“Slaughterhouse Religion.”

That’s what my grandmother called the Old Testament sacrificial system.

Grandma Matthes came out of mainline Methodism. She loved Jesus and, later in life, came to a fuller assurance of her salvation. But whenever she tried to read through the Bible, she would get bogged down in Leviticus. She’d arrive at the detailed description of the Old Testament sacrificial system— and that was as far as she could go. It was just too upsetting for her.

Grandma had a tender heart. She hated suffering of any kind. She ate meat, yes, but she had no desire to think about how it moved from pasture to plate. A bloodless, sanitized, shrink-wrapped, neatly labeled package in the refrigerated section of her local supermarket was as deep as she cared to go.  The sacrificial system was a definite ‘no go’.

And after several days of listening to Divine prescriptions for sacrifice, I have to admit — I see her point.

As many of you know, our church family is listening through the Bible chronologically in 2026. Instead of hopping from favorite passage to favorite passage, we’re walking straight through the storyline of Scripture — looking for Jesus and letting it shape us, confront us, and surprise us.

But the last week has been REALLY challenging and there’s some more to come.

Sin offerings. Fellowship offerings. Burnt offerings. Bulls, goats, sheep, pigeons, doves.
Blood poured here. Blood sprinkled there. Fat removed. Kidneys offered. Necks wrung. The large lobe of the liver…

To my modern ears, it feels shocking. Brutal. Even callous.

And that’s coming from someone who grew up on a small farmette, has plucked chickens, and every fall harvests, skins, and processes my own deer. Still, the system feels overwhelming. What are we to make of a religious system that seems built around ritualized slaughter?

Before we stand in judgment of what God required of His Old Covenant people, it may be wise to take a long, honest look at ourselves.

Last year in the United States, roughly:

• 9.3 billion chickens
• 33.6 million cattle
• 129.9 million hogs

were processed — which is a sanitized way of saying slaughtered.

Each one died by a process that’s no less real, no less costly, and no less bloody than the one found in Leviticus so that our nation can feed itself (and the world).

When I was in seminary, I worked second shift sanitation at Hatfield Quality Meats. I can assure you — there’s no bloodless path to delicious sausage, bacon, or pulled pork. We just prefer not to see it. We’ve outsourced the sights, sounds, and smells to distant processing plants so that our consciences — and our appetites — remain undisturbed.

In 2025, the average American consumed about 226 pounds of meat per year.

By contrast, archaeologists tell us the average Israelite diet consisted mainly of grains, legumes, olives, figs, dates, and dairy. Meat was a luxury. A feast food. Most scholarly estimates place annual meat consumption somewhere around 10–20 pounds per person per year — perhaps even less among the rural poor.

In other words, we consume more meat in a single month than many Israelites did in an entire year.  Stated another way, we eat 10 – 20 x more meat than Moses did.

We are not less bloody. We are simply less aware.

But the sacrificial system itself was not constant carnage. Only about 20% of the offerings were completely burned up (the burnt offerings). The remaining majority had portions burned on the altar while the rest was eaten — often in communal, celebratory covenant meals. The system combined sacrifice and celebration, atonement and fellowship.

But we must be clear: the purpose of the sacrificial system was not food production.

It was reconciliation.

The repeated shedding of blood was meant to teach us something unforgettable… that “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)

When humanity chose self-will and rebellion- death followed. The sacrificial system brought that reality into plain view. It refused to let sin feel light or theoretical. Every animal, every altar, every daily ritual was a sober reminder: sin costs.

And perhaps that is what unsettles us most.

We prefer our sin abstract.
We’d like its consequences hidden.
We’d rather minimize our guilt and whitewash or dismiss the cost.

Leviticus refuses us that comfort.

But here’s where the story turns from slaughterhouse to salvation. John the Baptist saw Jesus coming and declared,

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

All those lambs. All that blood. All those repeated sacrifices. They were shadows. Hebrews tells us:

“[Jesus] entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” (Hebrews 9:12)

And again:

“We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10)

And again:

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.  But when this priest [Jesus] offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. (Hebrews 10:11-12)

The Old Testament system was never the final solution. It was a tutor. A signpost. A temporary accommodation pointing forward to the ultimate provision of God Himself. The shock of Leviticus is meant to prepare our hearts for the wonder of Calvary.

If the sacrificial system feels heavy, it is because sin is heavy and grace is costly.

But here’s the pastoral comfort in all of this: You do not live under a slaughterhouse religion. You live under a Savior who was willingly slaughtered for you.

The perfect Lamb has come. The sin debt has been paid. The blood has been shed — once for all.

So, when Leviticus feels overwhelming, don’t quit reading (or listening). Let it deepen your gratitude. Let it remind you what it took to bring you home. And then lift your eyes to the cross of Jesus — where mercy and justice met — and give thanks for the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.