Blood is thicker than water. We use such an expression to point out that our ties to family are stronger than our ties to others. It’s an expression we use to say that families stick together, not just in the best of times, but even in the worst of times.
Families have a bond. Families have a oneness, for they share a common ancestry, a common heritage, a common inheritance, a shared blood. Families have a communion in blood because blood is thicker than water.
Through blood, God binds us to parents, to brothers and sisters, and to our children. It was like that since the beginning. When God created Eve, he fashioned her from Adam’s own flesh, not from the soil like He did with Adam. It was then that Adam exclaimed: “At last! This one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). And from the flesh and blood of Adam and Eve, God began the human family.
God then took on that flesh and blood in the womb of Mary and became a man. The Creator became a creature, although still remaining the Creator. Because Jesus took on human flesh, He feels no shame to call us His brothers.
But Jesus became our brother, not just for sentimental reasons, but for a specific purpose. He became our Brother all so He could be the High Priest of our salvation. As our High Priest, Jesus has become our blood brother. By His blood, we have become members of one family, for Jesus became our brother when He took on our flesh and blood and shed His blood to save us.
Our reading from Hebrews says it this way:
For this reason, he became like his brothers in every way so He could become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God to wipe away the people’s sins. Because Jesus himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted [vs. 17-18].
To wipe our sin away, Jesus became God’s mercy seat. We’ve been hearing about the mercy seat during these midweek services, haven’t we? That was the covering on top of the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple. Once a year, the High Priest would pour the blood of a sacrificed animal over the mercy seat. And of course under the mercy seat were the Ten Commandments, God’s Law. What the book of Hebrews is telling us is that Christ’s blood is now that covering. His blood covers the Law by Christ righteousness, so it can no longer condemn us.
In His flesh, our High Priest suffered what we must suffer because of our sin. Sometimes, we suffer because of sins we have committed. That’s because our sinful actions don’t only hurt other people, but it boomerangs back to hurt us, as well. Scripture makes this truth known when it says, “A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). Other times, we suffer because of the sinful deeds of others and become a victim of someone else’s sin.
But as Christians, we know that Jesus didn’t sin. He was THE saint in this sinful world. So when the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus suffered, we know that it couldn’t have been because of His sinfulness. The only other choice, then, is that Jesus suffered because of our sins and willingly became a victim.
He carried in His body the wounds of our abuse. He became the victim to save us because we could not save ourselves. As the Prophet Isaiah said, He was “struck down by God and tormented” and was “wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:4-5).
Jesus is well-acquainted with suffering. He endured it all. Others rejected Him. One of His own disciples betrayed Him. At the cross, all Apostles had deserted Him, except John. Only he and Mary were at the foot of the cross when the others hid in fear for their lives. Jesus suffered pain, especially during His crucifixion. But the worst of all was when His Father abandoned Him so He could bring us back into God’s good standing. Never was there suffering like Jesus’ suffering.
Yet, Jesus did more than suffer for us. He also endured temptation for us. Hebrews, chapter 4, says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Instead, we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet he did not sin” (4:15).
We see Jesus facing temptation most clearly when He was in the wilderness for 40 days. There, Satan tempted Jesus to give in to the yearnings of the flesh, to serve Himself by turning stones into bread. The tempter baited Jesus to gain worldly prestige by putting His divinity on display by jumping down from the crest of the temple. The father of lies offered Jesus the kingdoms of this world. All he asked in return was for Jesus to bow down and worship him.
And those temptations didn’t stop after Jesus was no longer in the wilderness. Satan would be back. He would be back in the person of Peter as Peter rebuked Jesus for speaking of the cross, suffering, and death. Satan would be there in the Garden of Gethsemane. There Jesus prayed, struggling to do His Father’s will, struggling to drink the cup of suffering that God had set before Him. And Satan would be there on Good Friday in the jeering voices of the mockers who cried out, “If you’re the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40).
Jesus is no stranger to the temptations you face. But, unlike us, He faced those temptations and triumphed over them all. That’s why He can help you in times of temptation. No one is more qualified or able than He!
Jesus proved that He was a true man with flesh and blood, for He shared the fate that is common to all flesh. Scripture says that He became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Why would Jesus do that? Hebrews tells us: “so through his death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil). In this way, he would free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death” (vs. 14-15).
The slave master has his whip, which he uses to instill fear and exercise power over the slaves. The devil’s whip is death. The fear of death holds all human beings in bondage. In some ways, we spend our entire lives learning how to overcome the fear of death.
In response to our inborn fear of death, Jesus came to this earth, to this slave camp, in the form of a slave. But Jesus was different. Although He came in the form of a slave, He didn’t obey Satan, the slave master. He would yield obedience only to His Father, even when the cords of the slave master’s whip cut deeply into His flesh.
When the final lash of that slave master’s whip scraped across His back, Jesus prayed, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Then He died. And yet, through that death, which the world and even Satan saw as Jesus’ defeat, He destroyed the one who had the power of death. That is why Jesus releases us from the captivity of death.
Indeed, Jesus our Brother is our High Priest. The blood He shed to wipe our sins away cleanses and forgives us. By His dying on the cross, He triumphed over death and the devil. The Lutheran hymn writer, Lazarus Spengler, said it this way: “As by one man all mankind fell and, born in sin, was doomed to hell, so by one Man, who took our place, we all were justified by grace” (LSB 562:5).
Through His blood, as His blood brothers, Jesus cleanses and frees us from sin–not just the sins that we commit, but also the sins that we suffer at the hands of others in this fallen world. He also frees us from eternal death. By doing that, He also free us from the fear of death, which is the power that Satan has over us. Now the one who accuses us with the fear of death is silenced. For the blood of Jesus conquers, not just sin and death, but even the power of the devil.
Jesus’ blood is the blood that we share. It’s our shared blood and our solidarity in the family of God. For through it, we share a common Father and a common inheritance. Through it, we have a Holy Communion with the holy Trinity and one another, His holy people.
That’s why we don’t go through life in this fallen world alone. We suffer and endure in the communion of a holy family, a family that sticks together, a family that rejoices together in the best of times and suffers together in the worst of times. For in Christ’s shared blood, we are brought into a family that will never end. Indeed, blood is indeed thicker than water. Thanks be to God. Amen.
