Blood and water

To be honest, the Roman soldier who was at Golgotha piercing the side of the already dead crucified man with a spear was to make sure that he was certainly dead. When John describes this, he adds a little detail. "Immediately blood and water came out." Isn't that a very natural thing? If you pierce the side of a person who has been dead for less than an hour and hanging, with a spear, some blood and body fluids that look like water will flow from the pericardial layers of the heart, lungs, and liver because they are pierced. However, the evangelist John puts a spotlight on that one verse in a very powerful way. "An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may believe." John adds this sentence with these three clauses. He says that it is an eyewitness testimony. He swears that the testimony is true. He writes that he knows that he is speaking the truth!!

Why is there so much importance; so much of spotlight on this one line?!

This importance John places on this verse is precisely the reason why many people, beginning with the early church fathers, over time have reflected on this one short sentence.

It is basically a double confirmation that Jesus was really dead. However, our search for meaning should not be stopped at this first stage of physiological meaning.

The first explanation is that divine mercy and sanctification flow from his open side. That is the spiritual intuition that St. Faustina received. In her diary entries, the Divine Lord said through fourteen private visions that the Sunday after Easter should be celebrated as the Feast of Divine Mercy. That is why, as Christ asked Faustina through her private revelations, Pope John Paul II asked the Church to celebrate the Second Sunday of Easter as the Feast of Divine Mercy, which always has the reading where the Risen Lord inviting the Apostle Thomas to probe his side with his finger.

The sacramental interpretation of this verse is that what flowed from his side were the two fundamental sacraments of the Church, Baptism (water) and Holy Eucharist (blood).

Another view is that Christ's heart was opened so that all the sinners could enter in it and remain hidden there.

All these reflections are certainly good ones.

But, what has personally fascinated me is another reflection. And that originally comes from St. Augustine. He sees the birth of the Church taking place there!

There is this thought that sees Christ as the new Adam. The Genesis story says that after God had put the first Adam to sleep, He created Eve from his side (rib). Relating to that the insight here is that on Mount Calvary God put the new Adam, Christ, to sleep and created the new Eve - the Church - from his side. Christ is now not only a man but also a woman. She gives birth while lying on the cross! Her organ of giving birth, is her torn open heart! What flows out as this clotted blood is her tiny little offspring. The following water that flows is its placenta, completing the birth!