“Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”
The lesson from Hebrews complements the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. We pray “Our Father” to “forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive them that trespass against us.” Forgiveness is a dominant feature of Luke’s Gospel whose Passion account we read on the Wednesday and Thursday of Holy Week. Luke gives us the first and the last word of the Crucified. They are both words of the Son to the Father; the first word is forgiveness. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Allied with Luke’s emphasis upon the theme of forgiveness is the idea of sacrifice and healing, the idea of the giving of oneself for the good of others. That theme is critical to the idea of atonement, our being made at one with God. That implies our separation and the overcoming of that separation. The lesson from Hebrews provides us with the deep theology of redemption, at once reaching back to the Old Testament story from Numbers about the bronze serpent being raised up for sinful Israel to see and in seeing healed, and in the idea of sacrifice which requires the shedding of blood.
What is the story of the bronze serpent about? It is about human sin and disobedience. In this case, Israel’s constant complaining against God results in the punishment of serpents which destroy them. They repent and beseech Moses to intercede to God. He does and is told to make a bronze serpent and to hold it up before the people. It makes their sin visible to them at the same time as healing them. Jesus picks up on this image in John’s Gospel. “As Jesus lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Such is salvation, our being healed and made whole.
But only through the brokenness and agony of Christ. Luke, of all the evangelists, gives us the most moving picture of Christ in his care for us. Christ in the agony of Gethsemane prays “as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” It anticipates the blood of his passion. What does the shedding of blood mean? Simply the giving of life for the good of others. That is the insight of Hebrews. It sees the former sacrifices as having their fulfillment in Christ’s sacrifice, in the shedding of his blood. It is imaged for us here in terms of his commitment to the will of the Father. “Not my will but thine be done.” We have no life apart from God.
Luke portrays the betrayal of Peter, too, in a most moving way. Peter is convicted not simply by the crowing of the cock, but more tellingly by the gaze of Jesus. What is that gaze? It is the look of loving compassion upon us in our sinfulness, in our betrayal of God’s goodness. “And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter.” Peter “remembered the word of the Lord.” ”And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.” Such is the movement of the Passion in us. We confront ourselves in these moving ways.
The lesson from Leviticus is about the theme of the scapegoat, the one upon whom all the sins of Israel are placed and the goat released into the wilderness. Christ takes upon himself all that belongs to our disorder and desolation. He goes into the wilderness of our sins but he does so out of deep compassion for us in our weakness and folly. He does so out of his love for the Father. Forgiveness is grounded in the Son’s love for the Father. Thus Jesus prays in Gethsemane, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. It is what Christ prays. Even more, it is who Christ is, the one who has “come to the will of him who sent me.” That is at the heart of the Passion, this underlying commitment to the will of the Father for the good of others. Such is sacrifice. Such is forgiveness. Such is the love that makes us one with God and makes us whole but only through the blood of Christ.
“Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”
Fr. David Curry
Wednesday in Holy Week, April 8th, 2020
Posted not preached owing to the Covid-19 outbreak