You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors,
not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that
of a lamb without defect or blemish.
1 Peter 1:18-19
I spent some of my earliest years outside
of the church. I’d been taken to church as a youngster; then, mainly because most of my family didn’t go to church,
I’d wandered away from church life and only started getting back into it in my later teenage years. So there were some
huge gaps in my understanding of what Christianity was about, and there was a lot of teaching I’d missed out on.
Maybe some of you have had, or are having similar experiences. We don’t all come to faith at the same time
in the same way – and that’s O.K. Never feel that you have to apologize for where you are in your Christian journey.
Just make sure that you are on a journey with God, not walking away from God. There’s a difference... but that’s
really not what this sermon is about – or is it? We shall see.
I was starting to get back into church –
having only a vague understanding of some fairly important Christian doctrines and concepts – and I recall going to
some kind of evangelistic rally and a singer being there who with great passion belted out a chorus that was something along
the lines of:
“There
is power, power, wonder working power,
In the blood,
in the blood,
There is power,
power, wonder working power,
In the precious
blood of the Lamb.”
Whilst some of those around me were greeting
this with cries of “Amen, brother” and “Hallelujah” – I’m sitting there squirming in my
seat and wondering what on earth I have got myself into. Was this one of those cults I’d read about… some kind
of “Vampires for Jesus” rally? I’d seen some of those movies where the dead dudes came back to life after
sucking the blood out of their victims.
And the blood of the lamb? As a family we often
used to have roast leg of lamb for Sunday Lunch. But Mum used to make sure it was cooked to perfection – none of your
red raw meat for our family. Indeed any hint that this meat used to be some kind of living entity, a little fluffy lamb frolicking
about in the fields, any indication of blood… well that was just too gross to contemplate.
If you go along to MacDonald’s and get
a Burger, if there’s anything red on your burger you hope and pray that it’s ketchup. You don’t get to the
drive-thru window and say, “I’ll have a Big Mac with blood on the side, please.” When it comes to blood
I’m kind of squeamish.
I remember in school we had a kid in our class
who had a funny turn when ever he caught sight of blood, be it his own or somebody else’s…first sight of blood…
and boom! Bob (that’s not his real name) was out of it. He’d go white as a sheet and collapse on the floor. “There’s
power, power, wonder working power in the blood, in the blood.”
In fact – now this a bit of a gross story
– but in the context of what I’m talking about it has a place. One time I was preaching at a church during my
college days, and I wasn’t feeling 100% that morning. I sat down just before getting up to preach, went to wipe my nose,
and oh no… I was starting to have a major nose-bleed.
So I’m sitting there, my handkerchief is
becoming redder and redder, and I’m thinking “Uh-oh… what if Bob’s here” – or somebody
with a similar problem to Bob. “Houston…
we have a problem – congregational members down, preachers hemorrhaging from the nasal passages.” Thankfully the
nose-bleed stopped as suddenly as it started, so any major crisis was averted.
In church, it seems we can sing about the blood,
read about the blood, even meet around a table and drink wine that represents the blood of the new covenant – but if
any real blood shows up – that’s bad. We pray about it, talk about it, preach about it – but the last thing
we want is to actually see any of the red stuff that flows through our veins.
Blood is precious. In terms of our bodies it’s
what keeps us alive. Just as rivers run through the land to keep it fertile, so through our veins the blood and plasma keep
flowing and nurturing our bodies, carrying the good stuff and taking away the bad stuff. Often when we go to the doctor he
will take a sample of our blood to diagnose our general health. When a vein or an artery gets severed or clogged up, or the
heart doesn’t pump in the way it is meant to, it threatens our life.
When we look to the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews
we see that they placed a great importance on the blood. They had a saying: “The life is in the blood.” The books
of the law of Moses contain a great many rules and regulations regarding not only how the people were to act when coming into
contact with blood, but also it is in those books that we have the whole system of sacrifices and offerings which were seen
as a way of putting things right between God and God’s people.
The priests of ancient Israel received a very different
training than today’s theological students in our seminaries. I believe that some of you hunters, if you bag a deer
or creature that is for edible consumption, you take it along to somebody to cut up and butcher in a correct way for you.
Well, back in old Israel, you could have just dropped it off at the priest’s house.
A large portion of the priest’s day was
spent in dealing with the sacrifices that people had brought along, which could be anything from a pigeon to an ox. Each part
of the animal had to be dealt with in a particular way and had a particular significance. They couldn’t just throw it
on the bonfire and that was that. The blood had a particular significance as it was smeared over the altar. Some parts were
to be consumed, some were to be disposed.
These offerings were a visible reminder to the
people that sin was a nasty business. That not living in God’s way caused pain. Every time the people went to sacrifice
they had a visible reminder that the way of sin led to death. For them, in their way of worship, they didn’t just talk
or sing about the blood... the blood was real.
And it was not just any animal’s blood…
but the pick of the flock… the one that could have won the ribbon at the country show… the one that was worth
the most… the unblemished one… the best of the bunch. Anything less
would not atone for their sins. Later in history, when the people twisted that
message and sacrifices became simply an excuse for them to do as they please, then the sacrifices no longer had value.
All of this somewhat lengthy introduction is
by way of bringing you to a couple of verses from our scripture reading: 1 Peter 1:18-19 “You were not redeemed with
perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood,
as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
The first chapter of 1 Peter is very much a call
to Christian people to seek holiness. To have a faith that was worth more than gold, a belief in God that really meant something
deep and had an intensity to it that informed the decisions they made and the actions they did upon earth, especially how
they faced the troubled times they were going through.
This was the faith, by which Jesus Christ had
shed his blood, that they may receive. This was the faith by which He was raised from the grave to prove its validity, and
whose living presence in the Holy Spirit could empower those who committed their lives to seeking God’s way.
In a remarkable way Jesus combined in His person
both early Israel’s concept of the sacrificial lamb and that of the later prophets’ emphasis on seeking
love, justice, and mercy. The bottom line of the text is this. Jesus Christ died for us. We do not have to sacrifice animals
to glimpse the effects of sin. Look at the Cross. See Jesus hanging there? See that shed blood? That’s the result of
sin. He is doing that for us, taking the pain of sin on our behalf.
He’s embracing all that pain for us in
order that we may be embraced by the love of God and seek to live in a way that honors the claim God makes upon our lives,
a claim as already emphasized, that God makes through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
If God has gone to such lengths to win us for
His love, how else should we respond than seeking to live lives that are holy and acceptable in God’s sight? The death
and resurrection of Jesus, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts provide both the encouragement and power to do so.
There is “power, power, wonder working
power” in the precious blood of Jesus. Power to see that we get on the road and stay on the road with God. Power to
forgive and be forgiven. Power to heal and be healed. Power to live. Power to love.
My prayer today is that we may know ourselves
set free by Christ’s death upon the cross, through His precious blood, in such a real way that we are empowered by the
love of God to live for God’s glory. AMEN.
