For This Reason
Sunday, November 5th, 2006
Proper 26 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 9:11-15
I read something startling while preparing for the message for today. The commentator for Hebrews whom I am reading said that in the sacrifices performed in the Hebrew ritual by the high priest, there was no sense of magic, or transcendence … no aura of mysticism surrounding the killing of sheep and goats or bulls and cows, or pigeons, and the collecting of their blood for the offerings that were then delivered by the high priest.
I realized that I tend to associate unrealistic … images, effects, maybe, I’m not certain what the word would be that would fit here, but the idea is that I ascribe more to an event when I am not familiar with it – when it is far out of my standard mode of life – when it is either set far apart from me in distance and/or in time – than when it is something I are familiar with and see as an everyday occurrence.
The business of offering sacrifices was, in the Hebrew religion, a daily occurrence. A Religious Ritual, yes, but still, a part of a daily routine – something the priests who managed the temple got up and did every day. I imagine they had something like a rotating schedule for who was in charge of keeping the fires going, who was responsible for carting away the burned bodies of the animals, who escorted people in and out, and that they had lunch breaks just like any other daily routine.
It is difficult for me to think of that practice as a routine. First, because it carries the weight of reestablishing the relationship with God, and second, because I can’t easily imagine something like those things going on and not having SOME sense OF the transcendent – some sense of the presence of God in what you were doing.
Granted, I’ve only been serving as a full-time minister for a little over three years, and there are things that have come to be a part of a routine, mostly things like meetings, but the practices surrounding our worship have never lost their impact for me. I think that is as much a statement about how we DO worship as it is about how we can individually approach worship.
…
So we have these practices, these rituals that were set down hundreds of years before the time in which the people who are first hearing this letter read to them were living. Some, if not all of them, were either aware of, or intimately familiar with, the rituals – they either observed or participated directly in them in order to cleanse themselves from their sins and be ‘right with God’, once again.
But they have become boring … ineffective, humdrum. They seemingly cleanse the body of the person offering them, but they don’t do a lot for the spirit – for the soul. They know on an intellectual level that they have met the requirement dictated by the law, and there is SOME consolation in that, but there is not a LOT of consolation in it.
There is an awareness that the sacrifices that have been offered cover and expiate – that is, release – the person making the offering from the guilt of the sin they have committed – inadvertently – and that is a key word – inadvertently – unknowingly, or unintentionally.
You see, the ‘catch’ in the Hebrew ritual sacrifice was that it did not absolve one of the guilt for committing a sin INTENTIONALLY – of knowingly and premeditatedly … robbing someone, or lying with malicious intent – with intent to harm, or doing or saying any number of other things – and they, as well as the guilt associated with the other sins committed, would continually weigh you down with the knowledge that no matter what you do, your body may be acceptable, but it’s going to take a lot more for your spirit to feel acceptable.
That was the draw for the crowds who sought out John the Baptist when he was preaching in the wilderness, and baptizing for the repentance of sins. The people who formed the lines to receive his baptism had already BEEN ritually cleansed – but they were looking for more. And it is that ‘more’ that we find in Christ – that God KNOWS we needed, and continue to need.
There is something at the root of our faith that is at times difficult to reconcile. We speak of a God of love and mercy, and yet, we read of and speak of the sacrifice that was demanded BY GOD for the forgiveness of sins. What is it in God that requires that of us?
I would suggest to you that it had – and has – little to do with appeasing the wrath of God, but on the contrary, it has to do with meeting the self-appointed dictates OF a loving God.
God’s love is a love that does not gloss over, does not ignore the fact of sins of commission or omission, but rather demands a change of heart on our part – it is not a love that lets us continually drag the name of Jesus through the mud without consequences, but expects to see in us a turning away from that darkness that is so present in the world and a turning towards the light of Christ.
And it is through that light, through the life of Christ, that we enter into relationship with God.
That is what the whole POINT of the ritual was about to begin with! God wanting to remain in relationship with humanity, and doing whatever became necessary to do so.
Can you imagine a relationship where everything has become … routine, humdrum, second nature? Where the words and actions are automatic, rather than heartfelt? Where the person whom you love beyond words simply takes you for granted, and hardly spends time with you, doesn’t speak to you unless it is absolutely necessary, and even then, does so glumly, monosyllabically, and can’t seem to get away from you quickly enough?
There’s a part of me that is resistant to making God’s attributes and attitudes and actions human. There is an element of ‘Otherness’ that always needs to be maintained in our minds at least, when thinking and speaking about God, but we have to hold that in some sort of tension with the fact that God did, after all, become flesh and walked among us—became fully human while not losing any of the divine aspects of God’s being. So it is natural for us to want to speak of God in human terms – since God DID become human.
One thing that communicates across that divide – between the human and the divine – is how love responds when it is injured … it is difficult, if not impossible, to overlook the pain caused by someone to whom you feel closest when they do something that hurts you. I think what God was doing in becoming Christ was trying to communicate that to all of humanity – that God wants more than a routine, run-of-the-mill relationship – or LACK of relationship, really, when you think of it, with humanity. God LOVES us, and wants to be with us, show us what we are capable of, how God INTENDED for us to BE, what we can do here in our own life, in our local reality that can have a transcendent impact not only on our lives, but on the lives of everyone around us.
We speak of the blood of Christ not because it is some kind of connection to an ancient ritual, but because it speaks to the cost of what it means to become a Christ follower. Blood symbolizes the ultimate offering – the last offering that can be given – because it symbolizes life.
What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
It means we honor the reason for which Christ gave his life.
You may have heard the song by David Meece a few years ago “We Are the Reason” – the words are ‘we are the reason that he gave his life, we are the reason that he suffered and died, to a world that was lost he gave all he could give, to show us the reason to live’—
So it is with us here at Jerusalem, as members of a local congregation, a local family of faith, and on another level, as members of a greater family of faith both present and past. This past Wednesday was All Saint’s Day – a day to note and remember – and honor – all those who have gone before us as followers of Christ – can we name them, even some of them? Those who led US to Christ and by their example drew us into the family of faith to which we belong today?
(offer the names)
It is for that reason, to be in relationship with them and with us, that God came to live among us.
Let’s pray.
Proper 26 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 9:11-15
11But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!
15For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.
I read something startling while preparing for the message for today. The commentator for Hebrews whom I am reading said that in the sacrifices performed in the Hebrew ritual by the high priest, there was no sense of magic, or transcendence … no aura of mysticism surrounding the killing of sheep and goats or bulls and cows, or pigeons, and the collecting of their blood for the offerings that were then delivered by the high priest.
I realized that I tend to associate unrealistic … images, effects, maybe, I’m not certain what the word would be that would fit here, but the idea is that I ascribe more to an event when I am not familiar with it – when it is far out of my standard mode of life – when it is either set far apart from me in distance and/or in time – than when it is something I are familiar with and see as an everyday occurrence.
The business of offering sacrifices was, in the Hebrew religion, a daily occurrence. A Religious Ritual, yes, but still, a part of a daily routine – something the priests who managed the temple got up and did every day. I imagine they had something like a rotating schedule for who was in charge of keeping the fires going, who was responsible for carting away the burned bodies of the animals, who escorted people in and out, and that they had lunch breaks just like any other daily routine.
It is difficult for me to think of that practice as a routine. First, because it carries the weight of reestablishing the relationship with God, and second, because I can’t easily imagine something like those things going on and not having SOME sense OF the transcendent – some sense of the presence of God in what you were doing.
Granted, I’ve only been serving as a full-time minister for a little over three years, and there are things that have come to be a part of a routine, mostly things like meetings, but the practices surrounding our worship have never lost their impact for me. I think that is as much a statement about how we DO worship as it is about how we can individually approach worship.
…
So we have these practices, these rituals that were set down hundreds of years before the time in which the people who are first hearing this letter read to them were living. Some, if not all of them, were either aware of, or intimately familiar with, the rituals – they either observed or participated directly in them in order to cleanse themselves from their sins and be ‘right with God’, once again.
But they have become boring … ineffective, humdrum. They seemingly cleanse the body of the person offering them, but they don’t do a lot for the spirit – for the soul. They know on an intellectual level that they have met the requirement dictated by the law, and there is SOME consolation in that, but there is not a LOT of consolation in it.
There is an awareness that the sacrifices that have been offered cover and expiate – that is, release – the person making the offering from the guilt of the sin they have committed – inadvertently – and that is a key word – inadvertently – unknowingly, or unintentionally.
You see, the ‘catch’ in the Hebrew ritual sacrifice was that it did not absolve one of the guilt for committing a sin INTENTIONALLY – of knowingly and premeditatedly … robbing someone, or lying with malicious intent – with intent to harm, or doing or saying any number of other things – and they, as well as the guilt associated with the other sins committed, would continually weigh you down with the knowledge that no matter what you do, your body may be acceptable, but it’s going to take a lot more for your spirit to feel acceptable.
That was the draw for the crowds who sought out John the Baptist when he was preaching in the wilderness, and baptizing for the repentance of sins. The people who formed the lines to receive his baptism had already BEEN ritually cleansed – but they were looking for more. And it is that ‘more’ that we find in Christ – that God KNOWS we needed, and continue to need.
There is something at the root of our faith that is at times difficult to reconcile. We speak of a God of love and mercy, and yet, we read of and speak of the sacrifice that was demanded BY GOD for the forgiveness of sins. What is it in God that requires that of us?
I would suggest to you that it had – and has – little to do with appeasing the wrath of God, but on the contrary, it has to do with meeting the self-appointed dictates OF a loving God.
God’s love is a love that does not gloss over, does not ignore the fact of sins of commission or omission, but rather demands a change of heart on our part – it is not a love that lets us continually drag the name of Jesus through the mud without consequences, but expects to see in us a turning away from that darkness that is so present in the world and a turning towards the light of Christ.
And it is through that light, through the life of Christ, that we enter into relationship with God.
That is what the whole POINT of the ritual was about to begin with! God wanting to remain in relationship with humanity, and doing whatever became necessary to do so.
Can you imagine a relationship where everything has become … routine, humdrum, second nature? Where the words and actions are automatic, rather than heartfelt? Where the person whom you love beyond words simply takes you for granted, and hardly spends time with you, doesn’t speak to you unless it is absolutely necessary, and even then, does so glumly, monosyllabically, and can’t seem to get away from you quickly enough?
There’s a part of me that is resistant to making God’s attributes and attitudes and actions human. There is an element of ‘Otherness’ that always needs to be maintained in our minds at least, when thinking and speaking about God, but we have to hold that in some sort of tension with the fact that God did, after all, become flesh and walked among us—became fully human while not losing any of the divine aspects of God’s being. So it is natural for us to want to speak of God in human terms – since God DID become human.
One thing that communicates across that divide – between the human and the divine – is how love responds when it is injured … it is difficult, if not impossible, to overlook the pain caused by someone to whom you feel closest when they do something that hurts you. I think what God was doing in becoming Christ was trying to communicate that to all of humanity – that God wants more than a routine, run-of-the-mill relationship – or LACK of relationship, really, when you think of it, with humanity. God LOVES us, and wants to be with us, show us what we are capable of, how God INTENDED for us to BE, what we can do here in our own life, in our local reality that can have a transcendent impact not only on our lives, but on the lives of everyone around us.
We speak of the blood of Christ not because it is some kind of connection to an ancient ritual, but because it speaks to the cost of what it means to become a Christ follower. Blood symbolizes the ultimate offering – the last offering that can be given – because it symbolizes life.
What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
It means we honor the reason for which Christ gave his life.
You may have heard the song by David Meece a few years ago “We Are the Reason” – the words are ‘we are the reason that he gave his life, we are the reason that he suffered and died, to a world that was lost he gave all he could give, to show us the reason to live’—
So it is with us here at Jerusalem, as members of a local congregation, a local family of faith, and on another level, as members of a greater family of faith both present and past. This past Wednesday was All Saint’s Day – a day to note and remember – and honor – all those who have gone before us as followers of Christ – can we name them, even some of them? Those who led US to Christ and by their example drew us into the family of faith to which we belong today?
(offer the names)
It is for that reason, to be in relationship with them and with us, that God came to live among us.
Let’s pray.
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