Sermon Cloud

There is something powerful about blood and the importance and imagery of blood. Do you remember reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer where Tom and Huckleberry Finn make a blood pact, by cutting their fingers and sticking them together. They became blood brothers. And both swore an oath never to tell the secret that Injun Joe killed Doc Robinson in the cemetery.

Whenever I watch a crime drama like CSI or NCIS or Bones, there is generally at least one episode per season where someone scrawls the name of his or her murderer on the floor or on the wall with their own blood, like a dying man’s final testimony. Most people have come to believe that if someone is dying, they are more likely to tell the truth as their last act before going to meet their maker.

Throughout the Old Testament, during times when animal sacrifices were more commonplace, people used the blood of slaughtered animals to make significant pacts, or seal a peace treaty, or to declare a promise.

Even circumcision was a pact between Abraham and God as a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and all his descendants. Even the slaves in the household of a Hebrew also had to be circumcised. It was a significant sign and commitment.

When the first Passover came, the Hebrews were instructed to butcher a 1 year old goat or lamb and to take the blood of the animal and use it to paint the doorposts and the lintels of the doorways to their houses, so that the Angel of Death would pass over the Hebrew households. There is something powerful about blood.

We know all about the sacrifice of animals at the Temple, and we know all about the concept of a “scapegoat”, on whom blood is poured to represent the sins of the people and then the lamb is released or chased into the wilderness presumably to die or be killed by wild animals. The scapegoat was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, during the times of the Temple in Jerusalem. In the book of Leviticus, one of the five books of the Law, it reads, "And the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited." (Leviticus 16:22)

Now we all know that blood is pumped throughout the body by the heart, so the heart has always been viewed as the central organ of the body. It is both the center of the circulatory system, and the center of one’s being. Historically, people have attributed to the heart qualities we sometimes associate with the head or mind. For example, motivation is often viewed as coming from the heart, emotion is often an effect of the heart, and one’s soul is often viewed as residing in the heart, not the head.

Therefore we should not be surprised when God becomes frustrated with the children of Israel. These are the people God has claimed as his own, and for whom he has worked numerous miracles. Yet they ignore his commandments and live lives that go against God’s will. So God declares through the prophet Jeremiah, that the day will surely come, when people will not be led by their knowledge of the Law written on stone tablets, but they will be led by their understanding of the Law written on their hearts.

Most parents only desire what is best for their children. God has given us an almost instinctive desire to protect our kids and to provide for them. And just as God only desires what is best for us, we desire what is best for our children. No one had to teach us to love our children. We are in love with our children from the moment we realize they are growing inside the mother’s womb. We may need to be taught how to parent better, but no one has to teach us to love our kids.

God wants us to love others just the way we love our children. God wants our instincts to be tuned to our neighbors the same way they are attuned to our children. God desires for all of us to love each other, and love our neighbors, and even to love the stranger with the same love, compassion and caring with which we love our own children.

God places this love in our hearts when we come to know Jesus and when we give our lives to Christ and ask him to come and live within our hearts. When God’s law of love comes and lives in our hearts, we fulfill this Old Testament scripture in our own lives.

Jesus demonstrated the greatest amount of love for us, when he gave up his life, and poured out his blood for us on the cross. Jesus wrote his love for us in his own blood. He bled and died, so that you and I might have life. He bled and died, so that our sins could be removed forever. He bled and died to demonstrate the extent of love that God has for each of us.

I have long had a fascination with the sinking of the Titanic. One of the things that attracts me so, is the number of stories of heroes and heroines who gave up their lives so that others might get on the lifeboats and live. Numerous crew members who could have gotten into a boat easily because of their knowledge and access to the lifeboats, gave up their places to allow more of the passengers to escape. There were only 20 lifeboats for the whole ship. The lifeboats could have saved 1178 people, but many were lowered to the water only half full. Sadly, only 705 of the 2208 passengers and crew from the ship survived. There are as many stories of selfishness and self-preservation as there are stories of persons who gave up places in order to spare others. Some fathers put their wives and children on lifeboats knowing they would not survive. Some couples chose to die together rather than be separated by one of their deaths. Love overflowed as story after story is told of people who gave up a place for others, and that decision always cost them their lives.

Jesus said, there is no greater love than this, that someone should give up his or her life for another. Some were family members, but some were complete strangers, still many who were faithful Christians sacrificed their lives, just as Christ had sacrificed his for us all. God’s law of love had been written on their hearts.

Jesus said, “Those who love their lives will lose them, and those who give up their lives in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Christ taught us this lesson of giving up our lives for others, and then he demonstrated it by his giving up of his life for all of us. God’s message of love was written in blood, the blood of his only Son. God showed us through Jesus’ sacrifice, that his love is sincere, it is immovable and it is eternal. This is a great comfort: to know that God love us this much. Whenever we celebrate Holy Communion we remind ourselves of this great love. When we give of ourselves for others, we remind them of God’s great love for them shown through us and our acts of kindness or sacrifice.

Now let us live as if we have a heart of love and not a heart of stone. Let us turn to our neighbors, turn to our friends, and turn to those whom we do not yet know, and let us show them that God’s love, God’s spirit, and God’s blood flows through our hearts in service to them. Amen.