The River of the Blood of Christ

Posted on by stmaggiep

So today is our last week of Creationtide and the theme is rivers, water and as soon as I say that I’m sure you will already have images in your head of streams, rivers you’ve seen, paintings, images or places you’ve visited there’s always a river or a water way. Usually quite gentle or sweet when you see these things all a bit idyllic and twee! That’s the view we have about water, it’s all a bit pretty and sweet those rivers that follow and give life to people through the water that comes from them. Water is a gift from God to bring life. However we have these idyllic images of water but it isn’t always the way, rivers and water can take away or disturb life and property. The heavy rain and changes in the climate which have caused the fast flowing, over flowing river that can cause flooding, the destruction and damage that causes, the water waves like Tsunami’s, we all remember the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 in Thailand and Japan 2011 and the damage and loss of life that this resulted in. Water doesn’t always give life, especially if its dirty it can make people very ill diseases like cholera and other parasites. When I was younger me and my friends used to play in the river Medlock which flowed near our house and that wasn’t the cleanest water in the world, sometimes smells a bit funny, sometimes when I walk past now I think really what were we doing in there, it used to make me very thankful that wasn’t the water that we had to go, collect and drink as it wasn’t great! Yet so many people have no choice except to drink dirty and polluted water. And I can still remember going to Blackpool and not being allowed in the sea, ‘don’t go in that sea your legs will dissolve!’ (we laugh but it’s not funny really), even now we still hear stories of waste being dumped in our rivers and seas, polluting the water. Rivers and waters don’t just give life, they can take it away just as easily.

Rivers and water are a big part of the relationship between God and God’s people, our first reading is from the book of Genesis is God’s covenant with Noah but before we think about this we need to go back to the beginning and see the water that gives life. The story of the rivers flowing from the tree of life starts in Genesis 2, God places the tree of life in the middle of the Garden of Eden with four river flowing from it, paths from the tree of life for humanity to eternally drink from. Unfortunately as we all know it all of that goes wrong and God takes the tree of life away from humanity and from there it is pretty much downhill, so much that God used water in a very destructive way, to wipe out all of humanity in a flood. This is often portrayed as an act of anger and violence but I don’t think it was that the whole story, there was a lot of grief from God here for the world and how humanity were behaving. The world needs to be cleansed and washed through so start again but God wants to save Noah and his family as they were good people and makes the covenant with them in the hope that humanity will be on a better path as Noah and his family would set things right. However even they didn’t manage this and Noah and his sons fall from grace, it’s a harrowing story between Noah and his son when Noah is drunk in a tent. God has wiped out humanity but humanity is still flawed, wiping them out hasn’t changed that and they are not on the path God hoped for, the tree and river of life are still out of humanities reach.

Despite this God didn’t give up on humanity God promised that humanity would be redeemed and cleansed without them being wiped out again, water clearly wasn’t good enough there needed to be something else. This is where the promise of the royal priest, the successor from the line of David, the line of Judah would come and be the willing blood sacrifice, better than any sacrifice made in the temples to save humanity and to repair their relationship with God. The prophets came and went and spoke of this person Isaiah was a key one with his narrative of the suffering servant who be killed to atone for humanity. Humanity needed more than the river of water of life, it would have to be a river of blood that would save them.

That’s where Jesus comes in, Jesus came to teach the people where they had gone wrong in how they worship God and start to bring humanity back into the fold. He rebelled against the social norms of the time being with and speaking for the poor, he gave them a voice, he told people to love each other, to love their neighbours, to forgive your enemies and to be kind to those who wrong you, love is better than hate, ‘Hate is always foolish, Love is always wise!’ But that’s not how society worked during the Roman Occupation of Judea and anyone who spoke out and rebelled against the norms was crucified as a rebel by the Romans, this execution method was saved for the lowest and common people who were a threat the state, that’s what happened to Jesus because he went against society. There’s that lovely scene in Good Omens where the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, who have been on earth since the beginning of time interfering on behalf of their own bosses. They seem to be around at large key events. They are at Jesus crucifixion and Crowley says ‘What did he do?’ and Aziraphale answers ‘told them to love each other’ and Crowley just quips ‘yeah that will do it’.

That is what happened to Jesus he went willingly to be abused, beaten, tortures and executed to spilt his blood because God demanded a blood sacrifice to bring humanity back into the fold, one of the many theories discussed by theologians when pondering the question ‘Why did Jesus have to die?, especially in such a horrible way’. In Tony Jones Book ‘Did God Kill Jesus?’ looks at this theory of how Jesus is that sacrifice and the only way to repay humanities debt to God, the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter, who never tries to stop or change what is happening to him. So how does the spilling of Jesus blood bring life, that is all through the resurrection, we’ve heard that story this morning. Jesus blood brings life because he willingly went to die for those he loved, he descended to hell before defeating death and came back to life. Jesus was the royal priest who God promised to come and save and humanity. We see the river of life returned to them in the reading from revelation and the rivers flowing from the tree of life in the ‘New Jerusalem, the second Eden the place where humans and God can be together again. Humanity is back in the fold after falling away and Jesus was the reason for that. The blood of the resurrected Jesus, who willingly gave his life to save humanity and is mixed with the water in the river of life is what gives humanity life.

So we’re thinking about the river, can be slow flowing or fast flowing. The water can be destructive or dangerous. It can cleanse and keep people alive. However the river of water isn’t alone enough to save the human race. The river of life doesn’t just flow from the tree but also from the five wounds of Christ, Jesus body and blood, is what truly gives life. When you take communion today, in remembrance that Jesus died for you, just think about that and the sacrifice Jesus made to give us access to the river of life in heaven back in the fold with God. Amen

Rev Helen

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