Friday, April 10, 2020

Bloody love

Hebrews 9:22

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (ESV)

The crucifixion site has been cleaned up, just like we eventually do with every crime scene. Go there now and there is no wood, no splinters, no nails, no hammer, and certainly no blood.

However, the crucifixion was a very bloody event. There was a trail of blood going up the hill from the punctures made on Jesus’ head from the crown of thorns forced on Him, and from the ripped-up skin on His back from the beating, and from the cuts as He struggled through the crowded narrow streets with the heavy cross. Blood.

And if that wasn’t enough there was the blood oozing from His feet where the big ugly primitive nails were hammered in, and there was blood oozing from His hands where the big ugly primitive nails were hammered in.

In 1707, Isaac Watts, published the hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, with this verse in it – See from His head, His hands, His feet, / Sorrow and love flow mingled down! / Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, / Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

But that is not all, when all of these wounds and all of this torture had already taken its toll on Him and He was already dead they still drew more blood. “… when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” John 19:33,34 There was just blood everywhere.

And in the midst of all of this blood and gore, in this grotesque scene of Roman style open public execution the love of God was on display. The bloody love of Jesus for us.

Jesus had said to His disciples earlier, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” John 15:13. So that on the cross, in all that blood, Jesus was demonstrating that His love for us knows no limit.

To our modern minds, this idea of love secured in blood might seem foreign, primitive even, but there is a context. As our key verse today says, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.’ Hebrews 9:22b.

If we go all the way back to original sin in the Garden of Eden, we see that after the man and his wife, Adam and Eve, had sinned the made for themselves garment of leaves. But when God met with them He replaced those garments with animal skins. We miss it sometimes but to get the animal skins the animals had to die. Sacrifice, the shedding of blood to cover sin. “Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21.

From there, this theme of bloodshed for sin continues throughout the scriptures until the sacrifice of Jesus himself. Along the way, the sacrificial system was formalised, first in the tabernacle, as the children of God wandered through the wilderness, and then in the temple.

Prior to the crucifixion, the most dramatic event in the scriptures might be the exodus out of Egypt via the Red Sea crossing. That dramatic night started with bloody sacrifices of lambs all over the Hebrew community, literally at every house, and then the blood, shed in these many sacrifices, was daubed over and around the doors as a sign. “Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” Exodus 12:13.

As for it being primitive, it certainly was, and thank God that the sacrifice of Jesus was the last that was required because Jesus, “after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” Hebrews 10:12-14

The bloody redemptive death of our Saviour Jesus Christ is the central event of human history. That which was foreshowed in the Garden when the new garments were made, and then emphasised in the first Passover in the slave camps at Goshen in Egypt, and then institutionalised in the establishment of the Tabernacle, was more explicitly pointed to by the prophets.

“He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.  Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:3-5

Then, finally, John the Baptist showed up using the language of bloody sacrificial slaughter in his declaration, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29 & 36.

Jesus was brutally bloodied and murdered to show His love for us. We owe Him a debt of gratitude, but we don’t have to get bloodied to show it. Buy yet, we have to reject and die to some things in order that His life might be in us.

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.

Think on these things:

1. Take some time today to just meditate on the full nature of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross?
2. Can you visualise the nails, and hammer, and spears, and swords, and thorns and splinters?
3. Can you feel the pain and the agony?

Prayer focus:

Let us pray today that we would sacrifice everything that stands in the way of our full surrender to Jesus who died a bloody death for us.

In His Grace
Pastor Alex

Notes:

1. Bloody Love was originally published on Friday, March 30, 2018 and was revised for publication today.
2. For this Easter weekend, there will be 5 daily devotionals, this is the second