"I Will Pass Over You"
By Dr. Mickey Anders
First Christian Church
Pikeville, Kentucky
September 5, 1999
Text: Exodus 12:1-14
In the little Baptist church where I grew up, we often sang hymns about
blood.
"Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?"
"There is a fountain filled with blood washed from Emmanuel's veins."
And we sang with gusto the one entitled, "Nothing but the blood of
Jesus."
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my hope and peace,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my righteousness,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Today's passage of Scripture reminded me of all those blood hymns that we used to sing. Sometimes I get uncomfortable with the bloodiness of the Biblical faith. Our passage today instituted the annual Passover observance. It describes the slaughtering of the lambs and the tossing of the blood on the doorposts of the homes. That night the angel of death passed through Egypt taking the firstborn children, but it passed over the homes which were marked with blood. The people of God were instructed to observe this annual ritual as a way of eternally remembering this night when God's judgment passed over the children of Israel, and they were delivered from slavery. Later in the book of Exodus we see the institution of the other blood sacrifices, which would be a steady part of Israel's religion until after the time of Jesus.
I can't imagine what it must have been like to have so much slaughtering and so much blood as a part of your religious experience. The Temple must have been more like a meat processing plant than a worship place. It all seems so foreign to our contemporary religious experience.
But after I thought about it, I realized that we talk about blood every week. While actual blood is not a part of our worship anymore, we still talk and sing a lot about blood. In fact, our observance of Communion comes directly from the Passover ritual. Jesus and his Disciples were at the Passover meal when Jesus reinterpreted it to refer to his own body and blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Fortunately for us, the Communion ritual has been sanitized and modernized so that it is far more acceptable to our modern sensibilities. But when we observe Communion, we quote the words of Jesus, "This is my body; this is my blood."
However, as a society we are rapidly distancing ourselves from the intimate acquaintance with blood that every generation until ours has known. In my own family, the generations are growing farther away from blood.
One of my earliest memories is associated with a hog-killing at my grandfather's house. My grandfather, of course, raised hogs for meat. I still remember that cool November day. I can see myself standing on the boards of the wooden fence with a 22 rifle in my hand and my grandfather coaching me, "Now, Mickey, shoot him right between the eyes and he'll fall right down." But somehow my shot didn't quite hit the mark, and the huge white hog let out an awful squeal and began to run around the pen. My grandfather took the rifle and quickly finished the job.
I still remember the blood and the smells as the carcass was drug into a 55-gallon barrel filled with water. A fire had been burning under the barrel so the water scalded the skin, which was the required preparation for scraping the hair off the hide.
The pictures in my mind fade at that point. I must have had enough and walked away before the actual cutting of the meat began.
Today most families have no such experience with blood. My boys have never witnessed such a sight. Their only experience with blood has come from deer hunting and squirrel hunting. In our family, killing the first deer is a right of passage into manhood. A part of becoming a man is gutting a deer, feeling the heat coming from the so-recently-alive body, and skinning the animal with blood covered arms.
But that's a rare experience in our culture. I guess folks in the medical fields deal with it every day, but most of us are seldom acquainted with blood. We have little or no concept of the intimate involvement with blood that was required for survival in earlier generations.
In my Internet discussion group, one minister from Pennsylvania commented, "I find it more and more difficult to sing hymns like 'Nothing But the Blood' and 'There is a Fountain Filled with Blood' without some of the congregation tripping over the metaphor." Another minister from Tennessee responded, "Actually, I find it increasingly difficult to sing those 'blood' hymns and to use the language of blood and body without tripping over it myself!"
So we find ourselves torn between a faith that has a long blood-history with much blood-talk and our modern culture where blood is not spoken of or seen in polite company.
Much of our theology is tied to the blood atonement for our sins. The book of Hebrews says, "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin." The meaning of our salvation is quite often explained through the substitionary view of atonement. This view says that justice requires that someone pay by their blood for the sins of the world.
Many modern theologians believe there are better explanations for the salvation work of Jesus than the substitionary view. I certainly think that we need to get behind all the blood-talk in order to communicate the truth of the Gospel to our blood-less culture.
Once we get past all the blood-talk, we find that the meaning of both the Passover and Communion is that God has passed over us. Just as death passed over the houses marked with blood, in Christ, death passes over those of us who claim Christ as our Savior and Lord. At is root, all the blood talk simply means we have been forgiven.
Forgiveness was the subject of a recent e-mail I received. It seems that one of the favorite activities of people who have e-mail is to pass on interesting stories. Most of those stories seem to be of questionable origin, and I often wonder if the story is true or not. I recently received this amazing story, but I happen to know that this one is true. It's a letter written to a man on death row. But the unusual thing about this letter is that it was written by the Father of the man who was killed by the death row prisoner. The letter reads:
You are probably surprised that I, of all people, am writing a letter to you, but I ask you to read it in its entirety and consider its request seriously. As the Father of the man whom you took part in murdering, I have something very important to say to you.
I forgive you. With all my heart, I forgive you. I realize it may be hard for you to believe, but I really do. At your trial, when you confessed to your part in the events that cost my Son his life and you asked for my forgiveness, I immediately granted you that forgiving love from my heart. I can only hope you believe me and will accept my forgiveness.
But this is not all I have to say to you. I want to make you an offer -- I want you to become my adopted child. You see, my Son who died was my only child, and I now want to share my life with you and leave my riches to you. This may not make sense to you or anyone else, but I believe you are worth the offer. I have arranged matters so that if you will receive my offer of forgiveness, not only will you be pardoned for your crime, but you also will be set free from your imprisonment, and your sentence of death will be dismissed. At that point, you will become my adopted child and heir to all my riches.
I realize this is a risky offer for me to make to you -- you might be tempted to reject my offer completely -- but I make it to you without reservation.
Also, I realize it may seem foolish to make such an offer to one who cost my Son his life, but I now have a great love and an unchangeable forgiveness in my heart for you.
Finally, you may be concerned that once you accept my offer you may do something to cause you to be denied your rights as an heir to my wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. If I can forgive you for your part in my Son's death, I can forgive you for anything. I know you never will be perfect, but you do not have to be perfect to receive my offer. Besides, I believe that once you have accepted my offer and begin to experience the riches that will come to you from me, that your primary (though not always) response will be gratitude and loyalty.
Some would call me foolish for my offer to you, but I wish for you to
call me your Father.
Sincerely,
The Father of Jesus
Here is the story of Passover and Communion rolled into one profound letter of forgiveness. The real meaning of the Passover "blood of the lamb" and of Christ's body and blood in Communion is captured in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Someone suggested that the real meaning of all those blood-hymns is "love," and that those old songs can be redeemed by substituting the word "love" for "blood." I think he was right.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the love of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the love of Jesus.
This is all my hope and peace,
Nothing but the love of Jesus.
This is all my righteousness,
Nothing but the love of Jesus.
Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the love of Jesus.