Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Amen.
All human beings share one common characteristic: blood. The book of Leviticus tells us that blood is the life or life force of the flesh. It flows through our bodies in order to deliver oxygen and other important nutrients, and it also removes from our bodies toxins and dangerous substances such as carbon dioxide which would suffocate us if we had too much.
Blood is not only a necessary substance in our bodies, but blood is also a binding force, linking people into families, clans, and even nations. As children, the ritual handshake of blood was something that I would guess many of us did, which afforded us a name like “blood brother”. Even my best friend and I pierced our palms and shook hands in order to seal our brotherhood…in blood.
But blood isn’t just something used within us or between us, but it is also used as a cleansing liquid. In the Old Testament, blood was sprinkled upon the various vessels and appointments which were used for sacred rites and in worship. The Tent of Meeting was sprinkled with blood before the priests would enter to offer sacrifice and prayer. When God established the priesthood and ordained Aaron and his brothers as the first priests, they were sprinkled with the blood of a spotless ram, along with his brothers. This blood marked them as priests of God’s people, as mediators between God and man.
In fact, as we read in Hebrews chapter 9, there can be no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood.
And by the shedding of blood, let us not assume that it means a pin prick or a shaving accident, no. For in every case in Scripture where forgiveness of sins is tied to bloodshed, it also means the death of the one shedding the blood, be it an animal such as a goat or a lamb, or a human being such as Jesus Christ. Now some might ask, “Does God find delight in the shedding of blood? I mean after all, could God not have accomplished for the Jews a different method or means to bring about His redemption which didn’t involve bloodshed and death?”
First let us be clear: God does not desire the death of anyone; God takes no joy in torture, in slaughter, in death. God did not introduce death and bloodshed into the world, and if we look to Scripture, the Word of God, we read this: “by the envy of the devil death came into the world.” We also read, “For God did not make death, neither has He pleasure in the destruction of the living. For He created all things that they might exist.” In other words, God created because He is a God who creates – it is His nature if you will – it is His core, His essence to be Creator and not destroyer.
And so God gave blood as a gift, that all who possess it live in His creative and good presence. The psalmist writes, “For wrath is in His indignation, and life is His will,” in other words, it is displeasing and disheartening for God to bring punishment. Every spotless lamb that died and gave its live blood was not a pleasing thing to God, especially since the people’s faith was so far from the promises. Blood was never intended to be shed, to be spilled, but because of the horrible and devastating power of sin, death had to be, because the wages of sin IS death.
Death is not God’s work, but it is the devil’s work. If it were God’s work He would not destroy death; it would not be swallowed up in victory, in life. The shedding of blood is not God’s desire, or He would have not have ended it. If God desired the shedding of blood, would not the animals still be slaughtered upon this altar today, and upon altars throughout the world?
But God finds no joy in such things. He finds no joy in bloodshed, in violence, in destruction. One may ask, “Why then does He allow people to die of starvation, disease, acts of violence, or neglect? Why does He allow the unborn to continue to be slaughtered?” These are hard questions that I simply cannot answer. All I can tell you is that it is not God’s desire that these things should happen, because God does not desire the death of anyone. He does not desire the shedding of blood, but He desires life.
Life pleases God, death and bloodshed does not. But without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness, why? Because the wages of sin, the wages of YOUR sin and my sin, the wages of our lies, the wages of our greed, of our unwillingness to love and care and show compassion for the lost, to step outside of ourselves and what makes us comfortable, what is easy, what is customary, what is acceptable, to trust in God and lean not on our own understanding but our own feelings and our own emotions…the wages of all this and more is DEATH. And thus blood must be shed.
And should we think for a moment that by our own slyness or our own attempts that we can somehow fool God, we do just as St John says and as we confessed earlier: we deceive ourselves. God cannot be fooled. There is nothing we can do, no decision we can make, no commitment that we can bring to this altar which will cause God to say to us “okay, good enough for me: you’re in!” Because you see folks it doesn’t work that way.
And we can admit that, we can say the words…but we go right back to it, we always do. Somewhere deep inside our minds we think we’re doing God a favor by showing up for church on Sundays. We think we’re helping God by doing certain things in certain ways, but all the while we break the two greatest commandments: Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.
We can have proper theology, say the words just right, call ourselves confessional Lutherans, have the right things going on up here in the chancel, give our money to causes we believe in, pay our pastor a nice wage, even give him his own parking spot…but all the while we do not love God and we refuse to love our neighbor as ourselves. Blood must be shed.
Blood must be shed, and there is no other way than that. Take it all away, remove the chancel, get rid of the hymnals, throw out the stoles and the stained glass and the gold-plated communion vessels, and then see what remains. If faith remains, then all of these stuff serves a good and God-pleasing purpose, but if it doesn’t then all that remains is death. Because it is not these things that bring forgiveness but only the shedding of blood, nothing more. Ancient Israel didn’t understand this but they instead put their hope in created things. Let us be careful not to do the same thing.
But blood was shed, blood was shed like you wouldn’t believe. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of blood was sprinkled and poured and burned over the span of hundreds of years. And yet none of it had the effect, the power, the result that came with the shedding of the blood of God.
God COMING to us in flesh and blood means that flesh and blood were lifted to God. You see, on account of Christ coming to us in the flesh, it’s as if He grasped our hands with his bloody hand and brought us up into the brotherhood of God. The angels are nothing more than spirits, serving God in a spiritual way. But we are like Christ, or better, Christ became like us. Paul says it this way in his letter to the Romans: “as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.” In other words, Adam, the first man, brought sin into the world and literally failed at his call to bring life into the world. Instead Adam brought death and disobedience and all who followed, even us, are born into the same state of death and disobedience as this one man. Our condition isn’t merely spiritual, but physical – flesh and blood is tainted by sin and every attempt on our parts to alleviate the problem fails.
But God did not leave us in this state, because He does not desire the death of anyone; he does not desire sacrifice. And so He sent flesh and blood, his own flesh and blood, that He might become the one final sacrifice, the one final shedding of blood, so that forgiveness of sins would be given to Adam and all his descendants, even you and me.
We were all born into slavery – into chains and the bonds of death. But Christ has set us free by taking those bonds, those chains upon Himself, by submitting Himself to the slavery of sin and death.
Think back to those priests, to Aaron and his brothers. They received upon themselves the mark of priesthood from the shedding of a ram’s blood. But these priests were only symbols, only patterns, for they too were shrouded in death. Like the angels above, they had not the power in themselves to forgive sins and even with the garments that they wore, even with the vessels and the gold and the glory of the tabernacle and the temple. There was no power in these things, but the power was in the blood of one who would one day come, and who would be slaughtered and whose blood would be shed – perfect blood – sinless blood – blood not affected by Adam but blood capable of washing Adam and all who came after.
We have all been washed in this blood. Our flesh and our blood have been made clean by this blood. We can sing with confidence and assurance that “It is well with my soul”, because not only are our souls redeemed, but our bodies are redeemed.
We have a FRIEND named Jesus, not a distant, unreachable, unknowable being, as so many in the world want to believe. But we have a close, reachable, knowable man named Jesus, the Christ, who didn’t reach down “from a distance”, but came down and became like one of us. He faced the same temptations, the same struggles, the same fears, but he trusted in God even to death on a cross. And by His confidence, by His trust He has given us His righteousness, His light, His freedom, brotherhood with God.
We are not bound to some moral rule where the more good we do the closer we move to God. But we are already close to God because God has come close to us and died for us and rose again for us. We receive all of this in our baptisms; we don’t just receive parts and then later on when we are intellectually mature get more parts, but we get it all, we get the whole shebang when God washes us with water and Word. We continue to partake of the gifts and promises in the Lord’s Supper. It’s not just a nice meal where we all come to the rail and fold our hands just so or cross ourselves just so…but it is God giving to us the very body and blood of Christ. It matters not how you come for the promise isn’t based on your actions. But what matters is that you believe, that you by faith, accept the Word of God, accept His promises, cling to the truth that He gives you in His Word. Because it is through that faith where the flesh and blood of Christ envelop you and cover you with righteousness.
Without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness, but God has shed His blood for you and forgiven you your sins and fully and completely brought you up into Himself, and a bodily resurrection from the dead awaits you and all the sons of Adam who believe and trust in Christ and His flesh and blood. Amen.
