Why We Raise So Many Animals: Part 3
Here’s something that is getting lost in today’s "Wal-Mart-World": the connection between the animal and the mouth. Let me clarify this. Ask any 3-year-old where his food comes from. Does milk come from a cow (or goat!), or does it come already jugged from the refrigerator case at the grocery store? Are chicken legs an actual chicken’s legs, or do they just come vacuum packed from the meat case? How do this milk and these chicken legs get from the animals to our mouths? In the case of meat, an animal must be slaughtered.
I know that seems like common sense, but the way we buy our meat nowadays - is this a connection that we make every time we pick up a package of meat at the store? Blood has literally been shed so that we could eat our dinner. Gross, but it is reality. Blood shed so that we can be sustained….I suspect that this physical aspect of our lives has a spiritual application. I think that when we get so far removed from the origins of our food, it is a sort of sanitizing that bit by bit removes our empathy from the reality of the cross.
I realize that sounds a little extreme, but consider this: what was the purpose in God giving us meat to eat? After the flood, God was preparing to establish His covenant with Noah to never flood the earth again. God said
I’m not saying that we should preside over each and every butchering for every bite of meat we ever eat, but what I am saying is this: there is value in being closer to the point of food production than the sanitized, blood-free supermarket.
Next time I will talk about the benefits for children when their family raises livestock.
I know that seems like common sense, but the way we buy our meat nowadays - is this a connection that we make every time we pick up a package of meat at the store? Blood has literally been shed so that we could eat our dinner. Gross, but it is reality. Blood shed so that we can be sustained….I suspect that this physical aspect of our lives has a spiritual application. I think that when we get so far removed from the origins of our food, it is a sort of sanitizing that bit by bit removes our empathy from the reality of the cross.
I realize that sounds a little extreme, but consider this: what was the purpose in God giving us meat to eat? After the flood, God was preparing to establish His covenant with Noah to never flood the earth again. God said
“Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.“ (Genesis 9:3-4)So the blood had to be completely drained from the animal before it was consumed. My thoughts are that perhaps God gave us meat to eat as a metaphor for the life sustaining power of Jesus’ blood, shed so that we might live. I don’t know if this “theory” of mine can be proven through scripture, but doesn’t it sound like something God would do?
I’m not saying that we should preside over each and every butchering for every bite of meat we ever eat, but what I am saying is this: there is value in being closer to the point of food production than the sanitized, blood-free supermarket.
Next time I will talk about the benefits for children when their family raises livestock.
1 Comments:
That's a really interesting point. My family raised beef cattle, and I can definitely see how seeing those carcases hanging in the pasture every year gave me a different perspective on life, death and redemption than most modern people.
Nonetheless, I don't see us raising animals anytime soon--for one thing, I doubt our new neighborhood will allow it. But perhaps we can make a point of going to see how it's done from time to time.
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