HOW HOPE IS BUILT
Scriptures: Hosea 10:11-12; 11:8-9
Hebrews 9:11-22
Did you listen carefully to that reading from the book of Hebrews? If so, you may have been as appalled as I was when I first read it – all that talk about blood! It almost seems as though the Bible is dealing in images right out of “Friday the 13th – Part 16” (or whatever). You almost begin to wonder if Freddy Krueger or Jason is going to pop out of the next chapter.
All this language and these images of blood do seem anachronistic to our modern sensibility. Or do they? Now that “The Departed” has won the Best Picture Oscar are we in for yet more blood-filled films that are just gory and don’t have the imagination that a Martin Scorsese brings to his movies? Of course, this trend probably goes all the way back to “Bonnie and Clyde” in the late 1960s; somehow those slow-motion images of that duo, riddled with bullets, was seen as a break-through in a “realistic” depiction of on-screen violence. Seems as though we live in a time dominated by bloody images – to say nothing of the real bloody images that come across our TV screens from Iraq.
We’ve talked about this before, how the use of images of Christ’s blood during the communion service is unsettling, to say the least. But the author of the book of Hebrews seems to be upping the ante. “He entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood….. ‘This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.’ And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood…..” Yechhhhh!
The repugnance of these images is magnified when we realize that the author of Hebrews is using them to try to put across the meaning of redemption. Well, maybe on second thought this isn’t so strange – at least for us 21st century people. I would venture to guess that redemption isn’t something we give a lot of thought to. C’mon, be honest now. When was the last time you gave serious and extended thought to your eternal redemption? I would certainly have to confess that it’s not the sort of thing that occupies many of my waking hours. Sure, it’s something that as Christians steeped in a faith tradition we’re supposed to do, but we’ve tended to react over-against those 19th and early 20th century Christians who so emphasized an other-worldly redemption that they played on the fears of a people who thought in terms of heavenly retribution for wrongs committed or heavenly reward for rights accomplished, and who thus really cheapened the whole meaning of redemption by offering it as a “pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by-when-you-die” formula for justifying oppression and suffering in this life.
And yet…and yet…in so many ways redemption is what the season of Lent is all about, as we now come to the second Sunday of our Lenten journey together. The truly important aspect of Lent is that it is Christ’s action on our behalf which leads to our redemption – and this is what gives us the basis for hope. Hope is not a fleeting, optimistic “feeling” that comes because we have had a good day or the weather turns warm (as it looks like it’s now about to as we head into the second week of March). Hope in the future of humankind and in everyday possibilities begins with the cross and our realization of all that that far-off event means for us.
So, come with me for a few moments while we try to get beyond the bloody excesses and images of this passage from Hebrews that trouble us, and let’s look at how our hope is built. In this Lenten season we want to look at the foundational aspects of our Christian faith – important things like justice, forgiveness, love, and redemption is right up there with them. But it’s certainly hard to do that when confronted by a passage that speaks of redemption in such terms as: “For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God?” Heavy, huh? Leaves you with a bit of a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach, doesn’t it?
First of all, we need to understand the historical context of this author. Even though he was writing later than most of the other New Testament writers (perhaps as late as the middle of the second century) his focus was very much on the crucifixion. Indeed, that event was the central fact for the early Christian community. It was only much later that resurrection – the victory over death – and incarnation – God coming to earth and becoming human – took on equal significance for Christians. What’s more, this author was speaking to and for a people for whom animal sacrifice still had a strong influence in their worship life. In this pre-scientific era blood itself was invested with a sense of mystery – a kind of primal life-force. We still have some vestiges of this, like when we speak of “lifeblood”. Or, recall that it wasn’t all that long ago that pledges or commitments were actually signed in blood. Blood still retains great power for us as a symbol of life-giving. Not just a symbol, either, but as reality: donations of pints of blood to maintain a strong and healthy blood bank is one of the most creative and meaningful services any of us can perform.
So, the author of Hebrews is on to something when he connects the people’s interest in animal sacrifices with the forgiveness of God that leads to our redemption. But he goes a step further. If Christ’s crucifixion is seen as merely an animal sacrifice raised to the human level, we would really be repulsed. When we receive communion today the bread and juice that we take should practically cause us to gag if we thought we were participating in the vestiges of an animal sacrifice rite. But what the author of Hebrews does is to show us how the crucifixion was much more than just a human self-sacrifice. It sealed the bond of the new covenant between God and God’s human creation. Christ becomes “the mediator of a new covenant”. That lonely hill called Golgotha is where God breaks through all of our defenses with a message of hope.
Hosea, who lived eight centuries before Christ, understood that hope. God had made a covenant with the people through Moses, but the people kept breaking their side of the bargain. So, prophets arose, and most of them lambasted those stubborn, prideful people for breaking the covenant. Hosea did that, too, but then he went beyond wrath. He had experienced in his own life the agony of God. And so Hosea was able to communicate something about the depth of God’s redeeming love. That wonderful Hebrew word hesed, which we usually translate as “steadfast love”, really means so much more when applied to God. It means that God will not give up on us no matter what; it means God is going the second mile; it means God loves even the most un-lovable of us. Hosea asks not only that the people repent but also, “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of steadfast love.” In other words, know that God’s love will always be with you and build your hope on this – or, to put it in theological terms, redemption is more powerful than judgment. That’s why those 19th century Christians who saw redemption in terms of retribution were denying the insights of Hosea and the author of Hebrews.
That author of Hebrews comes at his understanding of God’s redemption by a rather clever play on words. In Greek the word for “covenant” and “will” (in the sense of Last Will and Testament) is the same word. So, the author makes the fairly obvious point that a will does not go into effect until a person dies and when that person’s death has been legally established. Our covenant with God is like a will that kicks in whenever a death takes place.
But we’re not talking here about death in the literal, physical sense. As Christians our lives are made up of a succession of little deaths. We die to ignorance as we grow in knowledge through the Church School and Christian experience. We die to prejudice as we learn about God’s universal plan that includes all people. We die to traditional notions when we see that God is still speaking. We die to special privilege when we realize that we are called to service. We die to injustice when we are made aware of the importance of the rights of others. We die to unloving when we come to know someone who is so unlovable but whom we know needs our love. These little deaths (or, perhaps, not so little) are what redemption is all about on the human level. We discover the meaning of being redeemed each time we experience anew the death of ignorance or prejudice or pride or injustice in our own lives. And as we let go of these things – as we let them die – so do we experience the re-birth of hope. So is our hope built.
But no death – and especially not the deaths of forces as powerful as ignorance and pride and injustice – takes place without some agony. As our text says, “…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Or, as my favorite line from the musical The Fantasticks puts it a bit more colloquially: “Without a hurt the heart is hollow”. The author of Hebrews meant this quite literally, for he understood Christ’s crucifixion as a physical act that had to be endured in order for the forgiveness of sins to become real. This is something we can relate to. Just think about what an agony it has been for you at some point in your life to finally overcome a roadblock that was there for you in pursuing a Christian hope. Such agony can be endured, though, if we make living wills – which is a modern term for covenants – with God. Such living wills give us the opportunity to leave behind our faith, our hope, our love for succeeding generations. Redemption can become real for us and not just an abstract concept as we accept the sacrifices that can be made through a succession of little deaths and as we prepare for those sacrifices through the will – the covenant – that we make with our Creator/Redeemer.
Now we are about to celebrate a sacrifice through communion. Strange idea: to celebrate a sacrifice. And yet our hope begins with a realization that the sacrifice of an actual life – Christ’s crucifixion – is the beginning-point for a new covenant to take shape between us and God. And our hope builds as we contribute to our side of that covenant by seeing redemption as an on-going process that enhances our everyday lives through the little deaths that allow us to grow in faith. May your and my faith and hope continue to be built throughout this Lenten season and beyond.
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
March 4, 2007