Bloodbath--Maundy Thursday sermon

NOTE: The sermons for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday are taken from a Lenten series called "Our Suffering Savior" written by Rev. Christopher Mitchell. The series is based on Isaiah chapter 53.

“Bloodbath”
Isaiah 52:15
Maundy Thursday
April 5, 2007

Isaiah 52:15: So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider.

What images does the word bloodbath bring to your mind? Perhaps you think of a terrible scene of bloodshed, such as a recent Muslim terrorist bombing in the Middle East or something closer to home. Those sorts of tragedies are often described as a bloodbath.

Our text for this evening speaks of another bloodbath—one ordained by God for our own good. During the past 6 weeks of Lent we have been meditating on Isaiah’s portrait of Jesus, the Suffering Servant of the Lord. Our passage for tonight promised that Christ “will sprinkle many nations.” When Jesus’ blood is sprinkled on us, we are washed clean of our sins. We are bathed in God’s forgiveness and coated with Christ’s own righteousness. We are washed in the blood of the Lamb. In that sense, we experience a bath in His blood—a bloodbath.

Our Christian faith is founded on that shedding of Christ’s blood for us, on His death and resurrection. To receive beneficially the priceless blessings Christ gives to us in His Holy Supper, we must understand and believe what God tells us about this sacred outpouring of blood.

In His Word, God has some severe and sobering things to say about sin. 2 verses summarize what Scripture says about God’s judgment: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and “The soul who sins will die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). Original sin, which we all inherited from Adam, makes us mortal. Our original and actual sins make us deserve the sentence of eternal death in hell. Sin leads to death, and in biblical imagery death involves the spilling of blood. Therefore, we may say that sin results in an evil bloodbath.
In order for sin to be forgiven, God requires blood to be shed. God summarizes His theology of sacrifice by saying, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). In the Old Testament, God prescribed a variety of animal sacrifices, and God granted the penitent believers the forgiveness of sin. When certain animals were sacrificed and their blood was shed, the sins of the people were forgiven. The Old Testament tells gives many examples of this.

Isaiah prophesies about Jesus Christ, “He will sprinkle many nations.” What is the significance of Christ sprinkling us with His blood? The Old Testament shows us vivid, concrete events that anticipated what Christ would do for us. The sprinkling of blood was a part of the old covenant. When God first established His covenant with Israel through Moses as a mediator, He instructed Moses to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificed animals on the congregation of Israel. (Exodus 24:8). This blood was called “the blood of the covenant.” When the blood was sprinkled on the people, they entered the covenant with God and became members of the covenant people—the visible Old Testament church. They were heirs of God’s covenant promises of forgiveness, blessing, and eternal life. As the blood was sprinkled upon them, the believing people received the grace of God.

In the Old Testament, there were many sacrifices in which God told the priests to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificed animal. Often the blood was sprinkled on the altar before God. In this way, the life of the animal was offered to God in place of the lives of the sinful people. At other times, the blood was sprinkled on the people. The life of the animal was in its blood (Leviticus 17:11). The wages of sin is death, and the people’s sin—placed on the animal—required the life of the animal to be poured out with its blood. When the blood of the animal was sprinkled on the people, God conveyed to them forgiveness and life.

In our passage, the prophet Isaiah looks beyond the sacrifices of the Old Testament to the coming of Jesus Christ. Isaiah receives a vision of how Jesus will sprinkle many nations with His own outpoured blood. In some ways it would be similar to the Old Testament sacrifices and sprinklings, yet it would be far greater, with the highest, most heavenly gifts for those covered by His blood (Hebrews 12:24).

The greatest difference is that Jesus Himself was sacrificed for us. Jesus was marred and disfigured as He suffered on the cross for us. Unlike the Old Testament priests, all of whom were sinful people like us, Jesus Christ alone is sinless, blameless, and perfect. He had no need to make sacrifice for His own sins. He did so only for our sakes. He is the eternal Son of God. For this reason, His suffering and death had infinitely more value than the slaughter of animals. His death pays for the sins of the entire world. Because His sacrifice was of infinite and universal value, Christ only made it once—for all time and for all people. Once did it. His one sacrifice accomplished what the daily repetition of animal sacrifices, year after year, was never able to accomplish: full pardon and peace for every man, woman and child.

And how do we receive this forgiveness? This is where the sprinkling comes in. In the Old Testament “the blood of the covenant” was sprinkled on the people—literally and physically—to bring them into the covenant of God. The leaders of the people then ate and drank in God’s presence and communed with Him.

We are washed with the blood of Jesus Christ simply through faith in what He has done for us. It is as simple as that.

Our merciful God has provided not just His Word, but also His Sacraments, that He may pour His overflowing, super-abounding grace upon us. As we receive communion, we receive the body and blood of Christ, given and shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Just as the Old Testament believers received forgiveness when the blood was sprinkled on them, we receive God’s forgiveness together with Christ’s body and blood.

So in worthy reception of this Sacrament, as well as through the hearing of the Word, we may say, to use Old Testament language, that the atoning blood of Christ is sprinkled on us. To put it another way, we may say that our robes are washed in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14). The blood of Jesus’ Christ cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). We bathe in the grace of God, earned for us by Christ’s blood. We undergo that kind of forgiving bloodbath.

People in our modern culture may have a hard time accepting these things. Some may be skeptical that this actually occurs when we approach the altar and receive those elements. Some may think that this talk about Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper is just a figure of speech, symbolic, or even pretend, make-believe.

The people of the Old Testament had no doubt whether the flesh and blood of the animals was real. They saw with their own eyes real animals being sacrificed for their real sins, and they could feel the real blood of those sacrifices as it was sprinkled on them.

Holy Communion is even more real, because the more perfect forgiveness earned for us by the blood of Jesus Christ comes to us in a more complete and intimate way. We do not trust subjective sensations of sight and touch to believe. We have a surer word, from God the Son: “This is My blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins”—a most precious and holy bloodbath, for where there is forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.