FIRST PETER: “The Precious Blood of Christ”

A Sermon Based Upon 1 Peter 1: 17-25

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

The Third Sunday of Easter,  May 4th, 2014

  "You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways…, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ…”  (1Peter 1:18-19 NRS).

After watching the trilogy of  J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” I have a hard time getting out of my head the image and sounds of that small, creepy little creature named Gollum, who called the ring’ that powerfully extended his life beyond the its natural human limits, “my precious!”   If something would save or extend your life like that, you probably would call it ‘my precious’ too.

What is most “precious” to you?   Life itself is precious.  So are our children, our spouse, our family and our friends.  Meaningful work can also be precious, especially when it gives us purpose and income.  Even material things can become precious when they give us memories, keep us from poverty, or give us the prosperity we could never have without them.  Recently, I heard a chicken farmer say, he wanted to do whatever he could to manage his debt so that he could keep his family farm,  That farm was very special, or ‘precious’.  

In today’s text, Peter strangely declares ‘the blood of Christ’ as ‘precious’ because it is “like that of (sacrificial) lamb, without defect or blemish.”  Such an image of ‘blood’ being precious can mean something to us, especially if we’ve ever given blood or had to have a blood transfusion to sustain our lives.  (When I was in an auto accident at the age of 17, 7-8 pints of blood saved my life).  But still, to refer to the sacrificial “blood” of Jesus as “precious” is still very strange to most people’s ears today.  I recall particularly, one professor in college who suggested we Baptists ought remove such violent, harsh imagery completely from our hymnbooks, not because it had no real meaning in the past, but because the meaning has been lost today, and has become an insult to people who abhor violence and bloodshed.  More recently, other biblical scholars warn that the violent, bloody imagery in the Bible should be no less than “R” rated, because it can lead to the dangerous misunderstandings that God demands bloodshed and ‘violence’ to save us.  Can we understand or attempt to proclaim that there is “power” in the “precious blood of the lamb” in a world that knows little about animal sacrifice, or might think God likes demands “blood” to be satisfied?   

THE TIME OF EXILE

Back in the 1970’s, when my professor was protesting the very “violent imagery” of the New Testament, I disagreed with him, but I also did not realize just how right he was.  I don’t think he was right about taking the “blood” out of the hymnbook, but I do think he was right about the fact that we are in a time when the ‘language of Zion’ unique to the church is much less accessible to the world in which we live.  Ours is a time of spiritual ‘exile, when the majority no longer understand what we mean by calling Jesus’ blood ‘precious’ and we cannot assume their understanding them or take such ‘bloody’ biblical terms for granted.   So how do we evangelize, share our faith in Jesus and put the language of the cross in understandable terms?  

Peter’s letter addresses this question in an instructive way.  First of all, it helps us to realize our own experience of spiritual exile is not unknown by the people of God.  Exile was not only a part of the story of Israel in both Egypt and Babylon, it was also a part of the story of the early church.  After Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, the church was scattered and had to survive in separate, lonely places of the pagan, Roman world.  These churches often survived without the support of a culture having little in common with their neighbors.   In that ‘pagan’ Roman environment there was history, there was heritage and traditions, and there was a culture which included religious faith, but it was a way of life which was 'light years’ away from what Israel or the early Church had known.  

This “strange” world the church was thrust into was an ‘exile’ just as real as Babylon had been for Israel.  They had a similar experience to what we have when we turn on our television sets, visit the internet, take our children to ball games, or when we try to express our faith in public. Our faith-filled speech has less impact because what we understand is seldom fully understood and less trusted.  Like Jews of old, we too can find ourselves living “by the rivers of Babylon” (Psalm 137.1ff) even when living along Hunting Creek in Union Grove or in Hamptonville, or wherever we might travel as we remember a world that used to be, but will be no more.

I find it interesting, that in England, a BBC Radio Program called “Talking Points” asked about the importance of faith in people’s lives.  The question was asked, “Easter is Fast Approaching, Does Anyone Care?”  Here in the U.S., less than half of us will go to church on Easter, but after that, what does it matter for our daily lives?  Does faith still matter?  Some will go far enough as to suggest that “religion” is not only senseless for people today, it is dangerous.  Just look at what religion did at World Trade Towers on 911.  The point is made that since religion wreaks havoc on society and keeps us from moving forward, then perhaps we should abandon all religious traditions, and settle for believing in Science.  In others words, only “human knowledge” can be trusted.  Of course, my question is “which human” and “whose knowledge” will we trust?  If people think “knowledge of God” has a bad track record of being believable or trustworthy, think what history records that “humans” have done to others and even to themselves in the name of God and in the name of Science?  In this age when most all institutions are under suspicion and in decline, the question is, “Does it really matter?”  Is the question of faith really that important?

So, this is my question to us, in this very strange kind of spiritual exile we find ourselves in.   Just how precious can Christ’s blood be to us in a world that does not know how to appreciate it, even when our own children or loved ones don’t feel it’s importance or maybe we too don’t feel what was once felt, or are unable to articulate what is so precious about Christ’s “blood” shed for us?   How can we sing, ‘the precious blood of the lamb’ and feel the joy, when and more are clueless to what we are talking about, could careless to know, or when it matters not to public, daily, life? 

FREED FROM FUTILE WAYS

When Mel Gibson’s depiction of Jesus’ death was released back in 2004, it made a huge impact on Christians and was marketed as a powerful evangelistic tool.   Many Christians wanted the world to see just how much Jesus suffered, just how much Jesus was beaten, and just how big a price Jesus paid to save us.  As the movie was released, Jody Dean, a CBS News anchor, shared his own perspective of the movie:

 "The film grabs you in the first five seconds, and never lets go. The brutality, humiliation, and gore are almost inconceivable - and still probably does not go far enough. The scourging alone seems to never end, and you cringe at the sound and splatter of every blow - no matter how steely your nerves. Even those who have known combat or prison will have trouble, no matter their experience.... 

 "What you've heard about how audiences have reacted is true. There was no sound after the film's conclusion. No noise at all. No one got up. No one moved. The only sound one could hear was sobbing....  (Jody Dean, "Perspective on 'The Passion of the Christ," Religion Today at http://www.religiontoday.com /faith/1242963.html).

As the movie became insanely popular, there were as many critics of the film as proponents.  One very important question that was raised was about how children might be impacted by the film’s relentless, violent images.  For this reason, the movie was given an “R” rating, even though there was no foul language or sexual content.   The other major problem with the film was that many exposed it to be more of about the ‘gospel according to Mel Gibson’ than about the gospel of the Bible. Gibson’s own anti-Semitic views were obvious as he put Jewish leaders in a bad light, while making Pilate and other Romans look innocent.   Instead of promoting what the Bible is really about, healing, redemption, and reconciliation, Mel Gibson’s overt violent depictions of the crucifixion promoted feelings of hatred, prejudice and more violent behavior.   After seeing the movie, a church in Denver posted a marquee reading “Jews Killed the Lord Jesus.”  A Georgia couple got into a violent theological dispute after seeing the film, police were called, and the couple spent the night in jail, each charged with battery.  In Texas, someone murdered their pregnant girlfriend, because of the guilt  of sin they felt after seeing the movie. (http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/ essays/gibsonspassion.pdf).  

Thinking about that movie again, ought to remind us that the big problem with Hollywood depictions about Jesus, no matter how good they seem in the moment, even as they are getting better and depicting the ‘moment’ of  ‘how’ something might have happened, they can still miss the real reason of ‘why’ something happened for the sake of making it look realistic on camera.   Gibson wanted to show how Jesus died at the hands of “The Jews”, but he failed see the bigger picture the New Testament paints, claiming that all human sin, not just 'Jewish' sin put Jesus on the cross.   The same kind of thing can happen, even in reading the New Testament, if we read the gospel story only from one angle.   When we say, even rightly, that “sin” put Jesus on the cross, we could also miss the main point, namely that 'love' put Jesus on the cross because Jesus did not come to condemn us, but to save us.  When we focus primarily on the “ugly” of the cross, we could miss the beauty within the cross, the beauty which points to the heart of God, the biggest point of all which claims that on the cross, as Paul says, “…in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them,  (2Co 5:19 NRS).  It is God’s love that makes the cross and the “blood” “precious,” not how much Jesus suffered. 

But even trying to understand and communicate how we are saved by God’s love through the cross can be difficult, if not impossible unless the Spirit is at work.   Throughout Christian history various theories of atonement have been put forward, using the Bible’s own words to try and get a handle on the mystery of God’s reconciling love.   But do we really have to understand the mystery of love?  It’s kind of like giving your lover a definition of love verses telling them ‘why’ you love them?   Recall Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem:  “How much do I love thee, let me count the ways?”  There is much more love in counting the ways love acts, than there will ever be in defining preciously what love is.   It’s the same way with theories of atonement or even in preaching great words of salvation, like justification, redemption, sanctification or glorification.   These are good, necessary words to teach us about the cross, but no matter how good they are, they always come up short in sharing or showing what our faith is about.  What matters most is not that we understand exactly “how” Jesus died, or even to finally understand everything about ‘why’ Jesus had to die, but what matters most is can we show what difference God’s great love for us makes in our everyday life.

So, again, just how ‘precious’ is ‘the blood of the lamb’?  When Jesus ’ life, death and sacrifice seem so far away from life in our ‘world’ we need to remind ourselves of what Christ’s undying love can do for us.   This is what Peter was getting at when he says, “…you were ransomed from…futile ways…” (1 Pet. 1.18).  Peter is suggesting that the “blood of Christ” is ‘precious,’ not because it was “bloody” or “violent” or that it “satisfied” God’s anger or wrath.   As Derek Flood has bluntly stated: Jesus did not die to save us from God (See Derek Flood’s, The Healing Gospel)!  In Jesus, God was saving us from sin.  Peter wants his readers to get to this main point for living: that Jesus’ blood is most “precious” because of the ‘futile’ and ‘fruitless’ living Jesus can save us from.   

So what has God saved you from?  Can you “count the ways” God has saved you or is saving you right now?   What kind of “futile” or “fruitless” lifestyle has Jesus prevented you from falling into?   Interestingly, the word “futile ways” in the NRSV of the Bible, is translated “corruptible ways” in the King James.   Put the image of staring into an open grave and seeing your own body in decay and ‘corruption’.  Now you’ve got the picture!  When you face your mortality or impending death, you start asking yourself different questions.  Instead of wondering “How can I have fun” or “What will make me happy?” you start asking things like, “What can I do that matters” or “What kind of living will help me look back on my life and hear, “well done”.   When you apply this to the cross, which Peter does, the big message of the cross is much less about “bloodshed” and dying as it is about living, loving, having “purpose” and “hope” which aims us toward living a life we will not regret having lived, or having not lived as we could have or should have.   Peter says, that to discover such a higher quality of life and living is what makes the blood of Christ is most “precious.”  When we find in Jesus the truth and the way to get life back on the right track in Christ, we will have a life with no regrets.

In the Huffington Post online magazine, I came across an article about a nurse worker who, out of a career of working with dying patients in Hospice, wrote about, “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying”.  When I read the list, it was not what I thought.  Let me share them with you:

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice and they stayed stuck in old patterns and habits.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming and developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“Every male patient said they missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship and deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

And the number one regret?  1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not just what others expected.  “The most common regret was people realizing they had left so many dreams unfulfilled.  The life they’d settled for was either based poor choices or no choices until their chance was gone.  (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/03/top-5-regrets-of-the-dying_n_3640593.html#es_share_ended).

I guess you might interpret these ‘regrets’ in various ways, but from Peter’s perspective, taking the “blood” and the “cross” more seriously, still today, can prevent the the futility of a life half-lived made up of wrong, poor or lesser choices.  However you might interpret it, the cross of Jesus Christ, is a call to a more serious, more intentional, and more productive life.   What we should be saying about “blood of Christ” in our witness is is showing “precious” it is to follow a Christ has also “ransomed” or made us “free” from ‘futile ways’ and “perishable things” (vs. 18b).  (Just a note, everything is ‘perishable’ unless it is connected to hope in God).

REVEALED….FOR YOUR SAKES 

In a day when the word “selfie” has become more than a word, but a philosophy of life, I guess you would think that Peter would conclude this section, saying that when Jesus died, he did it for some other reason, than ‘for us”.  But that is not the case.  Listen to how Peter makes such a grand theological statement in verse 20, when he says, “He (Jesus) was destined (to die) before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.” 

When you reflect and think about it, this is an incredible statement.   Before the world was created, Jesus’ destiny was already set, that he would die and it would also be ‘revealed’ that Jesus came to die “for (y)our sake”.   It might sound really difficult to some minds to believe that God intended for Jesus to die before the world came into being.  My teen-age mind read this and wondered—“If God knew beforehand that Jesus would have to die, then why in the world did he create the world the way he did?  Why didn’t God correct the “flaw” that would allow sin to come into the world and bring about Jesus’ death on the cross?  After all these years, I’ve come to only one answer:  Love.   Without the fall of creation and the sin human sin, God's love could not have been fully revealed.  

Why this revelation of God’s love matters is what Peter speaks of in verse 22, when he says, “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.  You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed…”   It is God's 'love' that gives us the chance to be “born anew” of “imperishable seed” that both creation and redemption are about.  God’s work and will is “for our sake” because God wants to give us the eternal spirit God has and that eternal spirit, Scripture says, is love.   We cannot become love until we know love.  And we cannot know love until we have received love.  And when we receive God's love into our hearts, we receive a love that is stronger than death so that what we have and who we become is eternal love. 

Receiving the gift of God’s eternal love, which comes ‘deeply’ from God’s heart to our hearts, is what this creation and the cross are all about.  And your life will never be what it can be, or what it might be, until this same love is allowed to transform your  heart and your life.  Peter’s concludes that everything is ‘fading away’ except for what is revealed in the eternal and enduring Word of the Lord (24-25).  That ‘eternal word’ is but one word: Love!  This 'love is what still makes the blood precious.  Such love makes our lives just as precious, when we love, as God loves us.   Amen.