Blood and Water

Why did God make the world?

It wasn’t because He needed it. It wasn’t because the existence of the world was necessary.

Why did God make the world? Out of love.

God makes the world out of love and makes man to image that love

God gives Creation the gift of existing, and he makes all of Creation a gift to the creatures that fill it.

The Spirit of God hovers over the waters and He loves creation into existence, and God makes man and woman to image God’s love to his creation.

You could say that “God so loved the world, that sent Adam and Eve to love and care for it.”

God makes the world out of love and makes man to image that love, and every aspect of creation was meant to be a loving gift from the Father to his creatures, from the food we eat to the air we breathe.

When we compare our world today to how our world was meant to be, we see that man has utterly failed.

Where air was meant to give life, we murder and take that next breath away.

Where food was meant to sustain life, we steal it away.

Where husbands were to love and lead their wives, they selfishly rule over them.

Where wives were to respect and help their husbands, they manipulate them.

Where name and reputation are meant to be preserved and loved, we tarnish and back-stab, and write it off as politics.

Where we are supposed to love and care for creation, instead we destroy, mutilate, and desecrate the beauty of God’s good world.

It’s called sin. Sin destroys what God made in love, and decides to worship the almighty Self.

And for the sin of destroying God’s good creation, blood sacrifice is required

Perhaps we might wonder why the shedding of blood is required for our sin. “That’s harsh! That seems extreme!”

You might know the big twist at the end of the story in Star Wars is that Darth Vader is redeemed.

“That’s harsh,! That seems extreme!”

The big, evil bad guy, the villain who seems to be evil and violence incarnate is, in the end, brought to the light side by his son, Luke Skywalker.

People I’ve talked to have had a lot of trouble with this idea, that they could see someone like Darth Vader as a good guy in the end. And perhaps it’s because we feel the need for blood.

We see all the evil, horrible things someone like a Darth Vader, or a Hitler, or — if we’re being honest — any of us do, and we see the way that the beauty of God’s beloved creation has been desecrated and mutilated by that evil, and we see the need for blood to pay.

They can’t just simply be redeemed! Someone has to pay for all that evil!

Redemption isn’t as simple as just sweeping sins under the rug or stuffing a skeleton in the closet. Just as it was spelled out in Exodus, for redemption and forgiveness, there must be blood to pay.

Redemption of Darth Vader and Blood

That’s where Jesus comes in.

On the night where he would be betrayed and arrested to be violently beaten, bloodied, and crucified, Jesus strips away his outer garments to wash the feet of his disciples.

This was not just a simple example of humility or servant leadership or a romanticized idea of love. It was that and so much more.

Jesus is God’s love incarnate, in the flesh. And where Adam and Eve failed to image the love of God to the world, God sent his one and only Son to take their place, do their job, and love the world.

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus washes the disciples’ feet to show that his blood sacrifice would fulfill redemption, pay the blood-price himself, and wash away our sin.

He lays aside his garments just as he lays aside his life; He humbles himself before his disciples just as he would be humiliated on the cross.

He washes away the animal and human waste collected on the streets by their feet, just as he would wash away all of sin’s desecration of the world by the blood and water from his spear-pierced side.

By washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus shows that he is still the God of love who came to serve us, wash us, and restore us.

Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are restored to the Eden-like state of bearing God’s image.

In our baptism, we are washed in the blood of Christ’s sacrifice, washed by his very Word declaring us forgiven on his behalf, redeemed and restored to God’s beautiful design.

In Christ, we once again image God’s love to the world. We are creatures made new, made and re-made to love and care for a creation made new.

Out of love he made us. Out of love he bled for us. Out of love he cleansed us. Out of love he restored us.

This is Jesus, the love of God, in the flesh, for you.