Thoughts on the Old Testament

I'll dispense with the excuses for having been away for so long and just get to it, okay?

I started (again) the plan for reading through the Bible in one year. I really like it, though I give myself a lot of grace to not finish it in a year. I keep trying!
I love the Old Testament. Not like broccoli. I mean I really love it. I could read more than the assigned chapters if I just had more time. Even Leviticus (which I'm in the thick of right now). You see, I have to really sit in things a long time, let thoughts and stories and teachings soak in my brain and my heart. The New Testament is so chock full of big things, y'know? Every sentence sometimes is enough to set my mind reeling. It's so much for me to chew on in big chunks. But the Old Testament...I like those Israelites. They're me! 100%! So every story, every blunder, every idol-making moment is a picture of me. And every time God moves amongst them out of His sheer grace, I am reminded of what He does for me, did for me! So each lesson to them is for me, too, and I take them to heart. The physical reminders they needed sometimes I need, too. Of course, I'm not sacrificing lambs or doves up in here, but the sacrificial system ought to be in place in my heart. Does God get my best? Do I worship Him fully?
But here's what I really want to say: the Old Testament reveals God's attitude toward sin. Yes, it's in the N.T., too, but in the O.T. you really get that picture of a wrathful God and the supreme weight and depth of God's hatred and violent attacks on sin. And the punishment, the wages? Death. We read that in the N.T. and we know that it's a spiritual death. Deadly enough, I agree, however, that sin carries a difference when it sounds like, "Touch the mountain and you will die." and they did. so they did. As I read through Leviticus and the different purification and sacrificial requirements, I am awed at the standard that is required of everyday people to be in His presence, or even just to remain in His chosen community. I am brought to deeper reverence for a powerful, jealous, holy, magnificent God who is their only hope. I am grieved for my sin and the separation it causes from the God Almighty just as I am for the Israelites when their divided hearts give way again. I wonder if when they slaughtered that perfect, innocent lamb did they see the violence, feel the warmth of the blood, the morbidness of it being sprinkled and get the connection to what they deserved for God to do to them? Did they walk away stupefied that such an act which causes them no actual bodily harm could actually atone for their sin? Did they feel the weight of their sin removed but wonder how? How could this dumb animal take my sin? And did these ponderings make their hearts wish for another way, know that there had to be a better way? Did they sense the foreshadowing of the Perfect Lamb to come?
I need to know the grief of God over sin. I need to feel it's effects. I need to know how deep it is in my heart. The more I know it, sense it, the bigger the cross becomes. The stronger my dependence and love for my Savior grows.
Hallelujah, what a Savior!