Monday of Holy Week
Monday, March 30
Read: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 36:5-11; Hebrews 9:11-15; John 12:1-11
Can the death of one person bring salvation or new life to another, and if so, how could this happen? Some instances, perhaps, come readily to mind: the soldier on the battle field who dives on the grenade can save his friends; the firefighter who rescues someone from a burning building only to succumb, in the end, to smoke inhalation; the pregnant mother who gives birth to her child after a terrible labor and delivery but who loses her life in the process. These praiseworthy examples of self-sacrifice genuinely bring salvation and life to others.
Can the death of someone in the distant past also bring salvation or new life to us today? How does the death of someone 2,000 years ago have an effect on our lives now? And not just bodily salvation—as from a fire—but salvation from sin and death: in other words, forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. How does Jesus’ death reconcile us with God?
The book of Hebrews gives us an explanation by making a comparison with the Levitical sacrificial system found in the Torah. Under the Law, the Hight Priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year with the blood of the sacrificed animals that he offered to God in order to make atonement for the sins of Israel. However, the fact that the priest needed to do this every year signified that this sacrifice did not, ultimately, cleanse the conscience, since it needed to be repeated again and again. The priesthood and the sacrifices all pointed to something greater, namely, to Christ himself.
Because Jesus is God and human, his priestly order is higher than the Levitical priests. Furthermore, the sacrifice that Jesus offered was not the blood of animals, but his own blood, a sacrifice that did not need to be repeated, but one that was offered once for all. “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God “(9:14)!
Reflecting on Christ’s priestly work, Charles Wesley writes:
O thou eternal victim slain a sacrifice for guilty man,
By the eternal Spirit made an offering in the sinner’s stead,
Our everlasting priest art thou, and plead’st thy death for sinners now.
Thy offering still continues new, Thy vesture keeps its bloody hue,
Thou stand’st the ever slaughtered Lamb, Thy priesthood still remains the same,
Thy years, O God, can never fail, Thy goodness is unchangeable.
The lenten season is a time when we face honestly our frail humanity and the sin in our lives. We must recognize and confess our sin—wear the ashes as it were—throughout this period of contrition and repentance. Christ’s sacrifice is too weighty and profound for us to gloss over our transgressions. The fact that we must offer to God our repentance again and again signifies that the “eternal redemption” that Christ obtained is not yet fully realized. But ours is a faith filled with hope. “So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, no to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (9:28). Brothers and sisters, strengthen yourselves with this hope.
Prayer:
“How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings” (Ps. 36:7).
The Reverend Dr. Stephen Sours is Chair of Department of Religion and History and Professor of Religion at Huntingdon College as well as an ordained elder in the Alabama-West Florida Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.
