Three lines leap out at me as I read the Revised Common Lectionary texts for tomorrow:
From Hosea: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
From Paul to the Romans: [Jesus]… who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.
And Jesus: Go and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’
The Collect for the Sunday closest to June 8th asks that “we may think those things that are right, and by [God's] merciful guiding may do them.”
What is the real meaning of “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” or, as the Hosea tranlsation has it, “steadfast love, not sacrifice.”
Well, first off: since the line from Hosea is a poetic parallel, we may understand that “burnt offering” explains or expands on “sacrifice” and “knowledge of God” explains or expands on “mercy/steadfast love”.
In Hebrew, the word “mercy” or “steadfast love” is chesed. In Jewish understanding, this is an action, not a feeling. “Steadfast love” doesn’t come anywhere close to this. One does mercy. How?
Look at the parallel - which Jesus is implicitly citing because he says “go and learn” what all this means.
The parallel with chesed is knowledge of God - in Hebrew, Da’at. This is not simply “head knowledge. This is not something you get by reading books. Da’at is the word used to say “Adam knew Eve”. This is that level of intimacy with God best paralleled with human sexual intimacy.
Got that? The parallel holds.
The meaning of “mercy” is found in “making love with God”.
Jesus “who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.”
Hear that verse and avoid using “blood sacrifice” there. The Wages of Sin is Death, says Paul elsewhere. But simply paying off a debt doesn’t fix the debtor. The problem that caused the debt to happen is still there.
We are not justified (according to this verse) by Jesus death and blood… that’s something that all humans pay “for our trespasses”. In raising Jesus to life again - one human among many - God has said something new. The blood sacrifice is not new: we all deal with it. But here’s something new: resurrection. Even the NRSV says “for our trespasses” but the Greek preposition, dia, means “through” or even “by means of”. We are all guilty of sending Jesus to death.
But God desires Mercy (love making with God) NOT sacrifice.
Jesus’ death is not a blood debt paid by God to himself (how barbarian!) - it’s what happens to all of us and it’s what we usually do when God sends us love: we kill the guy. But Jesus’ resurrection is something new - intimacy with God.
The parallel holds.
