Sacrifice and Summary
"He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).
Above is a photo I took at the campus of one of the seminaries I attended. While I really enjoyed the experience, seminary can be challenging. After all, it includes many hours pouring over books, writing papers and listening to lectures. And all of that can get overwhelming. So it was nice when professors would take the time to summarize the often complex content that we'd been covering.
In our upcoming Old Testament reading, God does something like that for the people of Israel. At the beginning of chapter 6 in the book of Micah, God reminds Israel of what he'd done for them by redeeming them from Egyptian slavery and delivering them from others who intended them harm.
Then he poses the question as to what their response should be to his gracious love toward them. Should it be to offer an abundance of sacrifices? God's reply here was no. He wasn't interested in the sacrifice of calves or rams.
Instead he laid out a succinct and rather simple summary of what he required from his redeemed people: do justice, love kindness (or goodness), and walk humbly with him.
So is God not interested in sacrifice at all? Well, I would say he is very much interested in sacrifice, but there are a couple things to consider as we ponder this verse from the perspective of those who serve God after the coming of Jesus.
First of all, the animal sacrifices required by the law were mere shadows pointing to Christ's ultimate sacrifice, which redeemed us from slavery to sin. Listen to what the author of Hebrews says:
"Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins" (Hebrews 9:13-14).
You see, once Christ gave himself for us, the old system of sacrifice was obsolete since it served merely as a place holder that pointed to Christ. But even during the time of the Old Testament, those sacrifices didn't undo the necessity to live rightly, as our reading makes clear. If the people offered an abundance of sacrifices yet lived in a manner that was contrary to the Lord's laws, God indicated here and elsewhere that such offerings were unacceptable or even detestable.
So the Lord lays out in our verse here what real sacrifice should entail, and that is right living based on fellowship with the Lord.
Friends, as we remember the matchless sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, let's respond by walking humbly with our God and allowing that relationship to fuel our love for goodness and our concern for justice.
Darin+