Sprinkled Once for All

Text: John 19, Hebrews 9:11-22

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Being a priest in the temple of the Lord was a repetitive job. Day after day, week after week, festival after festival, it was much of the same. Keep the fire on the altar going, flame and smoke rising to the heavens. Offer incense, the same recipe that the Lord Himself had directed thousands of years ago on Mount Sinai. Slaughter the sacrificial animals—goats, sheep, bulls, heifers, calves, turtle doves, pigeons all killed in the same way, so that the blood was poured out as a sacrifice to the Lord, for the life of the animal was in the blood; the appropriate parts burnt on the fire, the rest butchered and shared with the tribe of Levi, whose duty it was to repeat this, every day, year after year.

            But this was the requirement. God Himself had said this was how it was to be done, in this place, in this way. And it was good. It offered purification, as God had intended it to. And yet, although it was good, there was still something insufficient about it. The mere fact that it had to be repeated over and over was a sign that it wasn’t enough. It was like trying to wash out a stain that was forming even as it’s being scrubbed. It’s like debt accumulating faster than payments can be made. And yet, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. It’s not a technicality. It’s not a whim or an arbitrary decision from a strange and peculiar deity. This is just the cold calculus of the universe: for one thing to live, another must die. The penalty of fighting the Creator of all is death. Sin is nothing more than cutting oneself off from the source of life, God. And so, blood must be shed to balance the equation. The problem is that the equation is so tragically unbalanced that even a continual a river of blood in the temple can’t keep up with the sins being committed.

            So there is more than a glimmer of hope when we hear the words this evening, “once for all”, particularly when the author of Hebrews tells us that this once-for-all is now being applied to the cycle of sacrifice that had previously been endless. “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come”—a better high priest, we could say, of the good things that have come, not that are still coming, like the high priests before had to wait for—“when Christ appeared as high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” Jesus’ own blood, now offered on the altar of the cross, is the final sacrifice. It wins eternal redemption. That doesn’t just mean that it won’t be repeated, like those innumerable sacrifices of the eons; it means that it can’t be repeated. It’s impossible to top it. It’s completed, forever, and will remain completed forever. That’s the weight of what Jesus Himself says from the cross, when we heard Him cry out this evening, “It is finished.” Everything has been brought to its intended ending. It’s done. It’s fulfilled. It’s accomplished. This sacrifice is different because it’s bringing the entire sacrificial system to a close. Nothing could ever be added to this. No sin or number of sins could outweigh it. It is finished.

            And when we see that, we can see it radiating out everywhere. Jesus’ sacrifice has changed everything—and everything has been pointing forward to it. Did you notice the small details that St. John set before us, to show how all those little peculiarities of the old sacrifices were actually about what Jesus would do? Listen again to the old way: “For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.’” And now St. John: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.” A hyssop branch, once used by Moses to seal the covenant established with the blood of bulls, now used to seal the new and final covenant established with the sacrifice of Jesus. And what was it that was sprinkled from that hyssop branch onto the people? Water, after the blood had been thrown upon them. And what was it that came from the pierced side of Jesus? Water and blood, the last act of sprinkling, which is what Moses’ hyssop branch was always signifying.

            There’s a striking image from the movie, The Passion of the Christ, that’s always stuck with me. There’s a bit of artistic license in it, but it’s the kind of license that’s making a very good point. In the moment when the Roman soldier pierces the side of the Jesus, the water and blood don’t just slowly flow down Jesus’ side. In the violence of the wind and earthquake with which creation is groaning at the death of its Creator, the blood sprays out, covering the centurion who caused the wound. He wasn’t looking to be covered in Jesus’ blood, nor did he want the sprinkling with that water. It was completely unasked for and even shocking. But there’s a real point being made there. Grace—forgiveness—is not won by the Roman soldier. He doesn’t seek it out. Rather it moved toward him, the very one who caused the wound, the one who shed it. And that centurion is each and every one of us—you have contributed to what happened on Good Friday. By your sins you have struck at your God. But His blood has reached you from that very same cross that you caused Him to be nailed to. In spite of yourself, you have been sprinkled with the blood and water, the purification foretold by Moses, waited for in the tabernacle and temple, accomplished forever here on Calvary.

            Tonight, through the mystery of faith and through the proclamation of the Word, you have stood in the dark at Golgotha. The blood of Jesus reaches you. And if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. It is true—without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins, but tonight, for the last time, for a time that will stand accomplished forever, blood has been shed; the blood of the Son of God. In the name of Jesus, the Crucified One. Amen.