OPEN: About a year ago I received this e-mail:
In 2003, Mel Gibson released a film called The Passion which dramatically and bloodily captured much of the trial and crucifixion of Christ. Because of it’s graphicness, it was rated "R".
The "R", of course, is because of the violence, the gore. In movie terms R stands for restricted, but in this movie ˆ R also stands for RELEVANT and REALISTIC, for it REALLY
It happened because we were REBELLIOUS, we needed a REDEEMER, we needed to be RECONCILED, we needed to be RECOVERED, we needed to be REGENERATED.
Jesus needed to be REJECTED so that we could have a RELATIONSHIP not just a RELIGION.
The R rating is to REMIND us to REMEMBER what Jesus did to REMOVE our sin to RENDER Satan powerless, and to RESCUE us from eternity in hell.
The R rating is to show that Jesus was RESPONSIBLE for giving you REST. As a RESULT of his death Jesus RETIRED your debt.
The R rating means that some will be REPULSED, some will REFUSE to believe, some will be RELUCTANT, some will think you are RIDICULOUS in believing that death was REQUIRED.
The R rating means that the RESULT of sin has been REVERSED and now through faith in Christ your REWARD is eternity and you are now RIGHTEOUS before God because you have RECEIVED him as the RULER of your soul.
What a REVOLUTIONARY and RADICAL solution to REDEEM mankind!
Yes, it is R Rated!
APPLY: Just this year, the Passion was re-released as a “PG-13” movie. What changed? Well, I’ve been told that about 6 minutes were cut. They removed scenes that had shown excessive blood and one scene where the nails were being driven through His hands.
So, in short, what made the Passion an “R” rated movie was the blood.
By that standard… the Bible itself is an “R” rated book. Blood is practically everywhere.
In fact, Hebrews 9:18-22 tells us that “The first covenant was not put into effect without blood.
When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people.
He said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.’
In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies.…the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Blood from Sacrifices was shed practically every day in Israel, especially on days like the feast of Passover. The gates of the temple would open at 9 in the morning and not close till 3 pm and sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice was offered up to God.
Even in the New Testament, the taint of blood is so heavy in our faith that the early Christians were condemned as cannibals because they spoke of the cup as being the blood of Christ and the bread as being His flesh.
In the movie "The Passion" blood was everywhere. In fact there was one point where Mary wiped his blood with a towel and kept it as a memento of her love for Him. In the Theatre, there were people weeping as they watched Jesus shed His blood. There was so much blood that it caused me to look away several times.
This all served to drive home: “WITHOUT the shedding of blood there was NO forgiveness”
I. Now, by contrast to all that blood… this part of the crucifixion (mentioned in John 19) is almost bloodless.
John tells us that “… the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, (so) they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. John 19:31
They DID break the legs of the prisoners on either side of Jesus. BUT, when the Roman soldier approached Christ, it was obvious Jesus was dead. But just to make sure, the soldier took his sword and pierced Jesus’ side and blood and water poured out from His side.
This is only reference to this incident in any of the Gospels. It’s never mentioned again ANYWHERE in Scripture. Even John himself doesn’t seem to pay much attention to the blood in this part of the story. Instead, John’s focus was upon the fact that the soldiers did not have to break Jesus’ legs. John noted that this was done to fulfill the prophecy that “a bone of him shall not be broken” (John 19:36) and “they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced” (John 19:37).
NO ATTENTION at all was given to the blood that poured from Jesus’ wound here. And yet, this single passage literally changed my life, and gave me an appreciation of what Jesus did for me on the cross.
II. Oddly enough my story begins with a challenge that nearly destroyed my faith.
In that e-mail I shared with you earlier, the author noted that:
The -- R -- rating means that some will be REPULSED, some will REFUSE to believe, some will be RELUCTANT, some will think you are RIDICULOUS in believing that death was
REQUIRED.
In the 90’s the famous singer/song-writer Billy Joel said: "There’s a guy... nailed to a cross and dripping blood, and everyone’s blaming themselves for that man’s torment, but I said to myself, ’Forget it. I had no hand in that evil. I have no original sin. There’s no blood of any sacred martyr on my hands. I pass on all of this."
There are people who want NO PART of the blood of Jesus. And they will take every opportunity to deny it’s power
ILLUS: Years ago I spent a couple of years studying at Purdue University. It was a great experience. I got to sing with the Purdue Glee Club experienced a big University culture. And while I was there, I began to examine my faith. For years I had gone to church because my parents had. I had even decided at the age of 12 that I wanted to become a preacher. But I now found myself at a secular campus with the opportunity to put to rest a couple of nagging doubts others had placed in my mind.
I was born in a college town, and there were those there who regarded themselves as “intellectuals” – far too advanced to believe in the foolishness of the Bible. They would say things like “the Bible is a boring book” and “the Bible is filled with errors.” So I set about trying find out if there was any truth to their accusations.
I started out by reading the Bible all the way through. I made a deal with God. I put the Bible out on my coffee table along with a one volume commentary and a Bible dictionary and promised that I would read as I felt the desire, although I’d be skipping the poetry and prophecy and the “who begat who’s”… and I found it was REALLY interesting.
So, next I set out to discover if there were any errors in Scripture. Purdue’s a decent college, but it’s not a religious institution and so I found many who were willing to give me their secular opinion about supposed Biblical errors. What most people presented as “errors” I didn’t find to be particularly impressive. It reminded me of the image of someone throwing mud up against a wall to see how much would stick.
However, there was one philosophy professor who presented an argument that I found daunting. His objection was that Jesus had not died upon the cross. He referred to this passage out of John 19 and made note of the fact that when the Roman soldier pierced His side, blood and water flowed out. When people (he said) the heart stops pumping and the blood then flows to the lowest part of the body. If a person were sitting down, their blood would settle around their waist and below. However, when Jesus died, the soldier’s spear was driven into his chest and blood and water came out. Thus Jesus wasn’t dead yet.
That seemed fairly straightforward, and I told God as much when I returned to my room. I explained to Him that I had wanted to be a preacher, but if He couldn’t deal with this objection then I would need to find another occupation… like selling insurance. However, I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time worrying about it… or even pursuing the answer. God would have to supply the answers on His own.
Did I mention that Purdue is not a Bible college? The very next term I was in another philosophy class and after class, the professor was casually talking with the students. “Do you remember the story about Jesus dying on the cross?” he asked. (He had my attention). “Do you remember the part about the Roman soldier piercing his side with his spear?” (Now, he really had my attention). And he went on to explain that he had recently learned that it was feasible that Jesus had died on the cross of a broken heart. There was a condition known as “cardiac tamponade” Under severe stress, fluid builds up in the sac around a damaged heart, forming what is known as pericardial effusion. As this builds up it can exert enough pressure to stop the beating of the heart, forming cardiac tamponade. In a sense Jesus may literally have died of a broken heart (the above description of cardiac tamponade was supplied by Dr. Garland Bare, MD in “Lookout” magazine 1/29/84).
And that all makes sense when you think about it. If I were to cut your hand, what would come out? Blood. Not blood AND water. But in the case of cardiac tamponade, that is exactly the type of appearance the fluid would have is it bled out of Jesus’ wounded heart.
And what would have broken Jesus’ heart? In the Scriptures it tell us that Jesus didn’t die of natural causes, or even from the stress of the crucifixion. Luke 23:46 says “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” Jesus bore our sins when He went to the cross. If you can imagine all the guilt and shame you have experienced because of your own sins… multiply that millions of times and you can sense the pressure that was brought to bear upon His body. The only thing that kept His body from collapsing under the weight of all of our sins was His divine power. Once Jesus “gave up the ghost” the stress would literally have broken His body’s heart.
But that’s not the whole story. When I eventually made my way to Bible College I discovered an even more intriguing thought. Do you remember what time of day Jesus was placed upon the cross? Nine in the morning. Do you remember what time of day He died? Three in the afternoon. Guess what time the Temple gates opened for sacrifices? That’s right – 9 in the morning. Guess what time they closed? Yep – 3 in the afternoon.
Now the sacrifices can be bloody affairs. Animal after animal is brought to the priests and their blood is shed for the sins of the people… all day long. That’s a lot of blood. What do you do with that blood. Well, my professors noted that the Temple had been built over aquifers and they apparently had a some system for pumping the water onto the temple floor and washing away the blood. This liquid would then go through pipes and empty out into the Kidron valley, which in turn would empty into the Jordan and flow down to the Dead Sea. A friend of mine told me he’d seen the Kidron valley once and it was still blood red.
Now, if you had been outside the city of Jerusalem on the day Jesus died – standing where you could look down into the Kidron valley, say about 3:30 or so in the afternoon. What do you suppose you might have seen pouring out of the pipes from the Temple? That’s right… blood and water.
CLOSE: (Russel Moldovan
Russel Moldavan told this story in “Lookout” magazine a couple of years ago (April 13, 2003).
In our sanctuary, there is a cross that is 15 feet tall by 8 feet wide. It weighs about 300 pounds. Years ago the men of the church hewed it from two enormous logs. It stands erect in the middle of our sanctuary. Each year our congregation reenacts the passion of Christ with Jesus hanging from that hewed cross.
Today where Jesus’ head would have been, there is a large red stain. It is left over after our last performance, when some of the imitation blood of Jesus rubbed off.
Recently one of our drama directors gave a marvelous Communion meditation. She explained that one Sunday morning during Communion she looked up and noticed the blood on the hewed cross and thought, What a mess. Why didn’t I see that before? I need to get a ladder and clean that off. Then it hit her. I can’t do that. Why am I trying to clean up the cross? It is not mine to clean. The cross belongs to Jesus. The blood of Jesus belongs there.
