Ritual After Childbirth

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together.
And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you this morning. Today we are at Leviticus chapter 12. We're going to continue to look at the ritual purity laws of the Old Testament. And today it's about what happens when a lady gives birth to a child. So let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray.
Father, You are an amazing God. And we thank You that in Your wisdom, You have spoken to us in words that we can understand. And we pray, Lord, that You would please help us now to understand those words, not just Historically true, accurate words on a page, though they are objectively true, for they come from You. But we also pray that we would understand them, and that You would give us spiritual eyes and hearts to see, perceive, and apply them into our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, so we are at Leviticus 12. Let's go ahead and jump into the text now. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, If a woman has conceived and born a male child, then she shall be clean for seven days, as in the days of her customary impurity she shall be unclean.
And on the eighth day, the flesh of the foreskin shall be circumcised. She shall then continue in the blood of her purification thirty-three days. She shall not touch any hallowed thing nor come into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are filled." So, she has a boy and she's got forty days. 7 days of impurity, on the 8th day the boy is circumcised according to Genesis chapter 17, 10 and 12, and then for another 33 days she has almost this state of purification, where she's not supposed to touch anything holy. She's not necessarily unclean, she's able to be around her family and stuff like that, but she's not allowed to touch the holy things. So she's got 40 days. Now if she has a girl though, verse 5, but if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks. And in her customary impurity, she shall continue in the blood of her purification for 66 days. So for a total of 80 days, she's unclean for two weeks and then she has 66 more days of purification. So for 80 total days.
Some people have talked about why, right? One is the blood involved in childbirth, right? We've had four children, there's lots of blood, there's lots that goes on, and God says, okay, well that's unclean, right? It's not necessarily meaning sinful. It's just impure, unclean. But I also think in God's great wisdom, I remember talking to my wife about this one time, I was reading an archaeological article one time, and they found where they think that there's basically menstruation rooms in some ancient Israelite houses.
So when a woman either had a child and was unclean or had childbirth and was unclean, she had to be secluded by herself for that time of her impurity. And I remember Olivia saying, oh, that'd be nice. Like, you know, if I have a baby for a whole week, nobody's allowed to come in. I shoot one or two weeks all by myself, just me and the baby. I just get to care for the child. Other people have to make the food, bring it to me because I'm allowed to touch things or else it gets unclean. I think this is almost like a sense of maternity leave as well. I can't push that too hard, but I think that's possibly what God is doing here. But anyways, verse 6 and following.
When the days of her purification are fulfilled, whether for a son or a daughter, she shall bring to the priests a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering. and a young pigeon or a turtle dove as a sin offering to the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her, and she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is a law for her who has born a male or a female. And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtle doves or two young pigeons, one as a burnt offering, the other as a sin offering, so the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be. clean. So she's got two different sacrifices to make once her days of impurity are over. And those two different are a lamb and a pigeon or a turtle dove, one as a burnt offering. We need to know what a burnt offering was, which is why we had chapters 1 through 7.
But then also a sin offering. But this is one of the reasons why I've go back and forth whether this is a sin offering or a purification offering, because this is the end of her period of purification. And having childbirth isn't a sin, but didn't make the woman impure. And so, she has to have an offering for that.
Now interestingly, this is, God wants this for all the people, and so if somebody is so poor that they can't afford a lamb, and their gradient steps down in poverty, to pay for this. And so all the way down to two turtle doves. Now if we look over interestingly at Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2 we read about the story of our own Savior.
After Mary had had Jesus, 21, and when the eight days were completed for the circumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. So she follows those seven days, and then he's circumcised, given the name that the angel had told Joseph, so he's named Jesus. Now verse 22, now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, now it's been another 33 days, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as it is written in the law of the Lord.
Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. So you see they follow the period of purification. And then they also follow that Jesus is the firstborn of Mary. And so He belongs to the Lord. And so they have to go and redeem. So Mary and Joseph have a couple sacrifices they need to make. The burnt offering, the purification offering, and the redemption offering. and to offer sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord. Here is where our text comes in. A pair of turtle doves were two young pigeons.
Mary and Joseph were so poor that they had to get the lowest level of offering. They couldn't afford the ram. They couldn't afford the lamb. They had to bring the lowest level. They had to bring turtle doves. That is the humiliation in which Jesus was born. Into poverty. He was not born amongst the rich and powerful, but to commoners. To people who were in the lowest tax bracket. But all of this was to fulfill the righteousness of God.
It's this beautiful picture of clean and unclean, God calling holy. caring for mothers, and even into the birth of our own Savior, Jesus Christ. God's law is law for good. I don't think that these laws apply to us anymore, although I would say it's a good idea to give moms a break. I think giving moms 40 to 80 days to rest after going through some of the most traumatic and blood loss scenarios, all I gotta say is I'm glad I'm not a woman, Give them two to three months off. Let them recover. It's a godly thing. It's a good principle. But I think this points us also to Jesus Christ and the beautiful plan that God had, even amongst poor Jewish people, that this is what the Lord's plan and how he was going to bring about redemption for the world.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you are the one who gives life and you are the one who loves your people. Lord, we pray that you would please care for us. We pray specifically for those who are pregnant, nursing mothers, those who have are going through this period of time in their lives, Lord, we pray that you would care for them. Watch over them, watch over the children in their womb, watch over the newborns who are born to them. Lord, we pray that you would please bless them and care for them. Father, we pray that you would please continue to remember your covenant faithfulness. and that you would let us look to Jesus Christ, the one who was born of the Virgin Mary, who opened her womb, who was circumcised on the eighth day, a true Jew of Jews and has become the Savior of the world. Lord, we thank you. Thank you for our redemption in him. In Jesus's name, amen. Well, may the God who created the law and fulfilled the law Fill your heart with joy in Jesus Christ. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.