Let's start this morning with this...
For the life of a creature is in the blood... Leviticus 17:11
because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood... Leviticus 17:14
But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat. Deuteronomy 12:23
Okay, let's get to a bit of today's reading:
22 He then presented the other ram, the ram for the ordination, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head. 23 Moses slaughtered the ram and took some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron’s right ear, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. 24 Moses also brought Aaron’s sons forward and put some of the blood on the lobes of their right ears, on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet. Then he splashed blood against the sides of the altar. Leviticus 8:22-24
So during these early days there were those who were set apart as priests, ordained by God to do his work. Aaron and his son's were to stand in the gap between death and life (see this example) all of which was represented in the blood. Standing regardless of the circustances, standing for life in every area. Everything they hear (blood on the earlobes) everything they touch (blood on the thumbs) and every place they go (blood on the big toes.)
Being a priest was a difficult bloody (life-y?) job. It was a job loaded with difficulty and wierdness but at the same time it was a task saturated in life, soaked in the very blood of sacrfice. A priest was to experince reality with all of its turmoil and pain while continuosly reflecting a life giving God. Blood represents both sides of the priestly tasks.
Tough gig, glad we have Jesus. Wait, do these stories inform our own Christian lives? I mean things arn't like that anymore right?
Who are the preists today?
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being builtinto a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10
Who does Peter the New Testament author mean here?
Keep reading.