Nothing but the Blood

Blood of Jesus


The Way of the Cross is the way of life. You, unlike Jesus, not both divine and human, you cannot become, you cannot be Christ, but in Baptism you step into the Way of the Cross that is precisely the road to Calvary, the Journey of Becoming -- of Becoming Christ.

If you come to our Wednesday events, either 11:30 Wednesday noon or 5:30 Wednesday evening, you’ve this Lent been watching and discussing the movie The Robe. Those of us who first saw it (the year was 1953 and yes, I was there) sixty years ago, when not television and not the iPad but the movie theater was the medium, we remember an extraordinary movie, the first widescreen cinemascope film, with moving, emotional scenes, Jesus the Son of God carrying his cross, struggling through the streets of Jerusalem, and falling, falling again, then finally hanging there, in the eyes of the authorities just one more condemned and crucified criminal on the cross as Roman soldiers toss dice for his clothing -- penultimately, the blackening of the skies of Creation as he says “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” and dies there on Calvary’s hill for your sins and mine. Were you there?

“Penultimately” because in The Robe, the ultimate moment is when the Roman officer -- who by a toss of the dice has won the seamless robe of the crucified one -- the crucifier stands beneath the cross, and his hand is splattered by the Blood of Jesus. 

Horrified, the soldier tries desperately to wipe it away, but the blood is on his hands, and know it or not, like it or not, he is marked as Christ’s own forever. His life is changed, because if Jesus wants you, you will not be able to get away, even if you crucify him. Even if his blood is on your hands.
An evangelical song that I love:
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Were you out there? In your mind, were you there? How many times I have wondered what it would have been like to have been out there. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? How would you feel -- to have been standing beneath the Cross as his blood fell on you? How would you feel? Or what would you give now -- to have been there that singular day and moment in history?

And knowing, as you know now, that your sins were forgiven forever even though his blood is on your hands. 
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A person I have most admired in my life is Desmond Tutu, retired Anglican archbishop, whom I first heard speak in person at a church event so many years ago I no longer remember when or where, but it was before he was archbishop. Everything he says and does is as exemplary as if it had been done in Galilee two thousand years ago. Desmond Tutu is, in my eyes and heart, the ultimate example of “becoming,” which is to say becoming the image of Christ to which every Christian is called at baptism. Not to become, because we will never become the godhood of Christ, but called to the discipleship of becoming -- the becoming is the thing, the essence of the Baptismal Covenant. The covenant question is “Will you?” not “Have you.” Never, as your sins against God and neighbor are forgiven over and over and over again, never will you truly become Christ. St. Paul says we are running the race, he never says we are there. Your baptismal covenant with God is the becoming, not having become. So when my friend Father Vanvalkenburgh of Indiana shared an online newspaper article of Desmond Tutu, I immediately read it. And then I “shared” it, which I have never done before on Facebook and, honestly, don’t even know what it means to “share” there. But I “shared,” and I also copied the web link and may paste it on my blog, because of who it is and the personal story he tells:  a story of Forgiveness. It’s about forgiveness. 
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This is Lent. I have preached, in my time in your pulpit this Lenten season, about forgiveness, I don’t know whether you remember my testimony, I do not, it was not a memorable sermon. But Desmond Tutu’s testimony is moving, very moving. Personal, very painful, poignantly tragic, powerful and deeply moving.

Desmond Tutu is a better man than I: he has forgiven a man who hurt him terribly, hurt him over and over in life -- who is long dead, and whom he did not have to forgive. Remember, I told you, if you sin intentionally, there is, in the Law of Moses, no way to obtain ritual forgiveness, you have to bear your punishment, take your stripes, do your time, whatever penance morality and the law demand. Only God can deal with intentional sins.

But it also comes home for you: you do not have to forgive someone who hurts you intentionally, harms you on purpose. You probably cannot shoot, or exact an eye for an eye, or torment them in revenge, but you can break the relationship, you can turn your back and walk away, you can sue the heck out of them. You are not legally or morally required to forgive intentional harm. But don’t shut down on me, because that’s not the end of the story. The end of the story is this:

If you forgive anyway, if you are able to forgive anyway, even though -- and even when you are not required to forgive, if you forgive anyway, you will be there, taken there, it will transport you there to the foot of the Cross with Christ above you, standing in his shadow, and clothed in his very image. 
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Charles Wesley and others gave us a much loved hymn we sing in Advent, “Lo! he comes, with clouds descending, once for our salvation slain; thousand thousand saints attending swell the triumph of his train. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ the Lord returns to reign.” Marvelously victorious, a glorious hymn. But the second verse is dark, so dark, ominous, threatening, listen: “Every eye shall now behold him, robed in dreadful majesty; we who set at nought and sold him, pierced, and nailed him to the tree, deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing, shall the true Messiah see.” It says that we who crucified him are doomed.

Charles Wesley was Anglican, a priest of the Church of England who might have known better, but in that second verse his theology is bad; that second verse is not true, not so. The true Messiah has forgiven, and has prayed God the Father to forgive: we have nothing to fear at his coming. If we are deeply wailing when we face him at the beginning of eternity, it will not be in fear, because we are forgiven no matter what. If we are wailing it may be in shame and sadness for what we have done, and for joy at God’s mercy shown: “Father, forgive them.” Counter to Wesley, the theology of Jesus’ words of forgiveness from the Cross is that we were not intentional, that we did not know who he was -- and is. It puts an interesting theological twist on Last Words of Christ, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

  They know not what they do? Oh, we knew all right. And we know now as we go on doing, hammering the nails. Our “justification” (as St. Paul terms it) is God exonerating us, acquitting us, clearing us, God absolving us even though God knows we are guilty as Hades. In his dying words, Jesus looks out on the hate-filled crowd mocking and spitting and throwing stones, and looks on the Roman soldiers who have crucified him and tossed dice for his clothing, and says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” declaring us fully as innocent -- as Adam Before the Apple in Eden even though we are guilty as sin, even though we knew full well what we were doing to a fellow human being. And still know today even as we cloak ourselves in selfish self-righteousness that is the opposite of the love of neighbor to which He commands us.

But “Father, forgive them.” Absolved by the Word of God. Sins known and unknown, things done and left undone washed away by the blood of Jesus. Amazing grace! This is the Gospel. I proclaim it to you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

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Sunday, March 30, 2014, Lent 4, Year A


This is Tuesday morning, April 1, April Fool's Day. I just now woke up; victoriously, I slept last night from before ten o'clock to 5:35 this morning, unheard of for me, but the second morning in a row. Maybe a long sleep is on its way to becoming habit, but I doubt it, this has happened before on rare occasion then right back to the 2:30 to 3:30 a.m. rising. No blog post this morning, because writing it takes some level of wakefulness and the mind won't come out of this grogginess. So, as full of theological holes as it may be, my swiss cheese theology, I'm posting last Sunday's sermon after all. Or call it a homily if preferred. It was what I've heard called a "Saturday night special." But I'm in a hurry: this is Tuesday morning, my day to drive over and park on Linda Avenue behind our beloved Cove School HNES and go walking with Robert. Why? We're trying to stay alive. Then at one o'clock noon, my routine six-monthly cardiology checkup, which will be fine.

TW again