The Blood Of Christ

If you’ve seen Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” you probably remember the scene of Jesus’ scourging. It’s rather hard to forget the whip with steel and bone and glass knotted in its leather striking Jesus over and over again.

There is a part of that scene that is perplexing at first glance. Pilate’s wife approaches Jesus’ mother Mary and very humbly offers her a stack of white towels. Is the family of the punished responsible to clean up this public, government building? Hardly.

On the contrary, Pilot’s wife understands that Mary has no way to gather and protect the precious blood of her son. His blood is spilled on the ground waiting for someone to walk through. His life is poured out on the ground, on the dirty tile, waiting for some unwitting servant to come and wash it up with filthy mop water and pour it into the gutter.

Mary knew that blood is precious, especially the blood of Jesus, God in the flesh, whose death takes away our sin.

For we “were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold…but with precious blood, as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

That is what we remember at communion “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

Source: SermonCentral Staff. Citation: “The Passion of the Christ,” Icon Productions, 2004. I Peter 1:18-19. John 1:29.