The Fifth Sunday in Lent AD 2025

The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, shall purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

How can blood cleanse someone? The Book of Revelation speaks of the redeemed of the Lord wearing white robes, and it is said that they are washed in the blood of the Lamb. How is this possible? Blood stains, blood defiles, blood cries out to heaven for vengeance!

Indeed, the Blood of the Lamb of God, the blood of Jesus Christ, is the sign of the worst crime that mankind has ever committed. Just think: human beings created by God in love, arrested the only begotten Son of God, mocked Him, beat and tortured Him, and finally crucified Him, cursing themselves: “His blood be on us, and on our children!“

His blood is on them and on their children and on all of us – but in a completely different sense than they could have imagined in their pettiness and corruption. The blood of Christ covers the multitude of our sins. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, it purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

The Blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, makes us completely clean, because His blood is the sign of God’s all-conquering love, which has not only the power to cleanse us from our sins, but to cleanse us from dead works to serve the living God. This means that God offers us not only forgiveness of sins, but indeed a completely new life – a life in godliness and holiness, in His love and goodness.