The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. ~ Hebrews 13:11-16

Under the first covenant, the people of Israel encamped in a circle around the center of worship: the tabernacle. The Levite clans were to surround it as the first layer; each of four clans was assigned a compass point and a particular responsibility along with it (Numbers 3). Wherever the cloud signifying the Lord’s presence went or stayed, the entire camp followed or remained (Numbers 9:15-23). Sin had no place in that camp. Offerings for sin were to be released or burned and discarded outside it (Leviticus 16:1, Exodus 29:14, Leviticus 4:21, 16:27, et al). The bodies of Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu were taken outside of the camp, away from the sanctuary (Leviticus 10:4). Even sickness and temporary uncleanness and Gentiles were to be outside the camp (you can look all these up; they’re too numerous to list).

No sacrifice for sin was to be made outside the camp, and the penalty was excommunication from Israel (Leviticus 17:3-7). And no one outside the priest’s family could consume what remained of the sacrifice on the altar at the sacred center of the camp (10:31).

But the writer of the letter to Christians (and seekers) among the people of Israel said that all that had changed.

Worship is now acceptable outside the camp; outside the city walls, where the sacrifice of Jesus had taken place. All are welcome to participate in that sacrifice – and not only by consuming Him, but also by being consumed with confessing His name and doing good, and sharing with others.

That is what Jesus taught before He died and that is what His followers taught after He was raised and returned to the throne to serve as intercessory high priest before God.

And that, my good friends, is pure innovation.

Nothing in the law spells that out as acceptable by God’s commands to and through Moses. Poets and prophets would warn that He desired mercy above sacrifices (Psalm 51:17, Amos 5:21-24, Hosea 6:6). Jesus would teach it (Matthew 9:13; 12:7) and personify it in both His life and His death – and His followers would say that we should imitate it. Paul would cast it as our worship (Romans 12:1); Peter would describe it as our priesthood (1 Peter 2:5).

But it was not the law of the wall and the camp.

Yet we continue to gather inside the walls of our so-called holy places one hour of one day each week – our expensive automobiles encircling the sanctuary like encamped Israelites – and seem to think that the first covenant is somehow still in place; that all of our worship for that week takes place at that time and that enclosure. We sacrifice our 2.5% (according to the Barna Group), sing a few songs, consume a bit of bread and a sip of juice, pray a moment, hear a tidbit of hope or reprimand, spend our 0.59% of the hours in that week glorifying God and we’re done. We’re good. We’re graced.

While, outside the walls, sin reigns. People are unclean there. They are the dis-graced. They are sick; they are poor; they hurt; they hurt others and cheat others and kill each other; they lie and covet and steal and worship self … not really that much unlike the people who gather within:

Us.

In our supposed conformity to command, haven’t we taken a turn back in the wrong direction? Back to law, back to inside-ism, back to priest-ism and clan-ism and time-ism and place-ism?

Should we not return to practicing the innovation bought by blood, paid in full, offered for free and open to all: any place, any time, anyone?

Shouldn’t we worship outside the camp, sharing His disgrace with the dis-graced, and bringing His grace through doing good and sharing what we have?

Would that not please God as much or more than all of the worship we could muster inside the sanctuary?

The Passover meal was celebrated by Israel at twilight, in haste, on the fourteenth day of their first month each year, by command of God. The commandments and specifications regarding it were numerous, and always tied to the story of God saving Israel with a mighty hand from captivity in Egypt. The penalty for disobedience was strict: to be cut off – excommunicated – from the people of Israel.

The only exception that God made was a time when the nation re-instituted the practice on the fourteenth day of the second month after many years of not observing it at all (2 Chronicles 30).

No stranger to the commanded custom of Passover, Jesus told his closest followers that He had looked forward to celebrating it with them in Jerusalem that final time.

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. ~ Luke 22:14-20

No one in Israel’s history before was ever recorded as identifying the matzoh with a body, let alone his own. No one was quoted as identifying the blood of the grape as human blood, certainly not his own. The hint of cannibalism would have taken the Israelite of century one back to days when Samaria and later, Jerusalem, had been under siege and about which a song of lament asked, “Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have cared for?” That abomination had been prophesied early on by God Himself (Leviticus 26:29).

Jesus was also no stranger to their disgust at the notion; He had encountered it while teaching in Capernaum (John 6:43-66).

Nothing in the law permitted anyone to speak in such a way about the Passover as He did at the table, nor to turn it in any direction away from that moment of God’s salvation from slavery in Egypt.

But Jesus had a greater salvation to achieve for all people and all time – not just Israel of 2,500 years before – and He had in mind this meal as the way His followers would remember it.*

So He innovated.

I don’t know what else you can really call it, but “innovation.” We can look back on it and say that Passover and the Lord’s Supper were type and fulfillment; but that is the advantage that hundreds of years of history gives us. For the people around the table in the upper room, it was innovation: taking something familiar and putting it to a use it had never had before; it was the act of starting something for the first time; it was a change in customs and contrary to established customs, manners, or rites.

And those who followed Jesus adopted it as a new part of their culture. They recognized His authority as the Son of God to institute it.

But how often did they observe it?

If they followed the 2,500-year-old pattern of Israel, they would have celebrated it one time a year, on the fourteenth day of the first month.

If the term “broke bread” has the same significance in Acts 2:42-47 as it does later in Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 10:16, they did so frequently; perhaps as often as daily, or at least weekly.

Do we have a record of how often Jesus instructed them to observe it?

The closest we can come is Paul’s recollection of the event – which was related to him either by man or God’s Spirit, since he was not present at it – and that is the phrase ” ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:25-26). The first “whenever” seems to be quoting Jesus. The second seems to be Paul’s reminder.

How often is “whenever”?

Obviously, the when of it is not nearly so important as the how of the Supper: in remembrance.

So, it would seem, at the table Jesus left to His followers the privilege of innovation as well – regarding the when of it. And perhaps sometimes it was daily, and sometimes it was weekly. (One can only assume weekly from Acts 20:7 from the fact that no mention was made of breaking bread at the Feast of Unleavened Bread – the Passover – twelve days before when the mission team was at Philippi.)

Most church fellowships would argue convictedly that Sunday – the first day of the week – is the only day authorized by scripture to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Some hold for weekly observance; others for annually or even semi-annually.

But I have to wonder, in view of two things:

• the early followers’ enthusiasm and the possibility that they may have celebrated it daily
• the implication even from the Old Testament (2 Chronicles 30) that the penitence of heart was more crucial than the date of the Passover

… I have to wonder if the how has always been more important than the when with regard to feasting in honor of God’s salvation among us.

And I have to wonder if we aren’t, in fact, expected to innovate in some matters of when we celebrate that communicate the grateful, penitent, anticipatory how of our hearts.

_{*Someday I hope to blog about why I believe the Bible is one testament, though two covenants.}

You won’t find anything about baptism commanded in the Old Covenant.

Yes, there is Numbers 19, much of which is devoted to the description of sprinkling with waters of cleansing in connection with sacrifice and the priest bathing after the sacrifice of the red heifer. There’s a description of the Sea or Laver in 2 Chronicles 4 in which the priests were to wash, and basins for the washing of the sacrifices. And I gladly concede that these could foreshadow baptism as we read of it in the New Testament – just as Peter saw the water which floated Noah’s ark as symbolic of it (1 Peter 3:20-22) and as Paul saw the parted Red Sea as its precursor (1 Corinthians 10:2).

You’ll even find Naaman performing a seven-fold dipping in order to be cleansed of leprosy (2 Kings 5), but it’s just not the same. Its origins are doubtless within Jewish tradition; connection with the Essene communities such as Qumran during the intertestamental period are possible.

In the New Testament, it appears first as a practice of John, Jesus’ cousin – to which He accedes, though He must persuade him (Matthew 3, Mark 1:9-12, Luke 3:1-22). As Jesus and His followers adopted the practice, John quelled any rivalry by supporting it (John 3:22-36). In fact, he had earlier testified that the reason he cam to baptize was to reveal Jesus as the Son of God to Israel (John 1:29-32). And whether the relationship between belief and baptism was cause-and-effect is debatable, but there undeniably was a relationship (Luke 7:29-30).

After Jesus had been crucified, restored to life, and was about to depart again to be with the Father, He instructed His followers to go, teach and baptize (Matthew 28:19) and attached a promise to belief and baptism (Mark 16:16); and Peter was faithful to preach it come Pentecost and a powerful inSpiration (Acts 2:38). As John the Baptizer had prophesied (John 1:33) and Jesus reminded them before returning to the Father (Acts 1:5), so Peter preached that baptism and the Holy Spirit would be linked as gift with gift: the complete giving of a person’s self to God; the complete giving of God’s Self to that person.

Baptism into Christ is present in every story of people giving themselves to God through Christ in the book of Acts of the Apostles (2:41; 8:12-13; 8:36-40; 9:18; 10:47-48; 16:15; 16:33; 18:8). It is contrasted with John’s baptism, with which the gift of the Spirit did not seem to accrue (Acts 19:1-7). In seven letters to churches in the New Testament, it is taught and preached and exemplified and enriched as the way in which God has chosen to connect us with a new life (Romans 6:4), a washed-clean life (1 Peter 3:21; Acts 22:16), a life of modeling His Son (Galatians 3:27), a life that does not end (Colossians 2:12).

None of this is commanded, exemplified, necessarily inferred, nor even directly prophesied from the text of the Old Covenant. Baptism may have been adapted from obscure Jewish tradition, but it does not immediately descend from practices God requires in His Law. And baptism into Christ – into His death, burial and resurrection – comes with gifts that do not come with the baptism of anticipatory repentance practiced by John. Jesus’ disciples instituted the practice, but at His command and description (Matthew 28:16-20).

Jesus asked His followers to observe an entirely new way for people to give glory to God in gratitude for the sacrifice of His Son, by demonstrating their faith in His death, burial and resurrection in a very tangible way, and by putting into practice a life of worship beginning with this washing of body and soul; this filling of joy and purpose and Spirit.

In short, Jesus innovated.

The law said:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.” ~ Exodus 20:8-10

” ‘Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.’ ” ~ Exodus 31:14

There’s no equivocation there. No loopholes. This is one of the Ten Commandments, not just one of the other 603. Observe the Sabbath, or be cut off from your people. Desecrate it, and die.

Jesus said:

“Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,‘ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” ~ Matthew 12:3-8

“I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” ~ Luke 6:9

There’s no equivocation here. Jesus and his followers broke the Sabbath law. They picked grain and ate it on the Sabbath. Jesus healed a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath – right in the synagogue where He was teaching! He deserved to die; to be “cut off from [his] people.” So he was. Just like Isaiah and Daniel predicted.

Yet He said He was innocent.

Don’t loophole on me. I already know that it was Jesus’ disciples who picked the grain and ate it to satisfy their hunger – Matthew, Mark and Luke are quite clear about it. They don’t say that He did it. His sin would have been, to the ever-watchful eyes of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, in failing to correct them. Rabbinical tradition was quite clear about that. And the sin was not in picking the grain at the edges of the field; that was perfectly permissible (Leviticus 19:9; 23:22). The sin was in doing it on the holy Sabbath.

I also know that Jesus was probably the only person on the planet at that time who could have “sinned” by healing someone on the Sabbath. (In fact, that’s His point in response to His critics: He IS Lord of the Sabbath.) But just a couple or three chapters of Luke earlier, He had sent out his disciples by twos to heal people and cast out demons and preach repentance. He is serving as their example for future missions, remember. And nothing in His meticulous instructions to the twelve or the seventy(-two) forbids them from healing, casting or preaching on the Sabbath.

Think about it, now. Here are just two examples where Jesus permits doing something that the Law forbids doing. One permitted His followers to do something good for themselves – eat – and the other permitted good to be done for others – the sick, the lame, the demon-tortured. He was not restricted from doing good on a holy day and in a holy place just because others felt it was bad because it was on a holy day and in a holy place.

The law is dead silent on giving such permission.

Just as it was dead silent on relieving priests from the brutal, exhausting work of preparing sacrifices on the Sabbath; just as it was dead silent on giving David and those with him access to the showbread of the tabernacle. Still, David was not struck dead nor specifically punished for this act. He was the King. He was famished.

Mark even quotes Jesus as adding, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” ~ 2:27. And Luke twice quotes Him as pointing out that those around Him would have mercy on a thirsty ox (13:15) or on one which fell into a well on the Sabbath (14:5).

Jesus did not stick to the letter of the law, even before all was accomplished. He introduced unauthorized worship on the Sabbath: seeing to the needs of others. Showing mercy to them actively, rather than keeping a passive law whose intent was to inspire mercy and prevent overworking. He turned the “don’t” into a “do.”

In short, Jesus innovated.