Scripture:
It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it is written, Passion for your house consumes me.
Then the Jewish leaders asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things? What miraculous sign will you show us?”
Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.”
The Jewish leaders replied, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?” But the temple Jesus was talking about was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
~John 2:13-22
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
~Colossians 1:15-20
I love this passage from the letter to the Colossians. I love the majesty of it, the way it brings home the identity of Jesus: the image of the invisible God, the one who was present and involved in creation, the one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. I absolutely love it… until I get to those last six words.
“Through the blood of his cross.”
It’s jarring. It brings the rest of what has come before it down to earth, infuses it with pain.
Like so many passages we find throughout scripture, this was, most likely, a song—a hymn. The writer of Colossians included it here, much as a preacher might quote “Amazing Grace,” or “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Many of those hearing the letter read aloud would have immediately “gone there,” to the melody associated with words of the beloved hymn that grounded their faith. Those words would have tuned their hearts to sing God’s grace.
And for those hearers, that grace was intimately wound up in their understanding that the death of Jesus was a sacrifice: through Jesus Christ, God was pleased to reconcile all things, making peace—between God and humanity, between the heavens and the earth—through the blood of his cross.
Sacrifice was a way of life for the faith community in which Jesus was nurtured, through which he came to know the love of God, and in which his unique calling to share that love blossomed. In her comprehensive book on the crucifixion, Episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge writes,
The sacrificial system of the Old Testament, however forbidding it may appear to us today, shows that the people of God already stand in grace, even before the sacrifices are offered. God has already told them, “You are my people.” God… has ordained the means by which we may draw near.[i]
This startling observation is at the heart of Jesus’s sacrifice, too. God sees our suffering, and God’s plan from the beginning of creation is to come among us in Jesus. God has already ordained the means by which we may draw near.
And in just a few minutes, we will be gathered virtually around the table of grace, the table where we hear Jesus say, every time we pull up a seat, “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, poured out for you.” Jesus offers himself, and God accepts this offering as perfect.
There are many kinds of sacrifice; many offerings we make in the course of showing love and hospitality to one another. One of the petitions in my Daily Prayer book gives thanks for “those who have made sacrifices on my behalf,” which, of course, leads me to think of my parents, and the things they gave up so that I could have piano lessons and sailing lessons, and so that I could have a good education and a great start in life. And I think of the young girl, my birth mother, who gave up a semester of college so that I could have my first good start in life, who gave of her body and blood for me. All offerings, given in love and hospitality.
I was reminded this week of the story of the Canadian town of Gander, Newfoundland, and the sacrifices its people made in connection to one of the United States’ worst days ever, September 11, 2001. You may remember that after the attacks on the Twin Towers, US airspace was closed, and inbound international flights were re-routed. 38 of them landed in Gander, bringing 7000 unexpected guests, whose presence about doubled the town’s population. The Rev. Cameron Trimble, in one of her Piloting Faith (almost ) Daily Devotionals writes,
When it became clear that the “plane people” were going to be stranded for a few days, the community sprang into action. They housed people in their own homes, cooked every meal, turned the local hockey rink into a freezer for food storage, set up additional phone towers so that people could call home, and cared for the 19 animals stranded on the planes… The people of Gander showed extraordinary hospitality on one of the hardest days in our shared history.
Trimble continues,
Recently I was talking with [a] pastor who was in Gander during that experience. She told me about how the community leaders issued a call for citizens to bring any blankets they could spare to the overflow shelters to keep people warm. All most people had in their homes were handmade quilts, heirlooms they had inherited over generations or created for future ones. Without hesitation, the citizens of Gander brought those quilts to keep the "plane people" warm.
Five days later, when US airspace had opened again and
the passengers packed up and prepared to reboard the planes, the people of Gander who had donated the quilts told the “plane people” to keep them, to take them with them as a remembrance of their meeting and sign of their care.
Trimble concludes,
Here is what I love most about this story: Today … [those] quilts beautifully stitched and lovingly gifted are all over the world still keeping people warm. They remind us all that in the end, we are held together, stitch by stitch, through sacred and sacrificial love.[ii]
We are held together, stitch by stitch, through sacred and sacrificial love. The love of parents. The love of grandparents. The love that adopts us. The love that mentors and teaches us. The love that welcomes us, traveling strangers though we may be. And yes, the love of the God who created us, and whose very nature has been revealed as sacrificial love, and who sustains us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation. We are held together, stitch by stitch, through sacred and sacrificial love.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 246.
[ii] Cameron Trimble, “Gifts from the People of Gander: A Word for the Day,” Piloting Faith, March 3, 2021, https://mailchi.mp/593246935afa/wcyrz8ckz9-10883410?e=47b2dd4a46.