Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Hebrews 9:11-14
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date: March 30, 2018 (Good Friday)

What did you think about our text from Hebrews chapter 9? You heard about the blood of goats and the ashes of a heifer. You heard about sanctified flesh and sacrifice. It can be difficult, in the first reading, to understand the practical value. I think it’s almost inevitable that people who live in our modern world of computers, rockets, and smartphones will read these verses with a severe sense of foreignness. That’s not my world. Blood and sacrifice? What does any of this have to do with my life? In fact, it is sometimes difficult for people to understand the Christian faith because blood and sacrifice are so removed from our normal experience. And as far as Christianity goes, it’s kind of the main part of the story. In fact, a blood sacrifice is the vital part of your story as well, as strange as that may sound. It’s why you’re here tonight; it’s what we celebrate on Good Friday. Believe it or not, things haven’t changed that much in 3,500 years. Sin-stained consciences still call for cleansing, and there’s still only one sacrifice which can clean us. So draw near and listen to these inspired words from our Lord this Good Friday with full confidence that they speak to you and your heart today.

Under the Old Covenant law there many methods of purification and sacrifice but the author of Hebrews, on this occasion, simply references three, summing them all up in these words, “the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on those who were unclean, sanctifies them so that their flesh is clean”. These sacrifices and purification rites provided a very specific type of cleansing. They sanctified the flesh so that the person who had formerly been unclean might become clean in a ceremonial sense. They would allow an Israelite to go back into worship life. After they performed the sacrifice they could go back into the congregation and worship with God’s people. But it was only an external cleansing. Their flesh was sanctified, not their soul. It was an outward ritual which in turn, led to an outward cleanliness in a ceremonial sense. But these sacrifices couldn’t forgive sins. They could not cleanse your conscience. The root problem was not solved. The Israelites offered sacrifices day after day, and their flesh was ritually cleansed, but their consciences could remain stained. They could draw near to God in his temple, but their hearts could be far from him. As the old hymn goes, “Not all the blood of beasts on Israel’s altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain.”

It’s funny how things don’t change, as in despite our modern medicine, our cultural evolution, and supposed intellectual superiority to previous civilizations, nothing has really changed when it comes to solving the real problem. Some may think that we are so much further advanced, that we would never do something as barbaric as animal sacrifice in 2018. Even though what those Israelites did when they offered their sacrifices gave the animals much more honor than what happens in a mass slaughterhouse. But that aside, even the ways that we have advanced as a society cannot solve the root problem. No matter how many scientific discoveries we have made or how much medical technology we have developed, we have not made the slightest advance in solving how people with stained consciences can become clean.

When we spend copious amounts of time at work, neglecting our family, addicted, in a way, to our profession or the money we make, the deepest issue doesn’t have anything to do with the company or the hours required. When we spend an evening isolated in front of a computer, clicking until some sort of perversion appears on the screen, the issue isn’t the internet or our computer’s processor. When we send texts that cross the line of faithfulness, the issue has nothing to do with the accessibility of mobile technology. When we judge other people and envy their possessions or family, the issue has nothing to do with how much money we make. Whatever sin we commit, the real issue, at the end of it all, has nothing to do with any external factors; the issue is: how can I come to God when I feel so dirty. How do I come to my family with transparent love when my conscience is so defiled? How can I worship honestly when I know there is a space between myself and God?

The external forms and circumstances may have changed over the ages, but the basic problem of life does not change. We are humans, and we have consciences that reverberate with convictions of real guilt. And we know that what separates us from God is not stained clothes, or a busy schedule, or distance from some church or pastor. What separates us from God is the discord of sin echoing in a condemning conscience. No shower can wash away the guilt. No bleach can dissolve the stain. No deletion of search history or an expensive gift can erase what happened. No amount of worship or service would ever let us sleep in peace. Those are just dead works. As Job said in extreme frustration, “Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!”(Job 14:4)  Regardless of how clean we may look on the outside, regardless of how spotless our religious life may look, no one can bring what is pure from the impure. None of us can cleanse our own conscience. Left to ourselves, we remain unclean, unfit for God’s presence, and destined for eternal isolation.

I don’t think I’d consider myself a lover of Shakespeare. I did the required reading in high school and college and enjoyed it, but I also haven’t read any of his work since. However, there is one scene that has stuck with me, sort of haunted me at times, I guess. It’s from Macbeth and I don’t remember where in the play it happened, but there is a scene where Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking and her servant calls for a doctor.  And when the doctor arrives he begins to observe Lady Macbeth’s odd behavior. She stands in her bedroom, rubbing her hands together vigorously. The servant girl mentions that this is something she does often at night. (This is my abridged version.) The doctor then continues to watch when, suddenly, Lady Macbeth begins to speak. “Get off, get off cursed spot.” She says. “There’s still the smell of blood on my hands and all the perfumes in the world cannot mask it.”  It turns out  Lady Macbeth had killed a man and her subconscious would not let her forget it. She is racked with guilt. And at the end of the scene, the doctor says something profound: “More needs she the divine than the physician.” In other words, I can’t help her; she doesn’t need a doctor, she needs God. Because he is the only one who can cleanse her conscience. He is the only one who can remove the stain of sin from her hands.

Now I can stand here all day and talk about how much you need Jesus until I’m blue in the face. But the truth is, you never know how much you need him until you lay awake at night, trying in vain to get the blood, so to speak, off of your hands. Until you turn and turn, recoiling at the memories of past sin and regret. As you silently suffer as your conscience screams inside of you, begging to be cleansed. Because that’s the day, you’ll come to know there is no doctor or psychiatrist that can help. That is the day you will bow your head and say “Lord have mercy.” That’s the day you’ll know that only one sacrifice for sin remains, only one type of blood atones, that only God, Jesus Christ himself, can cleanse a dirty conscience.

And to show that he truly is able to do just that, the author of Hebrews compares Old Testament sacrifices to the sacrifice which Jesus made on the cross. 13 Now if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on those who were unclean, sanctifies them so that their flesh is clean, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works, so that we worship the living God? Jesus’ blood was not the blood of unblemished goats or bulls, it was the blood of a perfect being, true God and true man, spiritually unblemished. So if external purity was gained by outwardly pure sacrifices, how much more is it true that Christ’s sacrifice, which was spiritually pure, will cleanse us spiritually. That’s why his blood can cleanse your conscience. His offering was not just a physical sacrifice, but a spiritual one as well. Those animals were led unknowing to the altar, but Jesus knew what he was doing and why he had to do it. He had to die because of the loud cries of our conscience which testify to sin. And he took all of that on himself. As bad as his physical suffering was, nothing compares to the spiritual anguish he experienced, as he took the guilt of the whole world on his shoulders and was forsaken by God the Father. His offering was not burned with the fire of wood and oil, but with the flame of God’s wrath against all sin. It was primarily a spiritual sacrifice and as such can cleanse your conscience. You may never think the stain of certain events could ever be washed away, but they are gone! You are forgiven! Christ’s. blood. cleanses. consciences. No matter how sin tries to cling to you, God is able to purify to the core of your being.

And we will never exhaust his forgiveness. Jesus’ sacrifice is not something that needs to be repeated over and over. He offered his blood “through the eternal Spirit.” He entered just once into the Holy Place and obtained eternal redemption. (How long does that sound?) Each time your conscience testifies to sin, take it under the fountain of Christ’s blood and sleep in peace, knowing that your sin has been washed away completely. So, dear Christians, draw near to God in full confidence! You have a blood sacrifice that can atone for sin. As the old hymn goes, “Not all the blood of beasts on Israel’s altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, takes all our sins away, a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they.”

Amen.