Why did God alienate disabled persons in the Old Testament?

It's a really good question today from a listener named Gina.

Hello, Pastor John.

I'm reading through Leviticus in my Bible reading, and one thing that is confused me is

why God would not allow people with physical defects to approach the altar, specifically

in Leviticus 21, 16 to 21.

The tone changes drastically in the gospels.

There Jesus welcomes the blind, the lame, and the disease right into his own very presence.

So why would God in the Old Testament not allow them near the altar?

Seems sad to me.

Those people would have certainly felt even worse for it and likely experienced heightened

social alienation, too.

I'm thankful for the New Testament because there are so many of us with physical defects,

so why the discontinuity to what purpose?

Good, good, good, good question.

It is.

Leviticus 21, 16 to 24, deals with whether priests, it's about priests, but her question

is still really valid.

Whether priests who have physical disabilities or deformities can enter the holy place to

do the work of a priest, and I think Gina is probably right that in reality when priests

with facial defects or crushed genitals or injured feet or a hunchback or scabby skin

were forbidden from parts of the priestly service, not all of them, but some of them.

...