Repetition

I have the privilege of serving in our church’s nursery.
What a blessing to take care of the children.
I am usually there during the first hour, when everyone else is in Sunday school.
There are always two people with the babies and two people with the “walkers”.

A new little boy was with us.
His family has just starting coming to our church.
He was so pleasant.
He had no problem transitioning; no problem with his parents leaving him with us.

He was joyful, curious, independent, and content.
He seemed to want to be near me.
That was fine with me.

He is walking, scooting around, pulling himself up on things.
He pushed a small wooden chair towards me and played peek-a-boo through the slats.
On a whim, I moved my hands across the chair…my nails clicking against the wood seat.
He loved it!

My fingers crept towards him…then back…then forward.
Finally, they found his chin, or his arm, or his knee.
He smiled and watched intently as my fingers “walked” towards him.
When I stopped, he reached through the back of the chair and pulled my hand to him.

Repetition.

I must have done my finger walking for at least fifteen minutes.
He never tired of it.
It was as exciting to him the last time as it was the first time.

Such a simple pleasure.

When my children were little, they always had a favorite book, or game.
Again, Mommy! Again!
By the umpteenth time I played the game or read the book, I silently groaned a bit inside.

Once I saw those big eyes, asking me to do it again, I couldn’t say no.

We had a potty training book called Once Upon A Potty.
Not a Newberry award winner, but helpful just the same.
For those times when waiting is part of potty training, we would read books.

I silently cringed when I was asked to read about Prudence and her potty.
There was literally a page that said, Prudence sat and sat and sat and…
Seemingly, ad infinitum.

I thought I was so clever and purposely read only some of the words “sat”.
My children caught on.
No, Mommy…sat, sat, sat…they would say pointing to the page.

Repetition.
It was as if they mentally counted the number of “sat’s” on the page.

Repetition is a good thing when it comes to math facts or rehearsing for a play.
Repetition is so important to Scripture memorization.

Repetition was part of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament.
The old covenant pointed towards the new.

By calling this covenant “new”, He has made the first one obsolete and what is obsolete will soon disappear. (Hebrews 8:13)

Jesus…the New and Living Way!

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
(Hebrews 10:1-4)

God implemented the sacrificial system to point to Something more.
The law made the person aware of their sin, but the law never took the sin away.
Over and over, a lamb, bull, or goat was offered as a sacrifice for their sins.
The blood of those animals never cleansed the sinner; it never removed their sin.

Repetition was necessary in the old covenant because the sacrifice was never final.
No sacrifice covered sin completely…perfectly.
Until…Jesus, the High Priest offered Himself as the Lamb of God.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this Priest had offered for a time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool, because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10:11-14)

Repetition is no longer necessary!
There is assurance.
There is forgiveness of sins.
Once and done!

There were no seats in the Tabernacle.
The Jewish high priest never finished his priestly duties.
He never sat down.

For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; He entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did He enter heaven to offer Himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Hebrews 9:24-26)

Jesus, our great High Priest, sat down.
It is finished…was His cry.

No repetition.
No need.