May 9, 2022

Leviticus 14: 2-7 (NIV)

“These are the regulations for the diseased person at the time of his ceremonial cleansing . . . If the person has been healed of his . . . disease, the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the one to be cleansed. Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed . . . Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the infectious disease and pronounce him clean. Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields.”

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple*

When I was a little girl, my grandmother, who had grown up in the rough world of coal-mining camps in Kentucky and who was somewhat superstitious, came down with a case of shingles. I remember hearing her talk about a “treatment” for her ailment that included the blood of a black rooster. I don’t recall if she tried it or not but the ritual described here for the cleansing of those healed of skin diseases is even more bizarre.

Is there any medical value to the procedure described in this passage? What is the symbolic meaning? Did anyone ever know? Hundreds of years later, these are the same instructions Jesus gave to the man he healed of leprosy (Matthew 8: 4). What if the point was merely to teach us about obedience and trust? God is not obligated to explain anything to us. More often than not the “whys” are never revealed to us. Perhaps the sometimes mysterious requirements of the Christian life are in place merely to allow us to practice walking by faith.

This elaborate ceremony that was to be performed for cleansing after a person was healed contrasts vividly with the simplicity and symbolism of the washing away of our sins in baptism. While killing a bird over fresh water in a clay pot was just one of the many steps in the cleansing ritual, baptism is a two-step procedure: go down into the water; come up out of the water. How complicated is that?

You know how an attorney says, ‘In a courtroom, never ask a question you do not know the answer to.’ I think it’s a great exercise of faith to ask the question you don’t know the answer to, and rest in the knowledge that you may not have an answer today, tomorrow, or ever in this life.*