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| Spreading Blood on the Doorposts |
Proverbs 9:1-6
Psalm 34
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
Have y’all noticed how many of my
homilies begin with ‘when I was in seminary’? It was a very formative time!
Anywho…
When I was in seminary J we had an interesting
outing one day as we drew near to our ordination as priests. We went to one of
the funeral homes in New Orleans and they showed us the rooms where they
prepared bodies and also the crematory where they would do the cremations. It
was really fascinating to see the ‘behind the scene’ view but what intrigued me
most was that as we were going around they showed us one special room and told
us that it was specifically for the Jewish community because they had certain
ways that they would wash and care for the body of the individual, particularly
in the preservation of the blood, as opposed to it simply being consumed as
would that of other individuals. I didn’t expect it but it made perfect sense
because, for the Jewish people, the blood is of great importance. Do you
remember the scene from Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ when the Lord
had just been scourged? Recall how Our Lady went out with a cloth and began to
soak up all the blood on the ground and to clean the area. It’s because of the
importance of blood.
Blood is of such importance that
we go all the way into the 4th chapter of Genesis before we hear
about it for the first time. Here it is the blood of Abel that cries out from
the ground after Cain had slain him. Interesting that it’s not the flesh, not
the body; it’s the blood. The second time ‘blood’ is spoken of is in the
following verse when Cain is told that he has Abel’s blood on his hands. And
the third time comes in chapter 9 of Genesis in the story of Noah. As Noah
proceed from the Ark after the flood, the Lord says to him: “Every moving thing
that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give
you everything. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its
blood.” You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Blood is
life.
The prohibition of eating flesh
with blood meat obviously that there were not rare steaks in the Old Testament
and this ultimately comes down to the reality that to consume the blood of a
creature was to have it’s life in you and thus to be joined with it.
We see the use of blood all
throughout the Old Testament in the lives and worship of the Jewish people. The
sacrifices of bulls, goats, birds, and the like were all vicarious sacrifices.
They were essentially saying that on account of my sins I deserve to die, but
this animal is able to die in my place, to pay its life rather than mine. We
see this in the use of blood over the doorways at Passover to save people from
death and to guarantee life. This idea was brought in as well in the worship in
the tabernacle and later in the Temple. At different times that altar, horns of
the altar, the people, and the sanctuary were sprinkled with blood, as sign of
being cleansed from sin by the life of an animal being poured out. Too, we can
see that the Mercy Seat – the dwelling place of God in the Holy of Holies – was
sprinkled each year on the Day of Atonement. First-hand accounts from the time
of Jesus recount how on the days in preparation for Passover nearly 250,000
lambs were slain to fulfill the command of God to eat of the lamb. So much
blood was shed that they say the priests in the sanctuary waded through it up
almost to their knees and they had drains in the floor for it to pour out and
flow down the mountainside – a river of blood pouring from the side of the
Temple and joined at the bottom to a river of fresh water, the blood and water
flowing side by side as they merged. You can see the imagery tied to the even
of the Cross.
So we can see that blood
ultimately comes to have four emphases: it saved or protected people as in the
Passover, it washes away sin and guilt by the vicarious gift of the animal, it
joined the person to the creature if the blood was consumed, and the
consumption of the blood gave the life of that creature to the one partaking of
the blood.
All of this is the background
that colored Jewish life each day and all throughout the year. They always had
to look at their meats to discern ‘does it have any blood in it?’ Always the
search for blood. And now we get into the Gospel.
Last week we left of with, and
this week we begin with, the Lord telling the people “The bread that I will
give is my flesh for the life of the world.” This strange saying confuses his
hearers and they all begin to wonder to themselves and to speak aloud their
confusion: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus, recognizing
their confusion, responds and tell them that it was all symbolic, that it was
just an analogy, that He didn’t mean it literally. Right? No. What’s
interesting is that Jesus knows the confusion in the hearts and minds of the
crowd before Him and has the opportunity to tell everyone that the bread He was
talking about was just a spiritual reality, a symbolic joining of ourselves to
Himself, an analogy of faith. But He does the exact opposite – He intensifies
His words.
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| Precious Blood of the Child Jesus |
“Amen, amen, I say to you,” the
double amen emphasizing that what follows was of great importance, “unless you
eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink
his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and
drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my
flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and
drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and
I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life
because of me.”
Drink His Blood!? Four times in a
row He says to drink His Blood?! I’d imagine one of two scenarios happened at
this point: either you could have heard a pin drop with the shocked silence of
the crowd or a great uproar of blasphemy charges would have been hurled at the
Lord. Either way the reasoning is the same. God, from the days of Noah,
prohibited the consumption of blood in the animals and yet here this Jesus, the
so-called Son of God, is saying that they were not only to drink His blood but
indeed they must in order to have life! Does He realize what He’s saying? The
blood has power to wash away sin and guilt, to preserve those on whom it rests
from the angel of death and to bring life, it joins one to the creatures whose
blood was shed and gives the life of that creature to the one who consumed it!
And that is exactly the point.
It is right not to consume the
blood of an animal that would lower one’s dignity, but with the entrance into
history of the God-Man Jesus Christ, the consumption of His Blood does not
lower us but raises us up to a higher state. It gives us eternal life, where
once only temporal life was attainable. It saves us from sin and joins us to
Christ – He remains in us and we in Him. It’s all in the power of the Blood of
Jesus and it is that same blood, that true drink, which we have the joy of
being able to receive each time we come to Mass.
So I conclude this week with the
question for reflection: How do we reverence the Eucharist?
If the Lord’s Body and Blood are
true food and true drink which we receive here, how do we show that? What about
our spirit, body and thoughts here at Mass shows our reverence and love for the
Eucharist? What in our lives outside of these walls continues to speak to us
and to others and He is here? How do we reverence this gift of His life-giving
Blood?
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