Bloody Doorposts
Sermon
The Divine Salvage
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Middle Third)
When I was about twelve years of age I attended a state Boy Scout jamboree. We camped out in the mountains for an extended weekend. We had to bring food with us to eat, but we were told our Saturday evening meal would be provided. But what we did not know was how it would be provided. About four o'clock in the afternoon we were summoned to the road head. There by the side of the road was a tractor-trailer loaded with live chickens! At our campsite we were divided into groups of three, and from that truck each group, including mine, received a live chicken for the Saturday evening meal.
This was a difficult moment for my fellow scouts and me. We were from the city. We had hardly ever seen a live chicken! Now, we had one in hand and had to kill it to eat supper. We had never killed anything to eat. Chicken legs and thighs had always come to us in plastic packages. Sure, we had caught fish, prepared them and eaten them, but fish weren't like a live chicken walking around pecking at the ground. We took our live chicken back to our campsite. Who was going to kill this chicken? I had heard that my grandmother would wring a chicken's head off, but I didn't know how to do that. Somehow, I don't know how, it fell to me to dispatch this chicken. After building up my courage I took a hatchet in hand. Another boy helped me hold the chicken down, and I chopped off its head. I remember its eyes went blank and then closed. And I remember there was blood -- a lot of blood.
One of the most ironic things in life is that for us to live, blood must be spilled. To eat meat means an animal's blood must be poured out. And even if plants don't bleed, they are broken and destroyed by our consumption. Life comes only through death. Something must die for us to live. None of us, of course, think of ourselves as agents of death, and yet every time I sit down to eat a meal, I am aware that something had to die for me to live. This is a profound paradox: I participate in death in order to live. In understanding this basic fact of life, we come to understand a basic fact in the Bible. The two most important meals for people of the Hebrew and Christian Bible are the passover meal in Egypt and the passover meal of the Upper Room. Both events remind us that blood is poured out so we might have life.
In his movie The Ten Commandments, Cecil B. DeMille portrays the angel of death that comes on that first Passover night as a greenish, stealthy, creeping mist. Perhaps that is an appropriate image for a harbinger of death. But the word "Passover" to me conveys a stronger image. I see the Lord passing over Egypt in a roar. My image is more like that portrayed in the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. In that movie when the Ark was opened the angels of death came roaring out with wind and fire, and in a matter of seconds, those who opposed God were dead. This passage in Exodus also speaks of God's swift action: "I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast" (v. 12). Then there is the command to the people to eat the passover meal with "your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat in haste" (v. 11). Everything is portrayed with images of dramatic action; everything is portrayed as decisive. There is no lingering here. No lingering death, no waiting for something to happen. On that night God was on the move in a final, decisive act. God no longer merely sends His messenger Moses; God doesn't remain aloof; God now becomes an actual participant in the release of the Hebrew people. God's patience towards Pharaoh has run out. God now comes to strike Egypt's firstborn. The time for persuasion has ended. God now comes with a roar and in haste.
As a sign of God's decisive action, the people must prepare their meal in a hurry. The bread is unleavened because there is not enough time to allow it to rise. The lamb is not to be dressed, rather the whole carcass is to be cooked intact. Even the cooking is done in the most speedy manner. They are not, of course, to eat it raw, sushi style, but neither can they take the time to heat water and boil the meat. So the people are told to roast the meat over a fire.
All these actions are to be performed in an atmosphere of readiness and urgency. The time is at hand! It's a rush. They're dressed with sandals on and staff in hand, prepared to go at a moment's notice. In other words, what God is about to do is decisive. We have reached the climax of the plagues against Egypt. Death will only pass over the homes with doors painted with blood and will enter at the homes of the rest to strike dead their firstborn. This will be the decisive act. It will release the Hebrew people from slavery into freedom.
But the question arises here: Why must God act in this way? Of particular concern is this verse that says: "The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt" (Exodus 12:13). But why was blood used as a sign? Why the killing of the firstborn?
It is of course true that God had attempted eleven times with eleven plagues to convince Pharaoh with whom he was dealing. But after eleven impressive and sometimes devastating plagues, Pharaoh still refused to let the Hebrews go. God's grace and forbearance was long and patient with Pharaoh. God had indeed given Pharaoh plenty of opportunities. God gave Pharaoh nearly four times the usual "three times and you're out." God generously granted even more than the usual biblical number of seven. We are right in concluding that Pharaoh was an exceedingly stubborn ruler. And we are also right in understanding that God demonstrated unusual patience.
But still, one cannot help but wonder, after all these signs and wonders, could not one more plague have been used to turn Pharaoh's opinion? After eleven plagues, surely a few more could have been enacted. But no, the generosity of God had run out. The door of opportunity had closed. There was only one plague left: the plague of death, the pouring out of blood.
Here, too, the question arises: Why did the Hebrews have to paint the portals of their doors with blood? Why couldn't they have used another sign? Perhaps a handful of straw hung from the door as a sign that Hebrew slaves dwell here? Perhaps some mortar used to make the bricks smeared around the doors would have announced "Hebrews live here." But no, God demanded blood as a sign that "here in this house live Hebrew slaves." To set the Hebrews free, to release the Hebrews from the hands of Pharaoh, to keep God from striking the firstborn in a Hebrew house, God required death and the pouring out of blood. This is a decisive action. Only through the decisive act of death, the pouring out of blood, can the Hebrews be set free.
This is a difficult concept for us. Our religious faith focuses on giving life. It is a horrendous thing for us to contemplate that God strikes down firstborn children and even innocent dumb animals. But this decisive action impresses on us the extent to which God will go to redeem His people and set them free.
Many years later another firstborn will be born. He will be born in Bethlehem to a woman named Mary, and she will call her firstborn son "Jesus." In the Christian faith he will become the sacrificial lamb for all people, not just for the Hebrews, but even for the Egyptians. His blood will be poured out, and because he dies we affirm that God will see his blood and pass over us and give us life.
Perhaps in our more reflective moments we may wonder if the death of Jesus was really necessary for God and for us. But it has been the central message of the Christian faith from its beginning. The apostle Paul made it the center of his preaching, saying, "We preach Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23); yes, Christ nailed to a cross.
Now it is true that Paul also wrote: "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Philippians 4:8). These are things about life -- not death. Paul certainly doesn't say, "Now whatever is bloody, painful, torturous, and deadly, think on these things." And yet, Paul did say, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God" (Romans 5:8-9).
The fact is that in telling the life of Jesus the Gospels devote more than one third of the story to telling about the death of Jesus. Why did the Gospels give so much time and so much length to this subject? The answer comes again from Paul, who writes, "We are justified by (God's) grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood ... This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins" (Romans 3:24-25).
If we study the New Testament, we cannot avoid the subject of the death of Jesus and the subject of his blood poured out. You may well wonder, "Well, why? If God loves us and is Almighty, why couldn't God just speak? Why couldn't God give a command as was done at the creation when God said, 'Let the dry land come forth,' and it did? Why couldn't God just say, 'I forgive you'? Why did Jesus have to shed his blood and die?" This is the same question we ask of that first Passover: "Why couldn't God have spoken directly to Pharaoh and avoided the bloodshed and death?"
The answer in part is found in human relationships. Suppose a husband has been unfaithful to his wife. Being repentant, he goes and tells her how sorry he is and how badly he feels about it. But after hearing his apology, what would it mean if all she says is, "That's okay -- it doesn't really matter. It doesn't make any difference -- forget it"? Has she enacted forgiveness? NO -- what she has said is this: "I don't care enough about you to be bothered by anything you say or do. You're really not that important to me."1
What would it take? What would it take really to convince a husband that his wife had forgiven him of unfaithfulness? Just a statement? "Hey, it's okay." No, of course not! What it would take to be convinced of her forgiveness is an act that exhibits reception and forgiveness. Perhaps a reaching out of her hand to hold his hand. Perhaps even a command from her, such as, "Come in here and dry the dishes," would be a way to let him know that his place in the home is restored. Some kind of action is necessary to prove acceptance and genuine forgiveness. In a similar manner, an action was necessary from God that God might prove that His acceptance and forgiveness are genuine. As Paul says, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). God went the way of death to show us, to prove to us, divine love and forgiveness are genuine.
When the Hebrews lived as slaves to the Egyptians, their only hope for freedom was for God to come and act on their behalf. On that night called Passover, God came in decisive power to show his love for Israel by striking Egypt's firstborn. Since that day the Jewish people have remembered that night with the ritual meal of Passover. We too in the Christian tradition remember the Passover Jesus Christ enacted. There is a direct link between the two events.
In the Christian faith we remember too that God showed His love for us by striking the firstborn of Mary, Jesus the Son of God. We remember God's act of love for us in our celebration of the Eucharist, the memorial meal of Jesus' death. On that night when Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples, we are told that after he had given thanks, he took the cup and said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (1 Corinthians 11:25). And when we reenact this meal and pass the cup to one another, we say, "This is the blood of Christ shed for you."
Few of us probably give much thought to what we are doing when we receive the cup of the new covenant in Jesus' blood. Drinking the blood of Jesus Christ? In the synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus taught, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:53-55). As a result, many who followed Jesus said his words were too hard to understand. From that time on we're told, "Many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him" (John 6:66).
The thought of a meal with juice symbolizing blood is awesome and barbaric to the outsider. But in the drinking of that cup we spread the blood of Jesus Christ on the doorposts of our lives. We do it in the belief and out of the assurance that God acts decisively for us in Jesus Christ as He did for the Hebrews on that Passover night. God has not hesitated. God has not waited for us to change our minds. No, God comes and acts decisively to set us free.
Curtis Fussell
____________
1. Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed. (Louisville, Ken.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), p. 260.
This was a difficult moment for my fellow scouts and me. We were from the city. We had hardly ever seen a live chicken! Now, we had one in hand and had to kill it to eat supper. We had never killed anything to eat. Chicken legs and thighs had always come to us in plastic packages. Sure, we had caught fish, prepared them and eaten them, but fish weren't like a live chicken walking around pecking at the ground. We took our live chicken back to our campsite. Who was going to kill this chicken? I had heard that my grandmother would wring a chicken's head off, but I didn't know how to do that. Somehow, I don't know how, it fell to me to dispatch this chicken. After building up my courage I took a hatchet in hand. Another boy helped me hold the chicken down, and I chopped off its head. I remember its eyes went blank and then closed. And I remember there was blood -- a lot of blood.
One of the most ironic things in life is that for us to live, blood must be spilled. To eat meat means an animal's blood must be poured out. And even if plants don't bleed, they are broken and destroyed by our consumption. Life comes only through death. Something must die for us to live. None of us, of course, think of ourselves as agents of death, and yet every time I sit down to eat a meal, I am aware that something had to die for me to live. This is a profound paradox: I participate in death in order to live. In understanding this basic fact of life, we come to understand a basic fact in the Bible. The two most important meals for people of the Hebrew and Christian Bible are the passover meal in Egypt and the passover meal of the Upper Room. Both events remind us that blood is poured out so we might have life.
In his movie The Ten Commandments, Cecil B. DeMille portrays the angel of death that comes on that first Passover night as a greenish, stealthy, creeping mist. Perhaps that is an appropriate image for a harbinger of death. But the word "Passover" to me conveys a stronger image. I see the Lord passing over Egypt in a roar. My image is more like that portrayed in the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. In that movie when the Ark was opened the angels of death came roaring out with wind and fire, and in a matter of seconds, those who opposed God were dead. This passage in Exodus also speaks of God's swift action: "I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast" (v. 12). Then there is the command to the people to eat the passover meal with "your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat in haste" (v. 11). Everything is portrayed with images of dramatic action; everything is portrayed as decisive. There is no lingering here. No lingering death, no waiting for something to happen. On that night God was on the move in a final, decisive act. God no longer merely sends His messenger Moses; God doesn't remain aloof; God now becomes an actual participant in the release of the Hebrew people. God's patience towards Pharaoh has run out. God now comes to strike Egypt's firstborn. The time for persuasion has ended. God now comes with a roar and in haste.
As a sign of God's decisive action, the people must prepare their meal in a hurry. The bread is unleavened because there is not enough time to allow it to rise. The lamb is not to be dressed, rather the whole carcass is to be cooked intact. Even the cooking is done in the most speedy manner. They are not, of course, to eat it raw, sushi style, but neither can they take the time to heat water and boil the meat. So the people are told to roast the meat over a fire.
All these actions are to be performed in an atmosphere of readiness and urgency. The time is at hand! It's a rush. They're dressed with sandals on and staff in hand, prepared to go at a moment's notice. In other words, what God is about to do is decisive. We have reached the climax of the plagues against Egypt. Death will only pass over the homes with doors painted with blood and will enter at the homes of the rest to strike dead their firstborn. This will be the decisive act. It will release the Hebrew people from slavery into freedom.
But the question arises here: Why must God act in this way? Of particular concern is this verse that says: "The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt" (Exodus 12:13). But why was blood used as a sign? Why the killing of the firstborn?
It is of course true that God had attempted eleven times with eleven plagues to convince Pharaoh with whom he was dealing. But after eleven impressive and sometimes devastating plagues, Pharaoh still refused to let the Hebrews go. God's grace and forbearance was long and patient with Pharaoh. God had indeed given Pharaoh plenty of opportunities. God gave Pharaoh nearly four times the usual "three times and you're out." God generously granted even more than the usual biblical number of seven. We are right in concluding that Pharaoh was an exceedingly stubborn ruler. And we are also right in understanding that God demonstrated unusual patience.
But still, one cannot help but wonder, after all these signs and wonders, could not one more plague have been used to turn Pharaoh's opinion? After eleven plagues, surely a few more could have been enacted. But no, the generosity of God had run out. The door of opportunity had closed. There was only one plague left: the plague of death, the pouring out of blood.
Here, too, the question arises: Why did the Hebrews have to paint the portals of their doors with blood? Why couldn't they have used another sign? Perhaps a handful of straw hung from the door as a sign that Hebrew slaves dwell here? Perhaps some mortar used to make the bricks smeared around the doors would have announced "Hebrews live here." But no, God demanded blood as a sign that "here in this house live Hebrew slaves." To set the Hebrews free, to release the Hebrews from the hands of Pharaoh, to keep God from striking the firstborn in a Hebrew house, God required death and the pouring out of blood. This is a decisive action. Only through the decisive act of death, the pouring out of blood, can the Hebrews be set free.
This is a difficult concept for us. Our religious faith focuses on giving life. It is a horrendous thing for us to contemplate that God strikes down firstborn children and even innocent dumb animals. But this decisive action impresses on us the extent to which God will go to redeem His people and set them free.
Many years later another firstborn will be born. He will be born in Bethlehem to a woman named Mary, and she will call her firstborn son "Jesus." In the Christian faith he will become the sacrificial lamb for all people, not just for the Hebrews, but even for the Egyptians. His blood will be poured out, and because he dies we affirm that God will see his blood and pass over us and give us life.
Perhaps in our more reflective moments we may wonder if the death of Jesus was really necessary for God and for us. But it has been the central message of the Christian faith from its beginning. The apostle Paul made it the center of his preaching, saying, "We preach Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23); yes, Christ nailed to a cross.
Now it is true that Paul also wrote: "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Philippians 4:8). These are things about life -- not death. Paul certainly doesn't say, "Now whatever is bloody, painful, torturous, and deadly, think on these things." And yet, Paul did say, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God" (Romans 5:8-9).
The fact is that in telling the life of Jesus the Gospels devote more than one third of the story to telling about the death of Jesus. Why did the Gospels give so much time and so much length to this subject? The answer comes again from Paul, who writes, "We are justified by (God's) grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood ... This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins" (Romans 3:24-25).
If we study the New Testament, we cannot avoid the subject of the death of Jesus and the subject of his blood poured out. You may well wonder, "Well, why? If God loves us and is Almighty, why couldn't God just speak? Why couldn't God give a command as was done at the creation when God said, 'Let the dry land come forth,' and it did? Why couldn't God just say, 'I forgive you'? Why did Jesus have to shed his blood and die?" This is the same question we ask of that first Passover: "Why couldn't God have spoken directly to Pharaoh and avoided the bloodshed and death?"
The answer in part is found in human relationships. Suppose a husband has been unfaithful to his wife. Being repentant, he goes and tells her how sorry he is and how badly he feels about it. But after hearing his apology, what would it mean if all she says is, "That's okay -- it doesn't really matter. It doesn't make any difference -- forget it"? Has she enacted forgiveness? NO -- what she has said is this: "I don't care enough about you to be bothered by anything you say or do. You're really not that important to me."1
What would it take? What would it take really to convince a husband that his wife had forgiven him of unfaithfulness? Just a statement? "Hey, it's okay." No, of course not! What it would take to be convinced of her forgiveness is an act that exhibits reception and forgiveness. Perhaps a reaching out of her hand to hold his hand. Perhaps even a command from her, such as, "Come in here and dry the dishes," would be a way to let him know that his place in the home is restored. Some kind of action is necessary to prove acceptance and genuine forgiveness. In a similar manner, an action was necessary from God that God might prove that His acceptance and forgiveness are genuine. As Paul says, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). God went the way of death to show us, to prove to us, divine love and forgiveness are genuine.
When the Hebrews lived as slaves to the Egyptians, their only hope for freedom was for God to come and act on their behalf. On that night called Passover, God came in decisive power to show his love for Israel by striking Egypt's firstborn. Since that day the Jewish people have remembered that night with the ritual meal of Passover. We too in the Christian tradition remember the Passover Jesus Christ enacted. There is a direct link between the two events.
In the Christian faith we remember too that God showed His love for us by striking the firstborn of Mary, Jesus the Son of God. We remember God's act of love for us in our celebration of the Eucharist, the memorial meal of Jesus' death. On that night when Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples, we are told that after he had given thanks, he took the cup and said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (1 Corinthians 11:25). And when we reenact this meal and pass the cup to one another, we say, "This is the blood of Christ shed for you."
Few of us probably give much thought to what we are doing when we receive the cup of the new covenant in Jesus' blood. Drinking the blood of Jesus Christ? In the synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus taught, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:53-55). As a result, many who followed Jesus said his words were too hard to understand. From that time on we're told, "Many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him" (John 6:66).
The thought of a meal with juice symbolizing blood is awesome and barbaric to the outsider. But in the drinking of that cup we spread the blood of Jesus Christ on the doorposts of our lives. We do it in the belief and out of the assurance that God acts decisively for us in Jesus Christ as He did for the Hebrews on that Passover night. God has not hesitated. God has not waited for us to change our minds. No, God comes and acts decisively to set us free.
Curtis Fussell
____________
1. Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed. (Louisville, Ken.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), p. 260.
