In Oklahoma, someone saw this poster promoting a Red Cross blood drive:
"I gave my blood.
Christ gave his.
I give a pint.
He gave all.
The needle is small, sharp.
The nails were large, dull.
The table soft, restful.
The cross rough, painful.
The nurses kind, gentle.
The soldiers cruel, mean.
The crowd applauds my sacrifice.
"They that passed by reviled him."
Mine is for O Positive.
His for positively all.
Mine, at best, will prolong a Life FOR A WHILE.
His, without doubt, can save ALL forever."
Someone once observed that Bible is a bloody book.
In fact, another person commented,
“Cut the Bible anywhere and it will bleed.”
From the book of Genesis all the way through Revelation, blood is a major part of the picture. In Genesis 3, we find God making the FIRST sacrifice. when Adam and Eve sinned, God sacrificed an animal to provide skins to cover their nakedness.
And in the New Testament we’re told of the blood of Jesus the LAST sacrifice - offered by God to cover the nakedness of our sin.
Many of our old hymns talk lovingly of the blood of Jesus.
If you know them sing them with me:
“Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There is power in the Blood
Would you over evil a victory win?
There’s wonderful power in the Blood
There is power, power wonder working power
In the Blood of the Lamb
There is power, power wonder working power
In the precious Blood of the Lamb”
“What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus
Oh, precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow
No other fount I know.
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.”
(speak reflectively)
What can wash away my sin?
What can make me whole again?
What can make me white as snow?
No other fount I know.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What those hymns (and others like it) are declaring is that the story we’ve read in John 19 isn’t just about Jesus’ bleeding and suffering and death. Oh no. The story is about WHY Jesus suffered. WHY He bled. WHY He died.
And why did Jesus bleed and suffer, and die?
(OR US)
The Bible clearly teaches that without the blood of Jesus there is no forgiveness for our sins.
Ephesians 1:7 teaches that “In him we have redemption THROUGH HIS BLOOD, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
Revelation 1:5 declares: that Jesus “…loves us and has freed us from our sins BY HIS BLOOD.”
And 1 Peter 1:18-19 tells us “… it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST, a lamb without blemish or defect.”
(PAUSE) And where did Jesus shed His blood?
In His final 2 days - Jesus shed His blood several times.
• In the Garden of Gethsemane He prayed so hard about His upcoming crucifixion that He literally sweated drops blood.
• Then, in Pilate’s Hall after He’d been arrested and had gone through several trials, He was brought to Pilate for the final time. And Pilate had Jesus beaten with whips. Whips embedded with bits of glass and bone that bit into his skin and tore into his muscles. And His blood was shed.
• Then those same soldiers mocked Him, and placed a crown of long, sharp thorns upon His head and pushed it down until it drew blood.
• Later - at Calvary - the soldiers drove nails in His hands and drove another nail through His feet. And His blood was shed.
• And finally, when He died a Roman soldier pushed a spear into His side and blood “bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.”
Again and again and again, Jesus shed His blood for us.
And the Bible clearly teaches that this was all on purpose.
It had been PLANNED.
ILLUS: Several years ago, I received a series of emails from 3 separate atheists. They had visited our website and found my collection of illustrations there. They’re all categorized, and one of those categories is dedicated to Atheism. They didn’t like what they read there, so they challenged me to defend my position. Over the course of several weeks I engaged in a conversation with each of them and it was enlightening to discover what type of people they were.
The first atheist was an angry man. All his emails were entirely in capital letters – which in internet etiquette is very bad form. It’s the equivalent of shouting at a person. He’d send an email attacking the Bible or Jesus or the church and I’d send back an answer to his objections. But he never dealt with my answers. He simply moved on to another attack… and I’d send him answers to that email. Then he’d move on to another topic. He had no intention of engaging me in meaningful debate. He merely wanted to shout angrily at God. And because I knew that eventually his emails would anger me and cause me to respond in anger… I terminated the conversation.
The 2nd atheist said “Just because I’m an atheist doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God.” (Pause for a moment and think about that one). Of course, I responded that the very name atheist means “someone who doesn’t believe in God.”
He responded: “Well you only believe that because you’ve been influenced by the church’s redefinition of words.
So, I sent him an excerpt from Webster’s dictionary which essentially said: “An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in God.”
He responded that Webster’s definition was not correct because they’d been influenced by the church.
So I went to the Library and got ahold of an Oxford Dictionary (it’s the mother of all English Dictionaries) and quoted it to him: “An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in God.”
Again he responded that Oxford’s dictionary was influenced by the church.
At that point I remembered an illustration from my files that dealt with a conversation between Alice in Wonderland and Humpty Dumpty. In their conversation Humpty Dumpty made this observation about himself: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more or less.” So, being in something of mischievous mood, I copied that into my email reply to him and sent it off.
He was not amused. He replied “If you’re going to compare me to Humpty Dumpty, this conversation is over!” And so it was.
The 3rd atheist was the most intimidating. He was (by his statement) a college professor, and the founder of an internet website dedicated to atheism. We had this conversation for several weeks.
He would challenge me, and I would challenge him… back and forth. Over and over again, he would keep coming back at me with one question in one form or another: “Why do you believe what you believe.”
I was holding my own, but it was obvious neither of us was convincing the other. So he finally asked the question differently:
Why do YOU believe what you believe?
I’d never thought about it that way before, and it took a couple days of prayer and thinking before I knew how to answer him. And this was my reply:
ILLUS: Before I became a minister I attended a secular college for a couple of years. While I was there I took several classes I thought would help me when I went to Bible college, and some of those classes were in Philosophy.
Now Philosophy and Christianity are somewhat at odds. Christianity exalts Christ, Philosophy tends to exalt man. Thus, teachers of Philosophy tend to spend a fair amount of their time undermining the faith of their students whenever possible. In one class the professor said:
“Jesus didn’t die on the cross… and I can prove it!”
He then went on to set up his premise: “When a person dies,” he said, “their heart stops pumping and gravity takes over. If you were to die right now, seated at your desks, your blood would drain to the lowest part of your body – and settle somewhere around your waist. But the Bible says that when Jesus died, a Roman soldier pierced his side with a spear… and blood and water came out. Jesus was supposedly dead. He was nailed to a cross. And yet when He ‘died’ there was blood where there shouldn’t have been blood. That proves He hadn’t died.”
That shook me. I went back to my dorm and had a little talk with God. I said to Him “This sounds pretty convincing. If you can’t answer it, I’m gonna go sell insurance. I can’t justify spending my life preaching about a God I can’t defend against accusations like this one.”
Now, that was fairly rude of me. But God was gracious.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t go to a preacher, or to a campus minister to ask for them to explain this to me. I guess I just waited to see what God would do. And I didn’t have to wait very long.
About a month or so later, I was in another philosophy class. The class was over and a few students were gathered around the teacher’s desk. Wandering what they were talking about, I made my way into the group in time to hear the teacher say: “I just heard the most intriguing thing this last weekend. Do you remember where the Bible says that Jesus died on the cross?”
That peaked my interest.
He continued “Do you remember where it said that a Roman soldier pierced His side and blood and water came out”
Now, he really had my interest.
“There’s a condition known as cardiac tamponade. It happens when a person undergoes enough stress in their life that their heart literally bursts from the strain. When this happens, the blood from the heart mixes with the fluid in the sac that surrounds the heart known as the pericardium. That fluid looks a lot like water. So – if you were to pierce that sac after person died of cardiac tamponade, what you’d see come out would be ‘blood and water.’”
Now that made sense for a couple of reasons:
1) If I cut your arm, you’d bleed. But you wouldn’t bleed blood and water. Only blood.
2) The Bible says that when Jesus was on the cross… all of the sins of mankind were brought to bear on His body in that one place, in that one time. The only thing that held that body up under the strain was the power of Son of God. But when Jesus died, He didn’t die from the cross itself. Scripture says: “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.” Luke 23:46
Thus, when Jesus gave up control over His body, it was like a snapping a rubber band. All the sins of mankind bore down now on a body that was no longer held by His power, and it makes sense that its heart burst.
I went back and explained that to my original Philosophy professor, and he hemmed and hawed, but had no real comeback for that. I doubt that he’d ever heard anything like it before.
I was excited. This was great stuff!
So when I went to Bible College the next year, I was determined to share this gem of knowledge with the professors there. But… there’s a reason why Bible college professors are professors. They’ve heard most of this before.
So when I mentioned this discovery to one of my professors, he replied “Oh Jeff, it’s even better than that! When Jesus died on the cross, He was placed on the cross at 9:00 in the morning, and He died at 3:00 in the afternoon. At the Temple, the first sacrifice was made at 9:00 in the morning… and the last sacrifice was offered at 3:00 in the afternoon.
“Now, Passover was a major day of sacrifice. People were lined up around the block to offer their lambs and other sacrifices to God. With all that sacrificing, there was a lot of blood on the altar, the floors and the utensils. How do you think they removed all that blood?
“Well, they’d developed a technique where they would pump water up from underneath the Temple and they used this water to wash down the altar, the utensils and the floor. This liquid then was carried by trenches out beneath the city walls into the Kidron Valley (the Kidron Brook ran between the city of Jerusalem and the Garden of Gethsemane).
People that have visited the Holy Land tell me that the banks of the Kidron are still red from all the blood from the many sacrifices over the centuries. Farmers would go to the Kidron and collect mud from its banks to spread on their fields – it was a rich fertilizer for their crops.
“Now, if you’d been standing outside the walls of Jerusalem about 3:30 in the afternoon… what do you think you’d have seen coming out of those pipes? (Blood and water).”
Now, if I’d been God, there’d have been more than 21 chapters in the book of John. If I’d been God there’d have been at least another 10 chapters talking about all the applications of that one verse.
But John didn’t care. He didn’t care! His comment about seeing blood and water come out of the side of Jesus wasn’t all that important to him. All John wanted to prove was that there had been no need to break Jesus’ bones. Why? Because Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb. John knew that that kind of lamb would be unacceptable to God if it’s bones were broken. So, John says “I KNOW Jesus was dead! I SAW the Roman soldier pierce His side, and blood and water came out.”
So, that was the answer I sent the 3rd atheist. And you know… he never replied. He couldn’t answer this story. Because it was so obvious and yet so subtle that it could only have come from the mind of God.
Notice, John wrote: “The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.” John 19:35
So that we might believe?
Believe what?
John wrote what he wrote so that you and I might believe this was not just a story. That we might believe that what happened to Jesus was not merely an accident of history. It had been planned. It was deliberate.
John wrote “These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken," and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced." John 19:36-37
In other words: These things had been prophesied. These things had all been DECIDED centuries before Christ was born in Bethlehem.
But WHY had it been prophesied?
Why had this been planned?
Because the Bible teaches us that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It doesn’t matter if it’s an Elder, a preacher or a Sunday School teacher. We’ve ALL sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
(Pause) And the Scriptures tell us that the wages of sin is death.
Throughout the Old Testament with the constant sacrifices of bulls and goats and sheep, God taught His people that something had to die in our place for our sins. One of the most prominent of those days of sacrifice was the Day of Atonement. On that day, the High Priest offered a sacrifice to atone (or cover) both His and the people’s sins.
But Jesus didn’t die on the day of Atonement. He died on the Passover, because God intended to use that imagery of that story to teach us what Jesus had come to do.
And what was that imagery???
About 3500 years ago, Israel was in slavery in the land of Egypt. God sent Moses to Pharaoh and demanded that he let God’s people go. But Pharaoh laughed and mocked the idea of so-called God of Israel. “Who is this god, that he should tell ME what to do?”
So God introduced Himself.
Over the next few weeks God brought 9 plagues upon Egypt to prove His power. The suffering in Egypt was so profound the priests literally begged Pharaoh to release Israel. But Pharaoh still refused.
So “the LORD had said to Moses, ‘I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely.’” Exodus 11:1
Then God instructed Israel to prepare a special meal… a Passover meal. And the main course would be a lamb. A lamb without blemish. And a lamb with NO BROKEN BONES (just as John said). The blood of that lamb was to painted on the doorposts and lentil of their homes.
And God said "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn— both men and animals— and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will PASS OVER you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.” Exodus 12:12-13
When God saw the blood of the Lamb, He “passed over” those homes (thus the title Passover). The blood of the lamb was the only thing God saw. And when God saw that blood… death did not visit that home. The blood of the lamb covered that household.
After John the Baptist had baptized Jesus in the Jordan, he pointed Jesus out to a couple of his disciples and declared: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
John was saying that Jesus had come to be our “pass over” lamb.
Jesus shed His BLOOD specifically to cover your sins. His blood is meant to cover your failures and weaknesses. And when God comes again in judgment, Jesus’ blood is the only thing He’ll see that will spare us from His wrath.
CLOSE: Many years ago, in the city of Chicago, there was a great parliament of religions. Practically every known religion was represented, and many learned discourses were delivered. It helps to realize that every known religion on the face of the earth (except Christianity) teaches that life is like a balance. When a person sins, one side of the balance is weighed down and must be counteracted by a good deed. The more evil a person does, the more good they need to do to balance out their life. When the time comes to have their life judged – if their good deeds outweigh their bad, they survive.
So each religion, in their turn stood up and presented why their faith was superior. Then, during one session, Joseph Cook of Boston suddenly rose and said:
"Gentlemen, I beg to introduce to you a woman with great sorrow. Bloodstains are on her hands, and nothing will remove them. The blood is that of murder, and nothing will take away the stain. She has been driven to desperation in her distress. Is there anything in your religion that will remove her sin and give her peace?"
A hush fell upon the gathering as the speaker turned from one to another for an answer. Not one of the company replied.
Raising his eyes to heaven, Dr. Cook then cried out,
“I will ask another the question. John, can you tell this woman how to get rid of her awful sin?"
And the great preacher waited as if listening for a reply.
Suddenly he cried, "Listen, John speaks… ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleans us from all sin.’” (I John 1:7)
The theologies of all worlds’ religions cannot deal with the life of a person who has sinned so badly that there is no way that sinner can ever atone for their own sins. In those religions, all is lost, unless you’ve lived a “good enough” life to survive.
But the blood of Jesus was shed so that all sinners could be saved. So that those who the rest of the world would abandon as too evil to ever change, would have the opportunity to repent of their sins, and be buried with Christ in the waters of baptism… rising up a New Creation.
INVITATION
