Fifth Sunday in Lent: Passion Sunday

Text: Heb. 9:11-15

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“The Passion of our Great High Priest”

“But Christ, having come as High Priest of the good things that are now here, entered the Most Holy Place once for all time, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation, nor through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean can sanctify for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

You may have been surprised to hear that today is called Passion Sunday. Perhaps you were thinking that that was next week – that next Sunday we’d begin to commemorate the Passion of Christ. But in fact today is the beginning of the sub-season of Lent called Passiontide. For two weeks we meditate on the suffering and death of our Savior Christ. That’s why next Sunday – Palm Sunday—our Gospel lesson will be the very long Passion narrative from Matthew, not the triumphal entry. We will re-enact the triumphal entry with the palm procession, and then we’ll, in a sense, go with him immediately to Calvary.

This word “passion” has gone through its changes in connotation over the years, hasn’t it? It comes from the Greek word pathos, from which we get our English word “pathology” to describe what someone is suffering from. That was the original sense of the word “passion.” To have passion or to be in passion was literally to suffer. It makes sense, doesn’t it, especially when we think of illicit passions. I think one of the great contributions of Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ,” was to bring this connotation of the word back into our vocabulary.

“The Passion of the Christ”—it is about what Christ suffered to save us from our sins. I hope you’ve all been able to see the movie by now. If not you can go over to Nick and Ginny’s this week and see it. I think the thing that left the greatest impression on me was just the sheer amount of blood. After seeing the scourging scene, it became vividly clear to me, in a way that it had never really reached my consciousness before, why so many Roman prisoners died as a result of their scourging. There was just so much blood. And I thought the scene where Mary was wiping up the sacred blood of her son from the stone pavement was a particularly moving moment in the film. I suppose only you mothers could fully appreciate it.

Our Epistle Lesson this morning focuses our attention on that sacred blood of Jesus—that blood that spilled out onto the ground at his scourging, that blood that ran down his face from the thorn-wounds on his brow, that blood that poured out with the water from the spear wound in his side—that blood that both cleanses us from the filth and pollution of our sin, and propitiates the Father with regard to the guilt of our sin.

There is this two-fold direction, this two-fold effect of the outpouring of Christ’s blood. Christ’s blood cleanses and it propitiates. It cleanses us and it propitiates the Father. It gives us access to God’s sanctuary, and it turns away God’s wrath from our sin.

Just a few verses down from our passage in Hebrews we read this very important statement: “According to the law [that is the Law of Moses, the Old Covenant] almost all things are purified [or cleansed] with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission [or no forgiveness].” Almost all things were cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Let’s start with the idea of the blood cleansing. Cleansing in the Old Testament meant taking someone or something from a state of pollution or defilement to a state of cleanness or sanctification for the purpose of serving God in his sanctuary. All the vessels and utensils and pieces of furniture that would be used in the tabernacle had to be cleansed, or sanctified, before they could be brought in to God’s service. And most of the time they were cleansed by the sprinkling of the blood of a sacrifice. There were three occasions, however, when people were sprinkled with blood to cleanse them, and it’s important in the context of our passage from Hebrews to note that on each of these three occasions the people were cleansed to give them sanctuary-access to serve God in a priestly capacity within His house.

The first occasion was when all of Israel was gathered at the foot of Mt. Sinai to be sealed into the covenant with God. God had “cut” a covenant with them, and now the blood of the covenant would be applied to them, sealing them in, incorporating them into God’s promises, binding them to His commandments. We’re given an account of this right here in Hebrews chapter nine (18-21). “Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.’ Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.”

This was the covenant ratification or initiation ceremony. But what was the covenant the people were being initiated or sealed into? It was this: God said, “If you indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people…. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” The blood of the covenant was sprinkled on them to purify them and set them apart as a holy nation unto God, and to give them special access to Him in his holy sanctuary to worship and serve Him as a kingdom of priests. That was the kind of cleansing the blood, at least outwardly and symbolically, affected for the people of Israel as they were brought into the Covenant with Him at Mt. Sinai.

The second occasion of a person or persons being sprinkled with blood in the Old Testament was when Aaron and his sons and their successors were consecrated to serve God in the sanctuary in the office of the priesthood. It was their ordination ceremony. And if you think there are some strange things that go on at our ordination ceremonies, take a look at this: God commanded first that a ram should be killed, while the man being consecrated laid his hands upon its head. And then some its blood was taken and smeared on the man’s right ear-lobe, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot. Then he was ready to serve God as a priest. Pretty strange, huh? What did it mean? Whatever in meant symbolically, it at least gave the man access to serve God within the tabernacle structure itself, not merely the outer courts, but into the holy place itself. See, once again: cleansed by the blood, at least outwardly and ceremonially, a man was given access to serve God in his sanctuary.

Finally there was the occasion when a leper was healed of his leprosy and was cleansed by the sprinkling of the blood of a sacrifice so he might regain his sanctuary-access to God.

These are the three times people were cleansed by blood in the Old Testament, and each time they were cleansed to receive sanctuary-access to serve God as priests in his holy dwelling place. At least that’s what it did outwardly and symbolically. For the book of Hebrews makes it very clear that the blood of bulls and goats cannot truly cleanse anyone from the spiritual and moral taint of sin. If I can put it this way, it takes a much more potent blood to cleanse out our inner corruption. And this is just what we read here in Hebrews. “For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

Do you see the connection? It’s the blood of Jesus that gives us true sanctuary-access, because it is only the sacred blood of Jesus that can cleanse away the death and corruption of our inner selves.

And, brethren, hear me now: the sanctuary that Jesus’ blood – the blood of His Passion, the blood that was sprinkled upon us in our baptism, the blood we partake of in the Holy Communion – the sanctuary that His blood gives us access to and in which we are now able to serve God as a holy priesthood, the Holy of Holies of Heaven itself.

With the death of Christ the veil has been rent, and I’m not talking about the veil in the temple in Jerusalem. I’m talking about the veil between heaven and earth. Jesus Christ, as our Great High Priest has entered through that veil, into the inner sanctum, into the Most Holy Place of God’s heavenly sanctuary. And as our High Priest His function is to bring us near to God. “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ,” says St. Paul. “Therefore,” it says in another place in Hebrews, “having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… through the veil… let us draw near.” (Heb. 10:19).

Isn’t that amazing! That’s what Christian worship is all about: entering through the veil by the blood of Jesus into the very Holy of Holies of Heaven itself. How could anyone say worship is boring? How could anyone say that, because they didn’t get a warm-fuzzy, or didn’t have a good “worship experience,” that the worship wasn’t very good on a particular Sunday? It’s only if we come to worship as consumers that we could think that way. But the Scripture says we’re brought into the Holy of Holies of Heaven itself to serve the living God. The vision we have in the Book of Revelation is of the saints in heaven – those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb – standing before the throne of God, and serving him day and night in His temple. (Rev. 7:14). That’s the worship service we participate in when we come to church on Sundays. Worship is about offering up our service to God as a royal priesthood. His service is our perfect freedom, because it is what we were made to do. And therefore we do receive a blessing when we worship, objectively, even if we may not happen to feel it.

But the important point is that it is the blood of Jesus that restores us to our proper place in the ranks of the holy priesthood to serve God in His true tabernacle, for “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (I John 1:7) We hear that every Sunday, but do we understand what it means?

But, brethren, the blood of Jesus does not merely cleanse us from the pollution of our sins, it also propitiates the Father towards our guilt. I’ll make this point very briefly.

“If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins.”

Once a year the High Priest went through the veil of the temple into the Most Holy Place, “and that not without blood,” the Scripture says. For He then took the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkled it before God upon the mercy-seat - literally the hilasmon, the place of propitiation – to make atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews says that the fact that this had to be repeated over and over, year after year, showed that the way into the Holiest of all, the true Holy of Holies of heaven, was not yet opened. But it says that Jesus has entered in once for all time, and not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with His own blood, to present it to His Father as that which perfectly atones for our sins, as that which perfectly and eternally propitiates the Father’s wrath – turns it away completely. Jesus Christ is Himself the mercy-seat of heaven, the hilasmon, the propitiation; the Lamb standing as though slain on the altar-throne of heaven; our Great High Priest making intercession for us on the basis of His own Passion; our Advocate pleading our case with the Father on the ground of his own propitiating blood.

What can we say to this except to offer up our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving? Therefore, in the words of that great doxology which opens The Revelation of Jesus Christ, “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”