Washed in the Blood of the Lamb

 A Sermon preached by Dean Breidenthal 
on All Saints Sunday, November 13, 2002

Texts: Revelation 7:9-17; Matthew 5:1-12.

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peace-makers, those who long for righteousness, those whose hearts are pure.

These words inaugurate Jesus’ public ministry in Matthew’s Gospel.

As it happens, they are printed on the back of the Baptismal certificates which we will be giving to the parents of Matteo and Max, who will be baptized in just a few moments.

These words sound like a blueprint for sanctity, on this Sunday when Christians around the world give thanks for the heroes of Christian faith and reflect on their own call to be holy, to become saints.

The Beatitudes set the bar for Christian sanctity. They suggest what is expected of us in order to enjoy God’s favor. By contrast,   our first reading from the Book of Revelation   suggests that sainthood is not the result of our own striving, but rather something conferred on us by virtue of Christ’s work, not ours.

In the passage from Revelation, John of Patmos observes a great multitude, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands, worshipping and praising God. These are the saints, who, he goes on to say, have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14).   

To be washed in the blood of the Lamb is to be washed by virtue of the blood of Jesus, that is, by virtue of his death.   This is a familiar idea: we are justified, rendered acceptable, through the death of Jesus. But immediately this raises questions: how are we not acceptable? And what is it about Jesus’ death that makes us acceptable?  

In Revelation, as throughout the New Testament, Jesus’ death is noteworthy because it is a truly innocent death. This is what it means to refer to Jesus as a lamb. But the imagery of the lamb may lead us to think that Jesus’ innocence is simply that of a helpless victim.

However, Jesus is not to be understood only as an innocent victim, that is, someone who does not deserve the specific violence that has been inflicted on him. True, Jesus is innocent in this regard, but he is one of many such.   There are countless victims of natural disaster or human violence that do not deserve what happens to them. We have only to think of the children killed in the earthquake a few days ago in Italy.

Jesus innocence extends beyond being a victim. One might say that his   innocence is absolute: he is without crime, without guile, without jealousy.

Even this can make it seem that he is powerless, inexperienced, disadvantaged. But the Biblical witness points in a different direction: Jesus’ innocence is not about weakness but about power. Jesus assertively encounters every other human being peacefully, mercifully, respectfully and with sometimes devastating truthfulness.

His death, then, is understood not as that of a victim, but as that of a powerful exponent of mercy, whose death summarizes a lifetime of neighbor-love.   His is the robust embrace of the neighbor that God finds acceptable.

 In these sad days it is important to say outright how different Jesus’ self-giving is from the destructive behavior of a suicide bomber. Jesus never chose death as a goal or an instrument, although he accepted it when it was inflicted on him by others. Nor did he seek to represent one group of people or one set of interests as opposed to another: his entire ministry witnessed to the essential unity of all people and the obligation to offer love to friend and enemy alike.

The New Testament is not particularly interested in trumpeting the uniqueness of Jesus. It is far more concerned to present Jesus as one in the presence of whom we may be made aware of our own readiness to substitute hard-heartedness for mercy, arrogance for meekness, vengeance for peace-making. If the shoe fits, wear it. This is not about beating ourselves up. It is about taking very seriously what is laid out in the Beatitudes, and recognizing our own inability to live such lives.

How does Jesus’ death wash us clean? Already we can see that the real question is, ‘How can Jesus’ life, lived unswervingly until the moment of his death, wash us clean?’

The New Testament’s answer is unequivocal: If Jesus loves, God love us for Jesus’ sake.

Once having come into his presence, we stand within the circle of his love. If we accept that love, we are acceptable for his sake. It’s as simple as that.

To be washed in the blood of the lamb is to draw close enough to the cross of Jesus to be caught up in the net of his love.

Ultimately this love will transform us, making us able to be peace-makers, purveyors of mercy, generous souls willing to stand by those who mourn.

But we don’t start out that way. As Paul says, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1: 27). My sisters and brothers, we are the foolish ones; we are those who are weak. It is not our own power of goodness that lifts us toward the Kingdom, but our sheet attraction to the Good exemplified and made present in the person of Jesus Christ. It is the attractiveness of his righteousness that draws us into the force-field of holiness.

And, lest we claim credit for being drawn to Jesus, let us not forget that our hunger for righteousness is itself a gift of God, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

This is why we bring infants to the water of baptism: not because we are afraid for them, but because we signal thereby our faith that they (and we) are saved not by anything we can say or do, but by the love of God in Christ that precedes anything we say or do.

Every baptism is a fresh start for each of us.

So is communion, where we draw near to Jesus with empty hands.

May the baptism of Matteo and Max, which we are about witness, be an occasion for each of us to stand once again before God as infants. May the Holy Communion we will then be sharing be an occasion to own our dependence on God alone, and to experience once again the   loveliness of the God takes us in out of sheer delight in Jesus’ love for us.