The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

The message given on Sunday morning, January 22, 2023, in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Hebrews 10:11-25.

            One of the things I think about sometimes is how different it was to be a priest in Jesus’ time, compared to being a pastor today.  There were some similarities, of course.  You were expected to know the Bible, or at least as much of the Bible as they had at that time.  The New Testament, of course, had not been written yet.  And you were expected to talk about that Bible, and teach others what was in it.  But you had a lot of other duties, too.  And one of them, which is mentioned at the start of our reading for today, is sacrifices.

            Now, there were grain sacrifices and things like that, but when we think about sacrifices in this regard, we think of animal sacrifices.  Those were done by the priest.  The priest would slaughter the animal, burn some of it on the altar, and sprinkle the blood on the altar.  And this had to be done in a specific, ritualistic way.

            The purpose of this was to ask God for forgiveness for the sins of the people.  And this would have to be done repeatedly, over and over again.  “Day after day”, as our reading says.  And it was never enough.  As our reading also says, these sacrifices could never take away sins.

            And then Jesus came.  And it all changed.  Because, as our reading says, this priest–Jesus–”offered for all time one sacrifice for sins”.  Jesus made the only sacrifice that could truly take away sins.  Jesus sacrificed Himself.  

            The reason I’m going through this is that I think it’s tempting for us to take the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for granted.  Or maybe that’s not the right way to put it–maybe it’s just that we don’t fully understand and appreciate the incredible change that Jesus made by his sacrifice.  When Jesus sacrificed Himself, He changed everything.

            Listen to what our reading says happened as a result of Jesus’ sacrifice.  The Lord makes a new covenant–a new agreement, a new promise–to his people.  Here’s what God is going to do:  “I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds…Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.  And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.”  “By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

            It’s not just that the sacrifice of Jesus made other sacrifices unnecessary.  That would’ve been enough of a change–it would’ve been unthinkable to a priest that he would not be making sacrifices for the people.  But the sacrifice of Jesus made much deeper changes than that.  The sacrifice of Jesus, for those who believe in Him, makes a fundamental change in people.

            In Jesus’ time, people were expected to follow all kinds of religious laws.  And they were to follow them to the letter.  And there were lots and lots of laws, more than anyone could even remember, much less follow.  If you took your faith seriously, you always had to be thinking about the laws, trying to remember the laws.  Every time you did something, you had to think, am I doing this right?  Am I doing this the way the law says I should?  You looked at life as following a bunch of rules.

            But the coming of Jesus means that those who believe in Him, those who follow Him, don’t have to look at life that way anymore.  Because again, God says, “I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds.”  

            Now, that does not say we can ignore God’s laws.  It does not say, just follow your heart and everything will be fine.  What it says is that, if we are truly following Jesus, God’s Holy Spirit will come into our hearts.  We will want to do what’s right in God’s eyes, and we will do what’s right in God’s eyes.  Not because we’ve remembered some law that says we should.  But because we want to.  We want to please God.  We want to show love to our neighbors, the way Jesus told us to.  When God’s laws are in our hearts, we don’t have to look things up in a rule book.  God’s Holy Spirit will show us what to do.

            But that’s not all.  The sacrifice of Jesus did even more than that.  Not only does Jesus’ sacrifice make a fundamental change in people who believe in Him, it completely changes the relationship between human beings and God.

            The reason the priest had to make all these sacrifices is that he was making sacrifices on behalf of all the people of Israel.  The priest was the intermediary between human beings and God.  The priest could enter into the Holy Place, the place where God was, and the priest could communicate with God.  An ordinary person, someone who was not a priest, could not enter into the Holy Place.  They could not approach God.  It never even occurred to them that they might approach God.  Why would God want to have something to do with them?  The priest, because of who he was, could enter the Holy Place and communicate with God, but not just an ordinary person.  It was unthinkable.  And because of that, there was a distance between human beings and God.  

            But with the sacrifice of Jesus, that changed.  There was no longer that distance between human beings and God.  Jesus did away with that distance.  Listen again to our reading:  “Brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

            Because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you and I can do what human beings of Jesus’ time never thought they could do.  You and I can draw near to God.  

            And think of this:  we don’t have to draw near hesitantly.  We don’t have to draw near fearfully.  We don’t have to wonder, as we approach God, whether God will want to have anything to do with us.  We can draw near to God confidently.  We can draw near to God knowing that God wants us to draw near to Him.

            Again, such a thing would’ve been unthinkable to people in Jesus’ time.  Even the priests approached God nervously.  They had all these rituals, and they had to make sure that got them right, for fear that God would be angry with them if they did not.  To approach God confidently, to approach God without fear, was an idea that just would not have made sense to them.

            But you and I can do that.  We can do it because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Again to quote our reading, Jesus opened the curtain that kept people away from the Holy Place.  The curtain is now open.  We can walk right in.  We can walk right in and draw near to God.

            Again, we do that because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  It’s not because of anything we’ve done.  We’re not any better than the people who lived in Jesus’ time.  The fact that we now have cell phones and wi-fi does not make us better people than the people who wrote on scrolls with reeds.  We are allowed to draw near to God because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  If we have faith in Jesus, God allows us into His holy presence, even though by our own merits we don’t belong there.

            But there’s one more thing.  It’s a sentence I mentioned earlier, but I kind of skipped over it.  Here it is:  “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are made holy.”

            By Jesus’ sacrifice, Jesus made those of us who have faith in Him perfect.  If you have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior, you are perfect.  Do you believe that?

            Now, notice, it does not say we make ourselves perfect.  Jesus makes us perfect by his sacrifice.  But still, if you have faith in Jesus, you are perfect.  So again, do you believe that?

            It’s hard to believe.  Because as much as we might want to be perfect, we know we are not.  We know we never will be.  We are sinners.  We are among those who, as the Apostle Paul says, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  So how can we be perfect?

            Well, think of it this way.  When you see a newborn baby, what do you say?  Well, you might say a lot of things, but one of the things people say is “He (or she) is perfect.”

            Now, when we say that, we don’t mean that this child will never do anything wrong.  We don’t mean that they will live a perfect, sinful life.  We mean that this child is exactly who he or she is supposed to be.  This child is loved and will always be loved.  This child is perfect because this child is a child of God.

            That’s how you and I are perfect, through the sacrifice Jesus made for us and through our faith in Him as the Savior.  It’s not that we will never do anything wrong again.  It’s not that we will live a perfect, sinful life from this day forward.  It’s that, when we accept Jesus as the Savior, we are who we are supposed to be.  That’s what being “born again” is about.  It’s not that we have some mystical experience.  It’s not that we will never sin again.  We are perfect, not because of what we do or don’t do, but because of the sacrifice Jesus made.  That sacrifice makes you and me children of God.  And as God’s children, we are made perfect, even though in human terms we are definitely not.

            The sacrifice of Jesus Christ changed everything.  It put God’s laws in our hearts and gave us the desire to please God.  It gave us the ability to approach God, to have a relationship with God, to draw near to God and enter into His holy presence.  And it made us perfect in God’s eyes, no matter how flawed and sinful we may be, if we have faith in Him as the Savior.

            So let’s never take the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for granted.  That sacrifice changed everything for us.  Let’s do our best to please God, to draw near to God, and to thank God for the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for us.