By One Offering

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

-- Hebrews 10:14

When writing to the Hebrews, Paul explained how once, priests made sacrifices of living animals as offerings to God. Lambs and calves were often slain and placed upon the altar, as well as fruits and crops from the harvest, all to seek the pleasure of God that He might take away their sins. Sacrifices and offerings served as rituals of cleansing, the blood intended to wash away the sins of man.

Yet when Jesus came and walked among us, He became God's sacrifice on our behalf by the will of God the Father. Paul writes: "By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God." (Hebrews 10:10-12)

What had once been commonplace and, according to the scripture quoted above, ineffectual became obsolete and unneeded with the one sacrifice Jesus made of Himself. The blood of this purest Lamb washed us all clean, with one stroke brushed clean to stand before God. The One who bore no sin of His own took upon Himself the sins of the world so that we would be free of sin when we approach the throne of our King. One death, that death would be defeated forever. One bloody sacrifice so that no more must die.

The one perfect being this world has ever known perfected forever those who He sanctified by His suffering and sacrifice. We, who are so imperfect, so riddled with worldly woes, so lost and separated from God, are made clean and perfect in the eyes of God by this one great and awesome and wonderful act, that the Son of God gave His life for our salvation.

As Easter approaches, we remember the final days of Jesus upon this earth. We honor the sacrifice He made for us. And we rejoice in the promise of our salvation in the fact of His resurrection. Share the news with those who may not know, or who may have forgotten.

Christ has risen! Jesus lives! All praise be to God! Amen.