Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Lent, 2021

As we draw closer to the joyful celebration of our Lord’s resurrection on Easter day, we tend place in our mind’s eye the familiar feast of the Passover and all of its symbolic references. The Proper’s also draw us to that event. The 1stoption for the Old Testament Lesson taken from Exodus 16presents the feeding of God’s people with manna in the wilderness after He saves them from Egypt. In our Gospel Lesson, we are given the picture of Jesus miraculously feeding the five thousand with bread and fish. Both events occur within the backdrop of the Passover. And, immediately after our Gospel Lesson taken from John 6, Jesus makes the claim that He is the Bread of Life which came down from Heaven and that his flesh and blood are going to be given for the life of the world. We also know that in addition to the manna, the God gave the Israelites flesh...quail. In John 6, Jesus gives them bread and flesh...fish. In the Passover, the two main ingredients are bread and flesh...lamb. The three events are purposely enjoined by God.

And it’s all foreshadowing of the Eucharist to come and how Jesus was the truly the object to which the feeding in the wilderness and the feeding of the five thousand pointed. He gives us bread and his flesh and blood as pledges of His love and for the feeding of our souls. We are right to think of this as the Scriptures make reference, Christ is indeed the Passover Lamb sacrificed for us...But Scripture also teaches us that He is not just the Passover Lamb....that He was also more... and had to be more. In our recent catechesis videos we’ve taken a much deeper look into the major feasts and sacrifices of the Old Testament and seen how the Person and Work of Christ was both the purpose for and the fulfillment of the entirety of the Jewish sacrificial system. As we prepare our hearts for Holy Week and Easter Sunday, I’d encourage you to focus on the role that Jesus played amidst these major sacrifices and key in on one of them today. It occurred on the 10thday of the 7thmonth and was the highest of holy days for the Jews....a solemn occasion, during which, special rites and rituals were enacted only on that day. Only the high priest officiated over the services and the burning of incense. He interacted directly with the people. He stripped himself of his golden garments for the special sacrifices of the day and dressed in white linen. It was to be a day of cleansing to purge the consciences of the people of their sins.

The day was the Day of Atonement...and the special sacrifice was the Sin Offering. It is this day and this special sacrifice to which the writer to the Hebrews refers in the coming Epistle lesson for Passion Sunday taken from the 9th Chapter, and if you read beyond that, in the 10th Chapter as well. Once each year, the high priest was required to stand before the Lord in the Most Holy Place of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, to offer incense and sprinkle sacrificial blood for the sins of the people. The most solemn part of this offering essentially began with high priest standing before the people with 2 goats on each side, facing toward the Most Holy Place. From an urn holding two lots he would reach in with both hands and draw the lots, then placing one on each of the goats’ heads. Right hand to the right goat, left hand to the left goat. These indicated which role each goat was to play in the sin offering for the people. One was to be slain, whose blood would be used to sprinkle the temple and the mercy seat...On this goat was tied a scarlet cloth around its neck...The other was to be the scape-goat and upon its horn was tied a scarlet cloth. We read of this in Leviticus 16. The sacrificial goat was to atone for the temple of the Lord, and purify it from the uncleanness of the people, thus signifying restored access to their God. The scape-goat was led off into the wilderness as an atonement of the people, carrying upon it, the sins of the people from among them. After placing the lots, the high priest would then turn around the scape-goat to face the people, and then, after laying his hands upon a bullock and confessing his own sins, would enter into the holy of holies to offer incense before the Lord. The people waited and worshipped in silence, all the while with the scape goat facing them, as if waiting for the full burden of their sins to be laid upon him. It was an intense period of silence for about a half an hour and one which directly correlates to what we see happening in John’s Heavenly vision in Revelation8.When the high priest returned, he then killed the bullock as a sin offering for himself and the priesthood, entering again into the holy of holies where he would sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat. Upon his return, he then slew the goat designated for Jehovah and returned into the temple to sprinkle the blood. Again, the people waited and worshipped in silence. When he returned alive, the people knew that God had accepted the sacrifice and that their access to Him and all of their Old Testament covenant privileges were renewed. Of significant importance is what happened next. The high priest laid his hands upon the scape-goat and confessed before God and all the people their transgressions, pleading for God’s mercy and atonement for them. And then as the scape-goat was led through the people and off into the wilderness and drivenoff a cliff, carrying with it, the full weight of their sins and removing their guilt, the high priest would shout to the people the assurance are now cleansed! “Some Jewish traditions even state that the scarlet cloth tied around its horn turned to white after the pronouncement of absolution as a sign from God that though their sins were as scarlet, they were turned white as snow. The entire affair was elaborate and suspenseful, no doubt by design to convey the seriousness of the occasion and the importance of having their sins atoned for, and that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. But the truth of the matter is that even all of this liturgical pageantry could not fully cleanse their souls from sin. The writer to the Hebrews explains to us that these rituals were merely copies of a greater and more perfect tabernacle and sacrifice made in Heaven itself by Christ, our Great High Priest. Jesus Christ, was our Sin Offering. He entered into the Holy of Holies with the blood of His sacrifice as a sin offering unto Jehovah, placing His own blood on the mercy seat of the throne of God, restoring perfect access and communion with God for all who are in Him. And he is also the other part of the Sin Offering....our greatscape-goat, who bore the guilt of our transgressions once and for all...And perhaps we can even find this symbolism in the passion of our Lord when he is made to stand before the people aside Pilot with Barabbas....waiting for the heavy burden of His sinful people to be placed upon Him. And placed upon Him it was, for He was then sentenced and led through the people to a cliff as it were, weighed down with the symbol of our sinful curse upon his back, where He then carried away our sin forever.  What a marvelous accomplishment by Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb, and also our Sin Offering.... In fact, if you study the Old Testament sacrificial system, you will find that Christ embodies all of the sacrificial types, save one.... the sacrifice of Thanksgiving...offered by the people....to God...and then eaten by the people. And to this day, that one remains. That is what we are doing today in this Holy Eucharist...this Great Thanksgiving... ...offering unto him ourselves, as wholly and acceptable through Christ, living, breathing sacrifices, giving thanks and praising Him forever for our redemption and eternal inheritance. Hebrews 10 tells us we now “have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, his flesh, and since we have a Great High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience...”......He has indeed purged your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!...so come... draw near with faith, ascend up to the Holy Hill of the Lord, make your sacrifice of thanksgiving, be fed with Holy food from His altar, and got serve Him in peace and love.