Friday, April 18, 2008

Purity through blood

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."

All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!"

Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes--who are they, and where did they come from?" I answered, "Sir, you know." And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, "they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Revelation 7:9-17).

White Robes. Red blood. Great tribulation. St. John links these three things together in one sentence. But what do white robes, red blood, and great tribulation have to do with each other? And how do they relate to our membership in God’s church?

It all starts with great tribulation. What is tribulation? It comes from the root word turbulent. If you have ever been on a boat or an airplane during bad weather, you know what turbulence is. Turbulence is the rough water that knocks a boat around and threatens to sink it; turbulence is the violent wind that jolts a plane and threatens to make it crash. Turbulence is unpredictable, violent, and often very dangerous.

Even though we all treasure life, we must admit that the living of it is turbulent. The relationship between parent and child should be characterized by nurturing love from the parent and respectful love from the child—but how often do parents and children fight with each other, whether that fighting is in the form of screaming, stony silence, guilt trips or even physical abuse? The relationship between husband and wife should be defined by an attitude of self-sacrifice and a willingness to forgive—but how often are marriages rocked by selfishness, denial of personal responsibility, or an unwillingness to let the mistakes of the past remain buried? The relationship between employer and employee should be defined by the mutual goal of teamwork to make a satisfactory living—but how often do we find bosses padding their retirement accounts by paying their employees substandard wages, and how often do we find employees stealing from their bosses through absenteeism, laziness, or outright theft?

Human life is about relationships, and wherever there are relationships there is turbulence. This is because of sin. Sin is the opposite of true love. True love says "your needs first." Sin says "my needs first." And since God is defined by His love, any sin is an act that opposes the will of God, because Jesus’ command is that we love one another (John 13:34).

You can’t live life without experiencing turbulence. The sin of selfishness brings turbulence to every relationship in our lives. And this turbulence makes us miserable. People divorce and remarry, thinking that they can escape turbulence—but they can’t. People quit their jobs and take new ones, thinking that they can escape turbulence—but they can’t. Sin spoils all of our relationships; sin taints every bit of joy that we try to bring into our lives.

Which is why the blood of Christ is so necessary. God is pure love—there is no sin in Him at all (1 John 1:5). God’s priority is to free us from the turbulence of sin so that we can love Him and each other in purity, the way that He always intended us to love. So God sent His Son to live among us as both God and man, joined together in one person. That person is Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man. As the Son of Man, Jesus was born with flesh and blood—flesh that could suffer pain, blood that could be shed in death. As the Son of God, Jesus’ flesh had the unique ability to suffer in the place of all human suffering, and His blood had the unique ability to be poured out in place of our own. Because Jesus was both true man and true God, He could suffer God’s anger at our sin in our place; because He was both God and man in one, He could die the death that each of us has earned by our selfishness.

Jesus shed His blood to make heavenly compensation for our sins; as a result, God no longer looks at us as sinners. Even though we continue to cause turbulence every day that we live, because of the blood of Jesus, God is willing to forgive us for our sins. Scripture often describes this process as one of washing. To be dirty is to risk becoming sick. We teach children to wash their hands before wiping their eyes or putting something into their mouths because we know that dirty hands can bring infection into the body, and infection can lead to serious health problems, maybe even death. We wash to become clean; we desire to be clean so that we can stay healthy.

Sin is like dirt; it makes us unclean, and infects us with a terrible disease that inevitably results in death. To be healthy, we must be clean. And so our loving Lord washes us. He washes us through holy Baptism, where the water empowered by God’s own words washes away our sin and promises eternal life to the faithful. In Acts 22:16 we read, be baptized and wash your sins away. But that is only the beginning; once we belong to Jesus, He continues to wash our sins away by cleansing us with His holy blood shed on the cross. Hebrews 9:14 tells us, the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, [will] cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

How do we gain access to this cleansing? It is ours for the asking. When we look at ourselves in disgust for what we are and ask Jesus for mercy, He forgives us for being filled with sin—it’s just that simple. Peter writes, Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God (1 Peter 3:18). The price of your sin has already been paid—Jesus died for all sins on that first Good Friday. Freedom from guilt has been won—you simply need to ask Jesus for it! Jesus’ blood, the blood of a man who was and is also God, is available in infinite supply to wash away your every sin, along with the sins of all who come to Him for cleansing.

Which brings us to the white robes. It sounds silly, washing clothing in red blood and having it come out white. But white is the color of purity; white is the color of holiness, righteousness, and blessedness. There is only one way for sinners to become white—we must be washed clean of our sin. And the only substance that can remove the guilt of our sin is the blood of Christ crucified. Christ’s red blood washes us and makes us pure, makes us white, so that we can come before our perfect God, the God of holy love.

The tribulation of life made it necessary for Jesus to shed His blood for us, so that we could be made clean. Being clean, we are freed of the infection that results in eternal death in hell. Jesus performed the ultimate act of love; He suffered the torments of hell itself upon the cross, so that we would not have to suffer them when we die. Jesus died and was laid in a grave because of His love for us, a love that accepted our graves as His own. But God the Father looked upon His Son in the grave and saw perfection—and so He raised His Son from the dead to live in perfection forever. In the same way, when we are cleansed by the blood of Jesus, our God will look upon us when we die and see only the purity of white—and just as He raised Jesus from the dead, so will He give us eternal life in Paradise with Him. There we will join uncountable others who are also dressed in white, singing Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.

This is why it is traditional in many Christian churches for young people to wear white gowns with red flowers when they finish Christian instruction. The white gown symbolizes Jesus’ work in washing away our sins; the red flower reminds us that our purity is only by the blood that Jesus died to give. But what about the great tribulation? Where is that represented? My friends, the great tribulation is everywhere. It is the constant desire within each of us to say "me first" and not "you first." The great tribulation is a fact of daily life, just as much as Jesus’ blood and righteousness is a fact of daily life for we who believe in Him.

Which is why Christian instruction is a never ending process. Far too many people think that once they've finished a membership class, their need for religion in their lives is over. They treat their confirmation like a heavenly insurance policy whose premium is completely paid up. But tribulation is a daily part of our lives; we do not escape it until we are welcomed into heaven. If tribulation is a daily part of our lives, then Jesus’ blood must be a daily part as well, lest we become sick with sin again and die from it eternally. To stay physically healthy, one must wash every day; to remain spiritually healthy, we must seek Jesus’ washing by His blood every day. We do this by praying. We do this by reading devotions. We do this by studying the Bible, alone or as part of a group. We do this by worshipping God in His house. All of these activities are ways by which we seek Jesus’ washing, so that we might stay clean and healthy—healthy enough to live forever together with Him.

John records the angel as saying: These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. It is in heaven when the tribulation ends; it is in heaven where you remain white forever. Until that day comes, may you always be washing your robe and making it white in the blood of the Lamb.

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