Hyssop & Being Clean

SCRIPTURE: John 19:28-30 NIV Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

THOUGHT: It jumped out at me last week between watching a Jewish Passover celebration and reading about the crucifixion: hyssop was used in both – first as the tool to paint the blood of a lamb on the doorframe of the home so the plague of death would pass over the home, thus Passover. Then just before the moment of death, while the blood runs down a different wooden frame, Jesus is given sour wine from a sponge at the end of a stalk of hyssop.

And not only in those instances – hyssop is also mentioned in David’s famous Psalm of confession, “cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean (Ps. 51:7 NIV),” and in Leviticus and Numbers as the path by which someone ceremonially unclean could be cleansed.

Jesus has borne the sins of all the world, past, present, and future. The work is finished but he is unclean for the first time in his life. But the hyssop is present, and the blood of the lamb is present, and while death comes, it ultimately passes over and the Savior takes back his life from the jaws of sin and death. The doorway of the cross leads to new life, just like the doorways of the ancient Hebrews open to a whole new life after death has made its Passover.

PRAYER: Thank you that I can celebrate Passover as a Christian too, Jesus. Thank you for your willingness to become unclean so that I might taste forgiveness, grace and new life.