The Blood & Water from the Side of Christ

[Music] [Music] every year during Holy Week on Good Friday the church reads the entire passion narrative from the Gospel according to st. John and every year when I hear that narrative read there's one particular part of John's passion narrative that really leaps out at me and it's the account of the death of Christ and the piercing of his side with a spear so what I want to do in this video is just take a moment to look at that one element the piercing of the side of Christ and the flowing out of the blood and water and ask ourselves what is the meaning of that episode what is the meaning of that event why does John highlight it and what would it have meant in a first century Jewish context how can it help us to understand better the mystery of Jesus's crucifixion and the mystery of his death so let's look at that passage together for just a minute it's in John chapter 19 verse 31 through 37 and it's only John's Gospel that tells us about the piercing of the side of Christ so this is unique to his account of the passion narrative this is what he says since it was a day of preparation in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath for that Sabbath was a high day the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away so the soldiers came and they broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead they did not break his legs but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and at once there came out blood and water and at this moment John interrupts his gospel he does something he rarely does or never does anywhere else he interrupts the gospel and he steps in to the narrative and says he who saw it has borne witness his testimony is true and he knows that he tells the truth that you may also believe in other words what he's saying here is he who saw this is telling you but the blood and the water the piercing of the side of Christ really happened that is the truth right and then he goes back to the story verse 36 for these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled not a bone of him shall be broken and again another scripture says they shall look on him whom they have pierced so let's stop there what then is the meaning of the piercing of Jesus aside in the Gospel of John and the flowing out of blood and water and why does the author interrupt the gospel in order to emphatically you know insist that he really saw this and that it really happened and what would it admit in a first introduced context well I would like to suggest in this video just three at least three meanings actually is like multiple layers of meaning virtually everything in the Gospel of John but in this case I want to suggest three key meanings number one that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy of the pierced Messiah from dekker ayah number two that Jesus is the new Adam and number three that Jesus is a new temple so let's look at each one of those in turn the first one the primary meaning of the blood and water from the side of Christ John himself tells us when he says that these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled they shall look upon him whom they have pierced now when he says that he's quoting the book of Zechariah chapter 12 verse 10 and in that passage what Decker ayahs describing as this mysterious figure of the the Shepherd who is pure season which came in later times to be interpreted as an image of the Messiah the Shepherd of the people the future king of Israel but what's interesting about Zechariah is when he says that about the piercing of this mysterious figure he also says something else he says this quote I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication so that when they look on him whom they have pierced they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and weeps bitterly over him as one weeps Oh her firstborn son and then he goes on to say on that day there shall be a fountain open for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from their sin and their uncleanness so the first point that John is making here is that Jesus is the pierced Messiah of the book of Zechariah he is the mysterious one whom they have pierced and when he is pierced on that day Zechariah said a fountain would be open for the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea to cleanse them from their sins so the first meaning of the blood and water is that John sees the blood in the water coming from the side of Christ as the fountain that is going to wash away the sins of the people it's going to cleanse them from their sin so this is the atoning character of Jesus death but I think there's actually more going on here because another theme in John's Gospel that he's emphasized over and over again is the identity of Jesus as the bridegroom and as the one who's going to bring in a new creation as the new Adam so to speak and if you have that image in mind there's a second layer of meaning because when John describes Jesus dying and then the blood and the water coming from the side of the dead Christ any first entry Jew would have thought also back not just a Zechariah but to the book of Genesis and to the story of the creation of Adam the first man and the first bridegroom so if you go back to the book of Genesis chapter 2 verse 21 through 24 what are we following what we find that in Genesis 2 the way God makes the first woman who goes on to be called Eve is from the flesh of the side of Adam so this is what it says Genesis 2:21 it says the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man a domme Adam and while he slept he took one of his ribs and he closed up its place with flesh and the rib which the Lord had taken from the man he made into a woman and he brought her to the man and then man said this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they become one flesh all right so you might be single wait what does that have to do with Jesus in the Gospel of John he doesn't say anything about Jesus's rib but it's a little clearer here in Hebrew because when the your English Bible says while he slept God took one of his ribs and the Hebrew it literally says while he slept he took one of his sides so it's the the woman is taken from the side of the man literally the side which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man and then they are married as the first husband and wife the first man and woman Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 2 so um since ancient times early Christian writers saw another level of meaning they saw Christ on the cross as the divine bridegroom and therefore the new Adam listen to the words of the great fourth century Saint and doctor the church Saint Agustin this is what he had to say in his commentary on the crucifixion of Jesus he says quote Adam foreshadowed Christ and as Adam was a type of Christ so too was the creation of Eve from the sleeping Adam a prefiguration of the creation of the church from the side of the Lord as he slept for as he suffered and died on the cross and was struck by a Lance the sacraments which formed the church flowed forth from him by Christ sleeping we also are to understand his passion as Eve came from the side of the sleeping Adam so the church was born from the side of the suffering Christ that's a gustin's exhibition of Psalms 138 - so notice what it got some the same just as the first woman the first bride Eve is creating from the flesh and blood from the side of the sleeping Adam so to Jesus as the new Adam falls into the sleep of death and from his side proceeded the blood and the water that give life to his bride the church right so the water meaning 24 to the waters of baptism by which his bride is washed and given new life and then the blood pointing forward to the blood of the Eucharist which feeds his bride and gives her life and gives her communion with him so Christ is not just the Messiah the pierced Messiah he's also the sleeping Adam he's the new Adam of the new creation and then finally third and it's always most powerful for me is the image also of Christ as the new temple now this was a little harder to see unless you know ancient Jewish tradition because according to ancient Jewish rabbis in the traditions known as the Mishnah there's a treatise in the mission that it tells us of that during the first century AD while the temple still stood the sacrifices were so great and so many in the temple like during Passover where Josephus says that they would sacrifice two hundred thousand lambs in a single day that's a lot of blood the rabbi's tell us that because there were so many sacrifices there had to be a drain underneath the altar so that when the priest would pour out the blood on the altar the blood of the lamb on the altar in the temple it would actually drain out under the altar and then come out the side of the Temple Mount for example the Mishnah tractate me dote chapter 3 verse 2 says this at the southwest corner of the altar there were two holes like to narrow nostrils by which the blood that was poured over the Western base and the southern base used to run down and mingle in the water channel and flow out into the brook Kedron so the key drone valley was to the east of the of Jerusalem between Jerusalem and amount of Olives and so what the mission is describing here is that if you are doing the first century AD and you are approaching the Temple Mount at the time of Passover say when the sacrifices are being offered what would you see you would see a spring of blood and water flowing out of the side of the Temple Mount so when John sees the blood in the water flowing from the side of Christ he stops the gospel and says he who saw it as borne witness his testimony is true and he tells you that you might believe in other words he's emphasizing it I would suggest because he recognizes a parallel between the body of Jesus and the in the temple between the sacrifice of Jesus and the sacrifices in the temple so just as the blood and the water of the Passover lambs would flow out of the side of the Temple Mount down from the altar so - now the blood and the water flows out of the side of Christ who is the true temple in person like he says in John chapter 2 destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up but he was speaking about the temple of his body right so Jesus body is the new temple and therefore it's fitting that the blood and water would flow out of the side of his body which as the temple is nothing less than the dwelling place of God on earth that's what the temple was to the Jews the dwelling place of God on earth and the sole place of sacrifice so when you take that model and you really ponder it's powerful because if you think about it if Jesus has body is the temple and the side of his body from which the blood water flows point us to the side of the Temple Mount then where is the altar right well the altar then would be his sacred heart right so just as the blood and water flowed from the altar out of the side of the mountain so now the blood and water that give life to the church flows out of the very heart of Jesus which is in a sense the altar of the world right and just the st. Peter says a love covers a multitude of sins so to the infinite love of God in Christ covers an infinite number of sins it's not just how much Jesus suffered that makes the cross redemptive ultimately primarily it's how much he loved right and so when John sees the pierced heart of Christ and the blood and water flowing out what he sees there is like a visible sign of the love of God for the whole world and of the love of Christ for his bride the church to whom he gives life through the blood of the Eucharist in the water of baptism and I'll in this meditation with a quote from pope benedict xvi if you've never heard this before if it sounds new i'm just repeating what many of the ancient christians and doctors of the church had said Pope Benedict wrote this on the pierced side of Christ quote and it said his death on the cross is love in its most radical form by contemplating the pierced side of Christ we can understand the starting point of this encyclical letter God is love first John chapter 4 verse 8 it is there that this truth can be contemplated it is from there that our definition of love must begin Benedict the sixteenth God is love paragraph 12 so what's both anything there what he's saying is if you want to know what true love is just look at the pierced side of Jesus on the cross and there you will find the mystery of what it really means to say God is love [Music]

Channel: Catholic Productions

Views: 190,956

Keywords: brant pitre, catholic productions, good friday, blood and water, side of christ, crucifixion, new adam, new temple

Id: JAl-5jTAAZ8

Length: 14min 56sec (896 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2017