Sunday sermon on the Epistle reading from Hebrews 9:11-14 (April 6, 2025)
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.
“How much more will the Blood of Christ purify our conscience from dead works to worship and serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14).
In the Old Covenant, the blood of the animals offered on the altar was used to sprinkle those who had been defiled through various actions to sanctify them and purify their flesh. Isn’t it a blessing that since Christ’s self-offering, we no longer use blood to sprinkle ourselves or our church or other objects?
We use the holy water now, sanctified by the Holy Spirit for our sanctification and purification. But blood is still involved. Not the blood of the animals anymore, but the Blood of Christ Himself. And what we do with His Blood sounds as scandalous today as it did when He first told His followers what to do with it.
“Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. For My Flesh is true food, and My Blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in them” (John 6:53-56).
It’s impossible to hear these words and not go, “What?!” Eating the Flesh and drinking the Blood of our God, otherwise we won’t have life in us? Many of His disciples were confused and offended by this saying, so much so that they “turned back and no longer walked with Him” (John 6:66).
There is a good reason why Christ’s hearers were scandalized by His words about eating and drinking His Flesh and Blood. There was a direct prohibition in the Old Covenant against drinking blood of any living creature. “If anyone eats any blood, I will set my face against that person,” says God, “because the life of the flesh is in the blood…its blood is its life…the blood is the life” (Leviticus 17:10-11, 14; Deuteronomy 12:23).
Sprinkling the blood of the sacrificed animal for sanctification and purification was one thing, drinking its blood, or the blood of a human being, was absolutely forbidden because the life of every creature was understood to be contained in its blood, and that blood, and consequently that life, belongs to God alone.
God prohibits us to drink the blood, the life, of other creatures, but Christ commands us to drink His Blood. Why? If blood is the life of the creature, only the Blood of the Son of God has eternal life because He Himself is eternal. Drinking the blood of other mortal creatures does not give us life because that blood mortal like us.
And if the blood of goats and bulls in the Old Covenant purified and sanctified those who were defiled, how much more will the Blood of Christ purify and sanctify us? If we do not eat the Body and Blood of the Son of Man, we have no life in us. His Blood gives us life, His life, and it purifies our conscience from dead works to worship and serve the living God. Purified from dead works to serve the living God.
Dead works are exactly what they sound like – works that lack life, works that lead away from life, works of sin that separate us from the source of Life – Christ, the incarnate Son of God.
God not only wants to save us from these dead works, He gives us a way to purify ourselves from them – through the Blood of His Son. His Blood cleanses our conscience from dead works. Conscience is an interesting word. It means co-knowledge, joint knowledge of the inner sense of right and wrong that guides our actions and judgments. Co-knowledge, as in a combination of my knowledge and someone else’s. So whose knowledge joins my knowledge to form my conscience?
We are not born knowing what’s right and wrong. We are shaped by our surroundings in learning and discerning right from wrong. Our family, places we live in and visit (like home and school and work), and people we interact with all have an impact on our conscience. The entertainment we consume: from what we read, to what we watch, to what we listen to all are the knowledge that forms us.
Is there room for Christ to get His foot in through the door and help us mold our conscience? Is our conscience, co-knowledge, shaped by garbage that comes out from the newspapers and the news or by Christ? Christ’s Blood purifies our conscience, while today’s entertainment, and the news is nothing more than entertainment, is meant to zombify our brains.
God never just purifies us from something, but always for something. Saint Paul tells us today that Christ’s Blood purifies our conscience from dead works to worship and serve the living God. The living God because He is the source of life; He does not depend on anyone for His life; He is the life-giver.
Worshiping and serving the living God we become little Christs. That’s what Christian means – little Christ. We become like Him, we are deified, we are sanctified. We have His life in us because we partake of the Blood of our God. A scandalous and confusing statement, but a commandment from the Lord Himself.
His Blood gives us life; His Blood purifies us from dead works and sanctifies us for the worship and service of God. In this is life and in this life we have our purpose, which shapes our conscience.
Being purified and sanctified by the Blood of Christ, let us give all praise, worship, and thanksgiving to His eternal Father and the Most Holy Spirit, always, now and ever and unto ages of ages.
Amen.
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Intro and outro melody:
Rule of Life
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/brock-hewitt-stories-in-sound/rule-of-life
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