Isaiah 52:15

Maundy Thursday

Theme: Bloodbath

¹⁵Thus He will sprinkle many nations, Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand.

What image does the word “bloodbath” bring to your mind? Perhaps you think of a terrible scene of bloodshed, such as a recent terrorist bombing, Hurricane Katrina, or a devastating tornado that you remember. These sorts of tragedies are often referred to as bloodbaths.

Our text this evening speaks of another type of bloodbath. A bloodbath ordained by God for our own good. During the past six weeks of Lent we have been meditating on Isaiah’s portrait of Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant. Our passage for this evening promised that Christ “will sprinkle many nations.” This was a technical term used by God when the Yom Kippur lamb was slain. The priest was to dip his finger in the blood of the dead animal and sprinkle the blood over the people. It was picture language to teach about the coming Christ. For when the blood of Jesus Christ is sprinkled on us, we are washed clean from our sins. We are bathed in God’s forgiveness and coated with Christ’s own righteousness. We are washed in the blood of God’s sacrificial Lamb. In that sense, we experience a bath in his blood—a literal bloodbath. The language and concepts in the Old Testament, while they may be foreign to us in our culture today, are the foundation of our Christian faith. The shedding of blood in the sacrificial system was a graphic lesson on the shedding of Christ’s blood for us. In it was see both his death and resurrection. To receive the priceless blessings Christ gives to us in the Lord’s Supper—which we celebrate tonight—we must first understand and believe what God tells us about this sacred outpouring of blood.

God has some very severe things to tell us about our sin in his word. Two verses summarize what Scripture says about God’s judgment: “The wages of sin is death” and “The soul who sins will die.” Original sin, inherited from Adam, makes us mortal. Our original and actual sins make us deserve the sentence of eternal death in hell. Sin leads to death, and in biblical imagery death involves the spilling of blood. Therefore we may say that sin results in an evil bloodbath. A bloodbath is the necessary result of sin.

Therefore, in order for sin to be forgiven, God requires blood to be shed. God summarizes the theology of sacrifice by saying, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.” In the Old Testament, God prescribed a variety of animal sacrifices, and God granted the penitent believers forgiveness of their sin. When certain animals were sacrificed and their blood was shed, the sins of the people were forgiven.

Sometimes huge numbers of animals were sacrificed with the outpouring of many gallons of blood. When Solomon dedicated the temple he sacrificed 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep and goats. It was truly a bloodbath. That bloodbath was in harmony with God’s old covenant with this people Israel, and it was for the forgiveness of sins, which God dispensed from his temple.

Isaiah prophesies about Jesus Christ, “He will sprinkle many nations.” The Old Testament shows us vivid and concrete events that anticipated what Christ would do for us. The sprinkling of blood was part of the old covenant. When God established his covenant he instructed Moses to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificed animals on the congregation of Israel. This blood was called “the blood of the covenant.” When the blood was sprinkled on the people they entered the covenant with God and became members of the covenant people—the visible Old Testament church. They were heirs of God’s promises of forgiveness, blessing, and eternal life. As the blood was sprinkled on them the believers received the grace of God.

In the Old Testament, there were many sacrifices in which God told the priests to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificed animal. Often the blood was sprinkled on the altar before God. In this way, the life of the animal was offered to God in place of the lives of the sinful people. At other times the blood was sprinkled on the people. The wages of sin is death and the people’s sin—placed on the animal—required the life of the animal to be poured out with its blood. When the blood of the animal was sprinkled on the people, God conveyed to them forgiveness and life.

In our text the prophet Isaiah looks beyond the sacrifices of the Old Testament to the coming of Jesus Christ. The prophet receives a vision of how Jesus Christ will sprinkle many nations with his own outpoured blood. In some ways it would be similar to the Old Testament sacrifices and sprinklings, yet it would be far greater, with the highest, most heavenly gifts for those covered by his blood.

The greatest difference is that Jesus himself was sacrificed for us. Jesus was marred and disfigured as he suffered on the cross for us. Unlike the Old Testament priests, all of whom were sinful people like us, Jesus Christ alone is sinless, blameless, and perfect. He had no need to make sacrifice for his own sins. He did so only for our sakes. He is the eternal Son of God. For this reason, his suffering and death had infinitely more value than the slaughter of animals. His death pays for the sin of the whole world because his sacrifice was of infinite and universal value. Christ only made it once—for all time and for all people. His one sacrifice accomplished what the daily animal sacrifices, year after year, was never able to accomplish—full pardon and peace for every man, woman, and child.

As the book of Hebrews says: “if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are unclean sanctify them for the cleansing, how much more will the blood of Christ, who offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works.”

The sprinkling of Christ blood cleanses our hearts from the condemnation of a guilty conscience.

According to the election of God, we Christians are those who have been called from many nations to receive sanctification by the Spirit, who works in us new obedience and faith. And all of this God does for us and in us. All this can be summed up on these words: “we have been sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.

How do we receive this forgiveness? The blood of the covenant in the Old Testament was sprinkled, literally and physically, to bring the people into the covenant with God.

We are washed with the blood of Christ simply through faith in what he has done for us.

God in his bountiful mercy has provided not just his word, but also his sacrament, that he may pour his overflowing, superabounding grace upon us and into us through these means. “This cup is the new testament in my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” In the Lord’s Supper we receive the body and blood of our LORD Jesus Christ, given and shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. In the Lord’s Supper we are bathed in the blood of Christ. It is literally a “bloodbath” which washes away our sin. Just as the Old Testament believers received forgiveness when the blood was sprinkled on them, we too receive God’s forgiveness together with Christ’s body and blood.

In the worthy reception of this Sacrament, as well as through hearing the Word, the atoning blood of Christ is sprinkled on us. Our robes are washed in the blood of the Lamb. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. It is a blood bath. We bathe in the grace of God earned for us by the blood of Christ.

People in our modern culture may have a hard time accepting these things. Some may be skeptical that this actually occurs when we kneel at the altar and receive the elements. Some may think that this talk about Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper is just a figure of speech, symbolic, or even pretend.

But the people of God in the Old Testament had no doubt whether the flesh and blood of the animals was real. They saw with their own eyes real animals being sacrificed for their real sins. They could feel the real blood of those sacrifices as it was sprinkled on them

Holy Communion is even more real, because the more perfect forgiveness earned for us by the blood of Jesus Christ comes to us in a more complete and intimate way. We do not trust subjective sensations of sight and touch to believe. We have a surer word, for God the Son says: “This is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” It is a most precious and holy bloodbath, for where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation.

Amen.