The Precious Blood of Jesus

Homily for Wednesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

I chose to celebrate the Votive Mass in Honor of the Precious Blood of Jesus for a very obvious reason this morning. St. Peter’s use of the word “precious” in his First Letter from which we read this morning was the first occasion when this adjective was used to describe the blood of Jesus. Ever since that use, it has become the usual way for us to refer to this element of the passion of Jesus.

The blood of Christ becomes a very important theme in the New Testament. The blood of Christ, as a term or a phrase, is mentioned at least 30 times in the New Testament. It is mentioned nearly three times as often as the cross of Christ is mentioned and five times as often as the death of Christ is mentioned. The blood of Christ has become the most common term to describe His sacrificial atoning death.

The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews builds the bridge from the Old Testament sacrificial system (and its blood) to the new covenant and Jesus’s once-for-all sacrifice. Throughout the Bible, blood represents life, and the spilling or shedding of blood, in turn, depicts death. Because the just penalty of human sin against God is death, the death of sanctioned animal sacrifices, through the presentation of their blood, stood in temporarily for the requirement of death for sinners. Yet the high priest had to return year after year “repeatedly”; “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” once and for all. The repeated animal sacrifices were delaying the inevitable, waiting on God’s fullness of time. One day a final reckoning for sin must come.

For Christians that final reckoning for sin has come in the person and the willingness to die displayed by our Lord Jesus Christ. The temporary covenant which was sealed in the blood of bulls has been replaced by a permanent covenant sealed in the blood that Jesus shed on the cross. In the writings of St. Paul, we are introduced to the gifts that we have all acquired through the shedding of blood on the cross; namely, propitiation to remove the wrath of God, justification to extend God’s acceptance to fullness, redemption by which Jesus purchased our salvation, forgiveness by which we are able to reestablish our relationship to God, and pacification through which we are able to reestablish peace in that relationship.

Taking his cue from his fellow apostles, St. Peter introduces the word to compare this gift with the perishable gifts that God showers upon us. This is not to say that there is something bad about those perishable gifts. However, unless we realize that these perishable things bring us only comfort in this world while the precious blood of Jesus brings us comfort in the next, we miss the importance of Jesus’ sacrifice once for all. The Gospel text which we read today shows us that it was only after the death of Jesus that the apostles came to recognize this fact as they continue to argue about perishable gifts as they walk to Jerusalem.