How can blood cleanse us, when it is something that is considered a stain and can never be washed away? Even after cleaning, and being invisible to the naked eye, traces of it can still be found years after.
This was the question posed to us by the priest at mass yesterday. It was certainly thought-provoking. He continued on with a poignant story.
Sheep herders count on their flock for food and clothing and practically everything else. When sheep give birth unsuccessfully, it is devastating. The ewes whose mother dies during labor would not nurse from any other sheep and thus do not survive. The mother sheep who lose their young eventually die, supposedly of heartbreak.
So the sheep herders found a solution. They sprinkled the dead lamb's blood on the surviving lambs and the mother sheep, smelling their own lamb's blood, would adopt those surviving lambs as her own.
Pretty much that is how Christ's blood on the cross allowed us to be adopted into sons and daughters of God. This allows us to be grafted into His family, His church.
I am amazed at how much God has given us of Himself. His sacrificial love on the cross shows us that He gave His whole self. He didn't love us with what was leftover, or with what was convenient.
After He lived, died and rose again, He left us His Holy Spirit. But even then, He allowed us to have His true presence in the Eucharist. What great love!
Like the blood of the sheep that brought back life to the flock and the shepherds, Christ's love transforms us and gives us life! Not just life for the here and now, but life to the full. Not just life to the full, but eternal life!
"If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin."
1 John 1:7
