Arborlawn produces a weekly devotional based on the scripture reading for that week’s sermon. I am writing my first one this week and I naturally want it to be good. However, the scripture has proven to be difficult. It is Hebrews 9:11-18 and it addresses the sacrificial nature of Christ death. This is a difficult concept for me for many reasons. Arguably, it depicts God as “blood thirsty” who seeks blood sacrifice in order to ratify a covenant and atone. Though I understand the theological argument in Hebrews I still struggle with it. All of this is to say, I have written the piece below and I am looking for some feedback. Anyone who has anything to say is welcome to comment.

This is not a scripture that a smart young pastor eagerly chooses to write his first devotional to his new church. However, assuming he ended up with this scripture, a smart young pastor would explain that his scripture was written to members of the early church with Jewish backgrounds who were struggling to understand why Christ died. The smart pastor would talk about the importance of animal sacrifice in ancient Jewish culture as a means of atonement or as a means of sealing a new covenant with God. He would talk about other times in scripture where covenants were made with God or when a sacrifice was made for the atonement of one’s sins. He might even mention that sacrifice was very much a part of many other ancient near eastern societies. Then he would explain how blood was viewed as the physical essence of life and since it was understood that God gave all creatures life, that the physical essence of life, blood, would be given back to God in a sacrifice. He might even point out how foreign this idea is to us today in the modern world, but to the Jewish persons to whom this letter was written, this would all make perfect sense. Then he would say that with the blood of Christ we are atoned of our sins and are received into a new covenant with God.

But I can’t seem to do this. This scripture and others like it trouble me greatly. They force me to deal with something I am not comfortable with, the tragic and humiliating death of Christ on a cross, and then attempt to justify this death as a means of fulfilling God’s need for sacrifice to atone for sins and to ratify a new covenant. And though I have some rudimentary understanding of the importance of sacrifice in the ancient Jewish community and have read some of the traditional theological interpretations of this event I still have trouble reconciling this image of God with my own understanding and experience of God. The truth of the matter is that this scripture makes no more sense to me today than it did years ago when I first began to wrestle with it. I still struggle with it. I still struggle with the significance of Christ death, and I believe many others do.

As a church we have been struggling with it for two thousand years. We struggle to find answers for the death of Jesus, a reason why it occurred. The people who received this letter were struggling with it, theologians throughout time have struggled with it, many of us may struggle with it now. I cannot offer a clear cut answer. I can only offer reassurance that you do not struggle alone.