But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.
An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true;
he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may come to believe.
Unlike Mel Gibson and some modern evangelists, Saint John took no delight in ghastly descriptions of Jesus’s passion and death. Nor do any of the gospels dwell upon its violence. We might read the soldier’s stabbing Jesus as one final insult, as another wholly unnecessary abuse of a crucified Jew by the Roman tyrant. But that was not Saint John’s intent.
The Fathers of the Church saw the “blood and water” as signs of our Eucharist and Baptism. The flood of water from his innocent body gave birth to the Church just as Adam gave birth to Eve from a wound in his side. And his blood was the Blood of the spotless, sacrificial lamb. Like the paschal lamb, he suffered no broken bones. A Catholic recognizes his blood as the we share the cup during the Mass.
These readings of the incident make fit Saint John’s gospel perfectly. Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus in John 3 provides a firm foundation for the necessity of Baptism:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” John 3:5
And John 6 gives us the most precise theology of the Eucharist in the entire bible, despite the lack of an “institution narrative” during the Last Supper.
There is a third reading of this brutal incident: Moments after Jesus “said, ‘It is finished.’ And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.” the soldier thrust his lance. Breath is also a fluid like blood and water. The LORD has poured out everything; he has nothing left to give. His body is an emptied vessel. In Philippians 2, Saint Paul called this kenosis, the complete exhaustion of God:
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness,
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
We well might wonder if this was really necessary, but the scriptures and the Church insist, we could not have been saved otherwise. Unless the Lord surrenders totally in love for us, and unless we surrender totally in love to God, there is no salvation.
The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart calls us to reflect again upon the sacrificial death of Jesus. He spares nothing in love for us; he invites us to spare nothing in love for him.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.