Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
March 16, 2025
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
Lent 2C
Innocent Blood
Only know for certain that if you kill me you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and all who dwell in her. For in truth the LORD sent me to you to speak all these words into your ears. Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man does not deserve the death sentence, because he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD.” Jeremiah 26:8-16 (DKV)
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Jeremiah escaped death, but our Lord did not.
Upon his reasonable plea the people who arrested him acted rationally towards him, and were given to understand that Jeremiah spoke for the LORD God; and as such he was not to be harmed. The words of King David which pre-dated Jeremiah by 400 years came true: “Do not touch my anointed, and do my prophets no harm” (Psalm 105:15)
Jeremiah’s blood was innocent, but only because God justified him by faith, and cleansed him from his sins by the innocent blood of the Savior he pre-figured – the innocent blood poured out on the cross that we love!
But while Jeremiah was accounted innocent by faith, our Lord was innocent by nature. No charge could be brought against him. He needed no forgiveness for as Scripture says: “He was like us in every way except for sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Though Jeremiah was not killed in the line of duty, countless other prophets were! Jeremiah was given rough treatment at times. His enemies cursed him, plagued him with scorn, spoke all manner of evil against him: the king even got hold of one of his scrolls on which he had written the LORD’s words, and carved it up with his knife and let it fall to the ground. Jeremiah was later arrested and thrown into a cistern, but was rescued before he died there.
Not to bring politics into the issue but, only as an example, Jeremiah was treated as President Trump is treated by the media – with pure, seamless contempt. Indeed Jeremiah was afraid to answer the call when the LORD decided to make him his man. But in Jeremiah 15:20 the LORD says to Jeremiah: “I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the LORD.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ as we have said was a different case altogether. He did not resist when the Father sent him to this world to experience human life to the full. To be hungry, sorely tempted and tested. Hated and threatened by people who knew how to threaten and hate. And finally subjected to the most shameful and protracted death that man knew how to concoct.
No. Instead he willingly embraced his mission. Indeed according to our Introit it was his JOY to endure the cross, and scorn the shame involved. All for our redemption. All for our everlasting JOY. To make sinners into saints. To make us pure even as He Himself is pure.
When the LORD asked: who will go for us, Isaiah, another of the Lord’s mighty prophets – one who was killed in the line of duty – answered: “Here am I send me, send me.”
It’s not that Jesus did now know what awaited him! This is why he responds as he does when some Pharisees – of all people – come to warn him that Herod had it out for him. That Herod wanted to finish the job that Jeremiah’s accusers did not.
The Lord was phased not at all.
“Go and tell that fox, Behold! I expel demons and perform cures today, and tomorrow, and on the third day I shall be done.’ Nevertheless, I must be on my way today and tomorrow and the following day for is it impossible that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.”
What did the Lord mean by this ironic yet accurate reply?
Firstly he was not afraid of Herod.
Indeed Herod’s father, Herod the Great, had tried to kill the Lord when he was born. He ordered the deaths of all the boys under two years old just to be sure. We call them the Holy Innocents, and innocents they were! Martyrs who died to save the Christ, so that the Lord could shed his innocent blood on the cross to redeem them. And us. What a turn of events!
What did the Lord mean?
He was referring to his death and resurrection all which took place within a three day period of time. “Today, tomorrow and the third day,” on which he completed and fulfilled his liturgy by defeating death and Satan. And giving us New Life! And there is nothing better than that!
He also very carefully points out to the residents of Jerusalem in his day what Jeremiah preached 600 years earlier. That it is impossible. Inconceivable. Banish the thought that a prophet should die outside of Jerusalem. Because as the Lord said earlier: A prophet has no honor in his own country.
And so it was his own people, the people he came to redeem, that put him to death – though he loved them and would have gladly gathered them together under his wings as a hen gathers her own dear brood.
Surprisingly to human understanding, that is exactly what happened. First the Lord had to die our death, be our substitute, and pay the penalty each of us should rightly have paid for our wrongs. He shed his innocent blood for those whose blood is filled with the impurity of sin and death. And then he had to be buried in the ground, where he did not stay; but as we heard last week became the “first fruits of the ground.” And then rose victoriously over death for us, so as to gather us to himself by baptism: where we are crucified with Him, entombed with Him, and raised to newness of life with Him. And that is our state today!
And so as new creations in Christ we are able to hear Jeremiah who says to all people: Mend your ways, do good individually, and collectively, precisely because we have the innocent blood of Jesus transfused into us by faith. By baptism. By the blood we imbibe in the Blessed Sacrament at this altar.