Jesus' blood offering to atone for our sinfulness
Based on texts encountered March 7, 2023
Thinking of the hurt and distress shared by friends with me this past week, and of course of all that is going on around in the world these days, various Biblical & devotional book passages led me to write these reflections…. What follows is a free-form paraphrase of ideas from Luke 4: 14 - 20 and other passages.
Jesus unrolled the scroll in the Temple and read God’s words: “I want neither your blood offerings nor your lamentations. I have sent the One to come in your stead.” And rolling up the scroll, Jesus said: “I am that One. I am coming, Father, to do Your will. You did not want their sacrifices - their offerings to try to somehow atone for their sins. I am here to do Your will to sacrifice myself one time for all - for all who regret what they have said and left unsaid. For all who schemed for their own gain which has left them and their loved ones scarred and wounded. For all who speak or act in anger, or for the love of money. And for all who have trespassed against Your holy will — the law breakers, the promise breakers, the home wreckers, those who deserve to have a millstone hung around their neck for having harmed the littlest ones among them. For those who push for endless wars to feed the profit machine. For those who remain willfully blinded to endless suffering while being in positions to call an end to its causes. For those who have given up. And those who no longer see the good in anything. And also for those who feel they are beyond reproach, unaware how hardheartedness is also sinful.
Jesus continued: “We have the Temple sacrificers — those who take the offerings the people bring. We have the places in the Temple courtyard where the animals’ blood is drained, before the burning (Hebrews 10) and while every sacrificer offers this service of sacrificing this blood every day, year after year, that can never really make amends for all that the people have done. Those blood sacrifices can never really take the burden of human sin off the people’s shoulders or out of their heavy consciences. It is I who will be offered up one single time for all of those sins! I, who am seated at the right hand of the Father.
One single offering of MY body and MY blood. This will take to perfection all those who believe. All those who simply believe will be sanctified - made holy - cleared for entry into the everlasting realm. Through my solitary action.”
The images below come from a Sunday School project - one in which children (with a bit of help from parents and the teacher) built a replica of Solomon’s Temple. (More details on this will be shared in another post.)
People were allowed to enter through the first set of gates of the temple, into the inner courtyard. Only priests were allowed to enter the next building, the “Holy Place” Behind a heavy curtain was the Holy of Holies - the dwelling place of God. Only the chief priest could briefly enter that space once a year, as no human is holy enough to come into the presence of God.
Once in the inner courtyard, people would present the animal sacrifice to the sacrificers, those priests whose special service centred around the taking of the animal’s life and presenting it on the Altar of Burnt Offerings as per directives laid out in the Old Testament.
Yet throughout the Old Testament, there are also indications that God has another plan. Later, Jesus showed the necessary willingness (despite His very human struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane) to have His own Life sacrificed for the atonement of all of human sins, transgressions, iniquities — by whichever label we may give them. He gave His Life to “make good” our acts of imperfections from simple thoughtlessness to the most evil of actions. Without this, we would simply not be worthy to be considered holy enough to enter into God’s realm. We would be forever outcast from eternal communion, from togetherness with God. Jesus’ words ring through the entirety of Lent as we move toward the observation of His Holy Sacrifice early that morning on the cross.
One single offering of MY body and MY blood.
Image: https://img.wallpapersafari.com/desktop/1440/900/45/10/83Ez6G.jpg
And upon His death, in the midst of darkness and earthquake, the curtain blocking off access to the Holy of Holies tore into two, opening access to the dwelling place of God. Through Jesus’ death on the cross, the gulf between imperfect humans and God of perfection was bridged.
So Paul writes to the Hebrews: “Thereby, my beloved, we have a clear route to enter into God’s sanctuary through this blood of Jesus, this new route. In those days, the Lord has said: I will make a new alliance with them. After those days, said the Lord, I will place my laws within their hearts. I will write them in their spirits and I will remember no more their sins, their shortcomings, their misdeeds and iniquities. These will have been pardoned. Where there is pardon of sins, there will be no more need of any offerings. It is done.”
Paul continues: “We can approach the House of God with a sincere heart, filled with faith, our hearts purified from a bad conscience and a body washed with pure water. We can firmly retain the profession of our hopes in faith as the One who makes us His promise of sanctification is loyal and sincere. Let us keep watch over each other to encourage each other in charity and good works, exhorting each other with reciprocity, never abandoning our assembly of togetherness, as this love offering was for each of us.”
In John 8:29 Jesus said: “He who sent me is with me. He doesn’t leave me alone as I do His will.” God doesn’t answer our prayers in keeping with our will but with His. We can grab on to the connection Jesus had with His Father and join our prayers with His. Jesus shows us the way to the truth and the life that He unites within Himself.
In our times of prayer, imitating Jesus, we realize that He has cleared the way between us and God. Jesus can teach us to say “Amen” to God’s will, even if we cannot see the way ahead at all. In Matthew 6:31, Jesus encourages us to trust and be worry-free “like the birds of the air.” He teaches us that anxiety and worry are useless in that they do not help us OUT of our dilemmas. We can’t make the wind blow or the rain start, the well known British pastor of the last century, Charles H. Spurgeon wrote. “We do not improve our lot by fretting and fuming. If we were infinitely wiser, we would throw our cares on God. Anxiety is folly, for it groans and worries and accomplishes nothing… If we are in Christ, let us believe in our God and leave the governing of both the outside world and the little world within us to our Heavenly Father.”
We are reminded of Proverbs 3: 5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding: in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” On the paths of life each day we find ourselves facing a new and unknown future. Our holy travelling guide, Jesus, will not save us from the rocky steps and difficult pathways because those are the ones that can strengthen our faith and our trust in Him, once we realize that He is with us on our journey (whether we turn to Him or not). And we realize that it is God’s Holy Spirit who opens our understanding to the truth of God’s redemptive (forgiving and rescuing) action and who lets us grow in faith.
Halleluja! Thanks be to God!