Leviticus: Ebb and Flow

Leprosy! I just gave a lecture on this subject this morning. It is the central theme for the book of Leviticus. In chapters 1 through 9, there is beautiful structure, repeated themes, and a beautiful entrance of God's presence before His people. There is an intricate blueprint, highlighting the themes of unintentional sin, guilt, and forgiveness in chapters 1 through 4. Then in chapters 5 though 8, there are two repeated themes of the fire of sanctification and keeping God's commandments, which brings God's presence, the shouting of praise, and worship . THEN, in chapter 9 we have the deliberate disobedience of God's commands, which brings death, silence, and fear. This is sooo important—in chapters 1-8 you have beautiful symmetry, form and function. But after deliberate disobedience, not only does death, silence and fear enter, but chapter 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 talk about a woman's purification, Leprosy, other skin diseases, and bodily discharge! I call this the—are you ready?—the period of the Puss of Life. It is a state in which there is no symmetry, no meaning, no joy—total disruption to the ebb and flow of life. In fact in these chapters, which occur after the intentional sin by refusing to follow God's commands, the repetition of repeated themes and words is completely absent in the text. Life is now out of kilter. But God doesn't leave us there, though it was caused by our own deliberate sin…chapter 16 is the chapter on Atonement by approaching God through his prescribe commandment. Now reconciled, the text once again comes alive with the repeated theme of "I am the LORD God who sanctifies you" which leads to the last theme of REST.  The theme "I am the Lord God who Sanctifies" appears about 30 times from chapter 17 to the end of the book.  I take this to mean that we can't find rest/peace unless we live life God's way and allow him to do the sanctifying work in our lives…we can't do it ourselves…so what will it be? Symmetry or Leprosy?!