Caesarian Section.

John 19:31-37

April 15, 2022 + Good Friday

The final callous, brutal act of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus is this incident where the soldiers come to break the legs, and thus hasten the death, of the crucified men, so as not to have them hanging there over the holiday.  This was a concession because the Romans liked to have victims in plain sight even long after their death, as birds and animals would come and pick at the bodies.  Crucifixion was even more of a deterrent if everyone saw the bodies desecrated and obliterated in this way.  

They break the legs of the other two criminals, but when they get to Jesus they see that he is already dead, and to prove it one of the soldiers thrusts his spear into the flank of Jesus’ body.

A flow of blood and water issues from the wound, pouring out onto the ground.  This is a big enough deal for some reason that the gospel writer feels it necessary to add his own personal verification as an eye witness, “so that you also may believe.”  How does hearing about this blood and water pouring out of Jesus’ body aid our faith?  How does it make us more likely to trust in him?  

As Jesus is being lifted up, a process that begins on the cross and culminates in the resurrection, all he leaves behind of himself, of his physical flesh, on the earth is this puddle of watery blood in the dust.  Lifted up for the life of the world, he leaves a bit of his life in the world.  For water is the life of the planet and blood is the life of life.  In this way he does not abandon us, but leaves some of himself — literally and physically — on the physical earth, sanctifying it, blessing it, infusing it with himself.

The water and the blood represent the two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which constitute the continuing gospel community.  We are reborn in Christ by the water of Baptism, and fed by him in the blood of the Eucharist.  It is almost as if Jesus is in labor on the cross, giving birth to the church by the Caesarian section administered by a Roman soldier.  I have watched enough episodes of Call the Midwife to know that birth involves a flush of blood and water.  What the soldier intended to prove death, actually becomes the new birth of the church.  In that act the old humanity dies, and the new humanity is born.  Jesus’ wound is actually the birth canal of the Church, the vanguard of the new humanity.  Jesus is the mother of the Church.

And it has to be “Caesarian,” that is, it has to be a final, gratuitous act of violence by the epitome of power and hatred that is Empire.  Empire itself has to be neutralized; it has to be turned against itself, so that the Empire’s reign of death is doomed in the birth of God’s reign, and the brutality of one inhuman lord in Rome and his lackeys is swallowed up and permanently overwhelmed in the victory of God in the self-offering of the true Lord, Jesus Christ.

And what happens to that bloody water, shining there under the horrible cross, reflecting the sky, the water that once constituted the living body of Christ our God?  Well, it evaporates.  It continues its eternal participation in the cycle of water on the Earth.  It becomes cloud.  It precipitates back down to the earth as rain or snow.  It flows in rivers.  It joins the ocean.  It is taken into plants and animals.  It is mixed and scattered, dissipated and infused, over and over and over, over years, and centuries, and millennia.  And over all this time, the very water molecules that were part of Jesus' body literally touch and bless the whole earth.  His life is now literally in every living thing and each one of us.

The Lord Jesus also leaves a third thing with us: his breath, which he gives up in verse 30 when he dies.  Sometimes when we die we do it with a long, final exhale.  I have seen this happen with people whose death I have witnessed.   The risen Jesus will later more formally bestow the Holy Spirit on his disciples by breathing on them.  

In his first letter, the apostle John will remind us of these three things that the Lord Jesus, the Word of God, leaves of himself in the creation: the Spirit, the water, and the blood.  These are Christ's continued Presence, with, within, and among us and all creation.  In a sense, they are his resurrection life, persisting everywhere.  

In this way Jesus’ lifting up becomes the life of the world, when we see in him, by the power of the Spirit, that because of the cross it is all holy, it is all sacred, it is all blessed.  He fulfills God’s initial declaration of the goodness of creation, and indeed embodies it literally. 

Because of the cross, the final produce of which is this outpouring of God’s life in the water and the blood, and the breath, from the body of the Lord, we may now walk in that "newness of life" of which Paul speaks, which is the new life of compassion, nonviolence, humility, forgiveness, thanksgiving, and love which Jesus embodies.  Because of the cross we are now able to see the truth that this whole place, and every life, and every person is good and precious.  Because of the water and the blood and the breath, animating the Church and every believer, we are reborn, we are fed, we are inspired now to know and therefore trust our lives to the goodness of the God who by this grace is everywhere and fills all things.         

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