Happy Easter!  So you’re catching on.

On December 7, 1988, Sara took her four year old daughter and went to visit her sister. She had arrived in the apartment and within ten minutes the whole apartment was shaking. She grabbed her daughter and she found herself in the basement of a nine story apartment that was crumbling all around her. There was a slab of cement about a foot and a half above her and beside a pipe, a broken pipe across her chest so she couldn’t get up. And her daughter was next to her and she was safe. The daughter of course was saying she was hungry and so on. So Sara reached around and she found a jar and it turned out to be blackberry jam, it was about 24 ounces, and that lasted two days and she gave to her daughter. She was convinced that she would die, but she wanted her daughter to live. The daughter was saying, "I’m thirsty, I’m thirsty." and in the cold she reached around and found a dress and made a kind of bed for her daughter and took off her stockings and wrapped them around her. And as her daughter kept on saying "I’m thirsty," she remembered a television show she saw in a survival program which one man cut his hand and gave his blood to another. So she reached around for a piece of glass and cut her finger and gave the blood, gave her finger to her daughter and of course she was able to satisfy her thirst. She doesn’t remember how often she cut her fingers or her hand but after eight days they were rescued and the daughter was saved by the blood from her mother.  Jesus at the Last Supper took the cup and said, "This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant it will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven." Now the apostles of course knew something of this because they had performed the Seder meal, the Passover meal, year after year after year celebrating the deliverance the Lord had won for His people out of Egypt in which a spotless Lamb was slain and the blood was painted on the door post. And therefore the community was spared the angel of death. They received deliverance. And so the Jewish community year after year celebrated this deliverance. They certainly were fulfilling the law. They certainly were being just, they certainly were fulfilling their liturgical worship. But it had no power to take away sin.

We see in football games people holding up the sign John 3:16. And of course eventually some people look it up and find out that it’s "God so loved the world that He sent His Son to redeem us. So that those who believe Him will not die, not be condemned, but have eternal life." But what does it really mean? God so loved the world that He gave up His only Son. That God’s love made a choice. It was the sinful world and His Son and He chose the sinful world. And that love was expressed in giving His Son and became visible in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. When Christ poured out His blood for us, He revealed that love. So too often we look at the Easter season in terms of Jesus’ physical resurrection and exterior radiance and glory coming from it. We forget that the deeper reality has taken place. By shedding His blood the Lord has fertilized the roots of our being, of our life. And strengthens that life and transforms it. He empowers us so that we have the capacity to really go against the futile ways of our ancestors. That is, the world’s way of always solving problems. Which cannot do anything but end up in futility. Jesus by his blood strengthens us and empowers us to be able to fight the direction of the world. But also, this is a season of spring and we are reminded of the power of life. And so we see little things sprouting from the ground, twigs. But also old trees just blossoming so cheer up! New life is possible, it’s here, it’s precisely in the Blood of Christ. Life is in the blood! We were purchased not by silver and gold as Peter says, "but by the Blood of Christ." It cleanses us from our sins that fertilizes the roots of our life and strengthens us. So the question is will we allow the Blood of Christ to transform us and bring us new life?