The night before last a few of my friends invited me to accompany them to the local slaughter house… I'm always opened to new experiences like that so without thinking twice, I eagerly accepted their invitation.
It was about eleven thirty at night and we all got on our bikes to head twenty minutes out of town to take part in what was perhaps the most impacting experience for me ever since I started living here in San Jose...
Carrying some kitchen knives in our hands, I commented that this was probably like the most dangerous way possible to be riding our bikes but that it was kind of cool because I felt like we were part of some sort of dangerous gang or something. As usual, we all joked around as we rode along, and the boys all told me about how delicious their moms could cook up some of this meat that we were about to scavenge at the slaughter house...
Us three older guys were carrying the knives while the three younger guys were riding around in circles popping all their favorite wheelies and bike stunts, and we finally arrived to where we were headed.
My five friends threw down their bikes and ran past the opened gate to about four or five barrels of cow horns, legs, ears, intestines, livers etc... the worst was a little off to the side were a few cow fetus' that were also lying there in the blood free for the taking. It was a crude site and I started to feel nauseous at the revolting smell of it.
But we weren't alone. Along with us were about fifteen to twenty other people quickly digging through these barrels as well...One of the butchers told us to hurry along because I guess the supervisor didn't like it that the workers would give out the left overs like this for free, but this was food for these people, and none of it was to be wasted.
As one of my closest friends grabbed the largest of the fetus', I looked along as he kneeled down and awkwardly cut off the fetus' head and the blood spilled out and mixed with a puddle of water there on the platform.
At that moment it all started to come to me. The blood mixing with the water, the crude smell of death, the people scavenging the meat, the open gate...
A slaughter house is perhaps the closest illustration we have today to remind us of Golgotha.
Hebrews 13 tells us, "And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. (v.12)" Slaughter houses are located outside of cities because people don't want to have to be reminded of the death that occurs there. And Jesus was also crucified outside of the city gate, but the encouragement is to go to Him there. Outside the camp, and bear the disgrace He bore (v.13).
I asked my friends how often they would come to the slaughter house and they said they might do it once every month, but they said there were people that would go every day. They would live off the clippings and they would rush to be the first ones there.
Have we tamed our Savior's sacrifice? Do we truly see Him as The Lamb that was led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7)? Or have we become so accustomed to nicely packaged meat that we forget the gruesome death He bore? Some of these people from San Jose pass through the slaughter house gate every day to get their sustenance. Do we pass through the gate of Golgotha every day to sustain our weary hearts?
Jesus' dying request was that we would remember Him in such a way. We have the bread and the cup to bring to memory this sacrifice, let's not so seldom or so lightly take part in it.
