Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church

The Purpose of the Church

Transcribed from the sermon preached August 8, 2010

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Mark 1:35-45, Hebrews 10:18-25

The idea that a priest, by making an offering to a god, an offering of food, killing an animal or human so that another can be freed or justified and sanctified seems strange to us today.  It is easier for us to understand sacrifice as selfless good deeds for others, or short term loss in return for greater gain (for instance working hard at school or exercise, sacrificing certain foods and relaxation time to be more healthy, strong, and prosperous in the long run).  Most of us understand a thanksgiving offering; in a sign of having been blessed with something valuable, we place a portion of that thing or a representation of it and give it away in gratitude.

    Sacrifice of animals and humans has been a religious ritual of many cultures.  For our purposes, Israelite culture understood that when God’s will is broken, there was a separation between God and humans.   Thus, the nearer one was to God, the more holy or sacred, while the more separated from God, the more secular, unclean or unholy.  Breaking relationship with God, a punishment was due; justice or justification was demanded.  But not only justice needed to be served before one could be brought back into the presence of God, but also righteousness or sanctification – a person needed to be made clean or holy.  The sacrifice represented both justification and sanctification, both making right and making holy or clean.

          The Hebrew scripture depicts the nature of sacrifice in great detail.  Certain people, places, architecture, clothes, animals, spices, words, times, days, foods and actions were set apart, regulated to sanctify, to make holy. 

How do we relate to this notion of set apart?  Perhaps your mom had a cabinet with a set of china dishes and silver.  And as kids you knew not to open that sacred door, not to touch those sacred dishes, or you would feel the wrath of God.  Then, perhaps once or twice a year, after you had had a sanctifying bath, complete with washing behind your ears, and put on sanctified by mother clothes, and sat down at the special dining room table with a sanctified table cloth and a special guest, after a sacred prayer, you might get the opportunity to use that sacred silver ladle to put special gravy on that sacrificial turkey and eat upon that sacred china.  Then after supper and a piece of sacred peach pie, you were consecrated into long line of sacred dishwashers. 

Most of this very specific priestly language comes from the post exilic period, when after the temple had been destroyed and defiled, priests set up a plan to restore the people of Israel and their holy places, centralizing holiness and thereby the priestly leadership in Jerusalem.  So these priests make additions to scripture, as we find in Exodus and Leviticus.

In Exodus 28, Moses is told to institute the priesthood, to consecrate certain people, the house of Aaron, and the Levites. Ex. 28 [1] "Then bring near to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the people of Israel, to serve me as priests ... [2] And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty … to consecrate him for my priesthood.

·  [4] These are the garments which they shall make: a breast piece, an ephod, a robe, a coat of checker work, a turban, and a girdle; they shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother and his sons to serve me as priests.”

Moses was instructed to make a tabernacle, which the Priestly writers conveniently describe as looking a lot like their later temple in Jerusalem; there will be an outer courtyard where there was an altar for burnt offerings, and an inside part called the Holy Place.  And then, at the center, protected by a curtain, is the Holy of Holies, where the Arc of the Covenant is kept.  Only the High Priest could pass this curtain and enter this most holy place. (John Ortberg Vision Weekend 2009)

Only priests were allowed to approach the altar, and then only within the context of a complex series of rituals and while wearing specific vestments that symbolized their holiness.  The animal was often sacrificed, and the blood sprinkled usually on whoever or whatever was to be cleansed and made holy, and certain portions of meat were burnt, depending upon the type of sacrifice.  While regular priests performed these daily functions, the high priest was entrusted with the sin offerings, especially that of the Day of Atonement. (Achtemeier, Paul, editor. Harper Collins Bible Dictionary)

On Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, the High Priest sacrificed a bull for himself and a goat for Israel and used the blood to remove the impurities of the sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, and altar caused by ritual and moral sins.  On this day only the high priest entered the Holy of Holies to sprinkle blood from the bull and goat on the mercy seat, the seat of God.  The High Priest would symbolically place the sins of the people on another goat, the scapegoat, and send it out into the wilderness, taking the sins and impurities away. (Ibid)

The book of Leviticus lays out the whole system separating the holy from the unholy, the set apart from the common, the clean from the unclean, the sacred from the secular.  Now there were gradations of holiness, a holiness sphere.  The most holy was the seat of God, where God sat, the Holy of Holies.  John Ortberg compares the Holy of Holies to the radioactive core in a nuclear reactor.  The closer you get, the more holy radiation you are bombarded with.  (Ortberg, John. MPPC online sermon: “Vision Weekend: 2009”

Only the high priest on the highest holy day, after his cleansing sacrifice, could pass the curtain and go in there.  The next closest to God were the regular priesthood who could enter the temple.  Then there was an area for Israelite men, then Israelite women, and finally there was an outer courtyard and beyond for gentiles.  The nation of Israel, through covenant with God, through the law and ritual cleansing sacrifice, thought of themselves as a holy people within a holy land. 

If you were a woman, handicapped or blind, a leper or a gentile, there was something not holy about you and therefore you could only get so close to God; mercy only reached so far.  God was inside; you were outside.  You could not touch; you could not go inside for you would contaminate the pure.  You knew your place and it wasn’t the Holy of Holies. 

The other day I overheard a young man saying, “I am so mad at myself.”  I asked him why?  He said, “I am ashamed of my body.”  He wanted to hide it like he had leprosy.  Often in our materialist culture, a certain body shape, color, size or age is sacred.  And if we don’t have it, we are taught to hide, to feel bad, outcast.  And it is sad how a low self esteem about one thing often leads us to treat ourselves badly in other ways too.  Focused and wanting to hide the negative, we miss nurturing our strengths; we miss joining with others for fun and growth.  Feeling guilty or ashamed, we punish ourselves. Thinking we are a lost cause, we may give ourselves to sin. A cultural system that doles out guilt and shame becomes our own disease, and we feel like lepers.  Yet it is amazing how God will send waves of grace to wash away our share and bring joy.    

Now Jesus is not of the priestly line of Aaron, the priests who were by his day the leaders of the Sadducees and Sanhedrin.  Jesus was a Pharisee, and went about healing by touching the unclean and forgiving sins.  After healing the leper, Jesus instructs the man to tell nobody, and follow the usual procedure of having the priest make a cleansing offering, affirming the Law of Moses.  But the guy can’t help himself, and starts blabbing to everyone. 

In the Gospel of Mark, unlike in John, Jesus does not toot his own horn.  He has this healing power and great compassion, a clear line to God, but he would hope to avoid claims of being the Messiah, and seems not to have a problem with the traditional rituals and places which help remind us of God’s holiness and mercy.  But people can’t help being enthusiastically faithful when this holy man comes out to meet them.  Wherever he goes on whichever day, whomever he meets feels like they have had an encounter with the holy, cleansing, merciful God.

Now this is radical whether Jesus likes it or not.  When the priesthood and experts of the law and holiness begin to get upset, Jesus could repent, and stop his blasphemous behavior.  Then he would be fine.  But there was a bigger problem with this hierarchy of holiness; not only did it keep people out, it kept God in.  Jesus was out, not behind a curtain, not being contaminated but on the contrary, he was making others holy.  His holiness and purity was contagious.  He has a holiness virus that attacks disease and sin and cleanses us and makes us whole.  God didn’t have to hide; God was on the move. We can have our own cultural rituals and artifacts. We just shouldn’t try to prevent God from doing good beyond them.

In his integrity, in his experience of the omnipresent holiness and mercy of God, he could not stop being himself, even though his actions were so radical that he would certainly be killed.  He is going to be loving, and proclaim God’s omnipresent love for all, even to the point of death.  It is in this sense that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb, the one who refuses to stop being of service to God, healing and forgiving, even when it means his death; he is the one who sacrifices the short term gain of a little longer life in this body for the long term gain of the universal, eternal life and love of God.

And for this reason, Mark records at the end of his story, with Jesus on the cross:

Ch.15 [37] And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last.
[38] And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

The tearing starts from heaven.

I         f Jesus was right and true, then it doesn’t matter if we come from a priestly line, it doesn’t matter our race or nation, gender or orientation, whether we are rich or poor, tall and skinny or round or short, young or old, brilliant or not the brightest tool in the shed, we have a part in God’s plan and wherever that plan carries us, God will be there to guide, love and forgive.

The author of Hebrew mixes all the metaphors: Jesus is the scapegoat, lamb whose blood cleanses us and enables us to enter the sanctuary; he is the curtain which is torn, giving us access to the Holy of Holies, and he is the great High Priest whose purity is eternal and therefore whose forgiveness is also eternal.  He is the last sacrifice necessary.  The day when God needed animals and people to be killed in order for God to bless and forgive is gone.  His forgiveness is once and for all. Hebrews tell us that the person, life, death and resurrection of Jesus brings us three things; and this is what the Church is to be about, faith, hope and love.

[1]“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  [2] Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; and [3] let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together…and encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

[7] Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
[8] If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!
[9] If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
[10] even there thy hand shall lead me and thy right hand shall hold me fast.

It is never too late to change, never too late to receive God’s forgiveness, never too late to have faith, hope and love of God in our lives.  As the day of our death and the death of those we love draws near, we might be tempted to think we are a lost cause, we are too set in our ways, too far from God, too far from the holy things.  But if the Gospel is true, we are never so far that God is not present with us.  The curtain has been torn, the sacrifice made, God has broken out and comes to us with love, forgiveness and eternal life.  This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.