The Significance of the Sacrifice
1 Corinthians 11:23-32
November 16, 2008
This morning we are going to talk about everyone’s favorite topic: blood. How precious is the flow? I was reminded of a story.
A man let his dog out one night to do his business and went back to his football game and forgot about the dog. After a few hours, he remembered and rushed out back to find his dog on the back porch with his neighbor’s dead cat in his mouth. The cat was covered in mud and blood and the dog was as proud as he could be.
“Bad dog! BAD DOG!” screamed the man shocked that his dog would kill his neighbor’s cat. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his neighbor. So he took the dead cat into the bathroom and washed it four times finally getting all the blood and dirt of its fur. It took forever. He brushed it and took the hand dryer to it, fluffing out its fur. He puts its collar back on and by now it was about 2 in the morning. He snuck over to his neighbor and put the cat on the front porch.
The next day, he went outside curious but nervous to see if he had gotten away with it. He went around the yard pretending to clean up. His neighbor came and they waved to each other and met near the property line to talk.
“How’s it going?” he asked his neighbor.
“Well, okay but something weird happened last night.”
Now he was getting a little nervous. Maybe he had been caught.
“What happened?”
“Well, my cat died yesterday and we buried him but this morning I found him on the front porch.”
This morning as we talk about blood and specifically the blood of the new covenant, I want to focus on one idea before worship through the communion elements. And this idea is kind of a test for us. It is a concept to reflect on. It is something to meditate on. It is something to hold up to our lives to act as measuring stick. As we heard from earlier in 1 Corinthians, it is a way of testing ourselves. And it uses the blood or sacrifice of Christ to do so. It is a blood test.
Now when think about blood, we know that there are different types of blood. They all function in the same way. They take oxygen and nutrients and remove carbon dioxide and other toxins from the body. When the blood is not working right and the organs such as the liver and lungs are not working right with the blood, it causes major sickness and even death. Blood is life for us. The ancients understood this as well. Blood was the source of life to them.
When we test blood, we can identify many things about a person. We find diseases and infections and we can find problems that are happening elsewhere in the body.
For us, this is a spiritual blood test. And it is about introspection. It is about looking at our lives and thinking about first of all the significance of Christ’s sacrifice for us and then seeking out with the help of God’s Spirit what areas may need changed or corrected.
So the main idea here and this was really derived through out small group:
The Significance of the Sacrifice
Since there is only one idea, I didn’t bother with sermon notes. The idea is to first begin to grasped the significance of Jesus was doing during the Last Supper and then what he did on the cross.
As I mentioned, ancients held the belief that blood was significant. It was powerful. The Hebrews would hold animal sacrifices. The blood would be used to symbolically cover up the sin of the people. Hebrews 9:22 says that forgiveness does not come without the shedding of blood. The Hebrews had to every year kill a goat and sprinkle blood over everyone. They believed that this was powerful and significant.
The priest would take some hyssop and fling blood over everyone just like this. [Take a branch and go around flinging water on people after dipping in a bowl]. Pretty disgusting, for us, huh? But not for them. This was exciting and good. They probably would have pushed their way to be at the front. “Sprinkle me!” They might have camped out to be first in line just like people do when we worship on the altar of consumerism on Black Friday. Maybe we really haven’t changed too much. Maybe we really aren’t that much more sophisticated.
In fact, pagan rituals often drank the blood of animals that were sacrificed because they superstitiously believed that the life force became a part of them. It could extend their own life. Conquering leaders sometimes drank the blood of the defeated kings because they believed that their power and life would literally become their own.
Hebrews believed in the power of blood when making covenants. A covenant as seen with Abram literally means the way of the blood. It signifies the agreement that if either party breaks the conditions then each one expects their blood to be poured out as payment. It was messy. It was gory.
And here is Jesus telling us in this context that his blood would form the basis of a new covenant. His blood would be shed not because he broke the covenant and because of his sin but because of ours. Therefore Paul emphasizes so much for Gentile believers at Corinth that this act of worship is extremely significant and should never be entered into lightly. We are pledging ourselves. In Hebrews 10:26-29, we learn that continuing to sin knowing that we are sinning and not wanting to correct it is like trampling the Son of God and literally points us toward the trampling of the blood of Christ into the ground.
So, Paul and Jesus ask us, “Where are you at?” How have you been living? What are your priorities? Are they really in line with God? Do you love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and strength? Have you loved your neighbor as yourself? Is love been not only the first and foremost but has it been the only motivation for your words and your deeds? Have you been living a life of love and service to others?
“Not perfectly,” we may say. At least we should say. That is why Jesus died. He died so we don’t have to be stuck in this muck and mire. He died so that we could live in the freedom of forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves. Forgiving others. Being forgiven. Nothing else could do this. Nothing else was good enough. Only Jesus. Nothing but the blood. Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Nothing but the blood of who? Jesus.
Before we partake of the elements. Before we reflect on the significance of the sacrifice. I want to share a story. It is a parable of love. It is a parable of life. It is a parable of how Jesus makes a difference in how we life our lives. It is about how the blood transforms us as well as guides us and directs us.
Several years ago I worked during the summer as a chaplain in a large hospital in Dayton. Part of my responsibilities was to be “on call” every other weekend for a 24 hour period. We had to remain at the hospital but be available if and when a need arose for a chaplain. Many times the need was because of an incoming trauma case.
They provided a bed and a place to sleep. Sometimes you were able to get some sleep while others you might be up all night. One morning about two, I received a page about an incoming trauma. I got up and went to the ER and got briefed on the case. A young man in his early thirties was found unconscious in a stairway. He was in bad shape and the family had been called. I was to be with the family and help them through the process.
An elderly couple arrived identifying themselves as the parents of the young man. I walked them through the admission process and helped them answer the fifty million questions gaining a little insight into what had led him to this point.
Eventually the young man was taken to ICU after the doctor informed them that things looked really grim. Drug and alcohol abuse combined with the lack of care physically basically wore down his body. His body was filled with infection and seemed to weak even with high potency meds to fight it off. Plus being extremely sick and under the influence, he had collapse in a stairwell hitting his head. While the head trauma was not necessarily severe in his weakened condition, it put him in dire straits.
I sat and talked with this couple. He was their adopted son. They adopted him when he was a baby. They talked about his childhood and the joy that he brought them and the love that he shared with others. He was a good kid with a bright future.
However, during his twentieth year, things changed. And they changed pretty quickly. His moods would radically shift. He came home under the influence of everything imaginable. His demeanor changed. They didn’t know who he was anymore. Finally he was hospitalized that year and they found out the diagnosis: bi-polar. It was explained that sometimes people show no signs but the bi-polar manifests itself in the twenties.
They talked for a few hours about the hell of the last ten years. Up and down. When he was on his meds, they had their son back. But inevitably, he would be doing so well that he would decide that he didn’t need his meds and within a few weeks the darkness would return. He would steal from them and he would disappear for days then weeks at a time.
Finally, a couple of years before this incident, they set a firm boundary. It was the hardest thing they had ever done but they physically, mentally, and emotionally couldn’t take it anymore. If he wouldn’t stay on his meds, then he could not live in their house. Eventually, he went off his meds. And they set him up with his own place paying the deposit and rent for several months.
He of course lost his apartment. They had to change the locks. They loved him and would allow him to visit as long as he was sober but they had to watch him like a hawk. Eventually he began to get in trouble with the law and they wouldn’t see him for months at a time. They hadn’t seen him for about four months before they got this phone call. They had been expecting something like this for weeks. Every time the phone rang, they wondered. They lived with a sense of fear and dreadful anticipation.
Their son never did regain consciousness. They decided to remove life support. It was hard to watch them. It was hard on them. But they expressed their gratitude to me and the hospital for the support. They expressed that even though it was difficult, they felt a sense of relief. The nightmare was over. They could try and move on. They couldn’t finally grieve and mourn wholly because while they knew that they had lost their son years ago, he still wasn’t gone. His pain and torment was too real and painful. They felt as if they died everyday knowing the pain that he was inflicting on himself.
Even though they knew the choices that he made were not God-honoring they still held out hope that maybe in some way, grace had reached him at the end. Maybe in some way, Jesus had been there. They knew that it didn’t seem likely but they also knew that the blood of Christ is such an immense mystery and awesome power that they didn’t want to limit God. Maybe the lessons that he learned as a child and the stories of the mercy of Jesus and love of Jesus that they tried to share with him was not all done in vain. He wasn’t their flesh and blood. But he was their son. He had been adopted. But then again so haven’t we.
