclean and two, that Jesus is the only one who can make us clean (big Idea). That brings us to our second next step that I will admit my uncleanness to Jesus and believe He can and will make me clean.

But the story was not over. Look what happens next in verses 44-45, “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead, he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.” Jesus warned the man not to tell anyone and told him to follow the Levitical law and show himself to the priests and offer sacrifices. But the man told everyone and now Jesus couldn’t enter a town openly just like a leper. Mark is trying to tell us by the Spirit, as he records this story for us, that Jesus had taken upon Himself what the leper had experienced. Leading up to His crucifixion, Jesus was charged with all of our muddy, filthy feet, all our sin, so we could be made pure. He was put to death so we could live. He was made the outcast, put outside the camp, so we could be welcomed in. Jesus traded places with all sinners, and that includes every single one of us this morning.

As Gene and Roxey come to lead us in a final hymn and the ushers prepare to collect the tithes and offerings, let’s pray: Heavenly Father, your Word tells us that if we pretend we’re going through this life with spotless shoes, never trampling mud into Your living room, then we’re deceiving ourselves. But if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So, we come to you as lepers falling at your feet knowing we are unclean and believing you are the only one who can and will make us clean. We want to live in a righteous relationship with you, so we ask that you stretch out your hand and make us clean. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Quote: https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/spirituality-in-the-laws-of-purity/

Quote: https://aish.com/uncleanness-and-pure-blood-after-childbirth/

Trading Places

God desires His people to admit their uncleanness and only Jesus can make them clean.

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