Ponder His Passion: Freedom In His Blood

Fifth Friday of Lent: SET FREE BY CHRIST’S PASSION

St. Augustine is famous for saying, among other things, that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and the Old revealed in the New. For the Christian who reads the Old Testament with an attentive heart, seeking out the prefigurements of Christ laced all throughout salvation history from the very beginning until the moment when the Word became Flesh and entered our world “as a man among men” (Responsory for Midmorning Prayer on Epiphany), it is especially moving to catch glimpses foreshadowing Christ’s Passion. Indeed, all the Old Testament sacrifices point forward to Christ’s supreme sacrifice on the Cross, and His sacrifice is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament sacrifices.

Several years ago, I first came upon what was for me a particularly poignant foreshadowing of Christ’s Passion, hidden within the depths of the Book of Leviticus. These verses describe a bird rite that the priest would perform for the purification for someone who has had a “scaly infection”:

“[The priest] shall order that two live, clean birds, as well as some cedar wood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop be obtained for the one who is to be purified. The priest shall then order that one of the birds be slaughtered over an earthen vessel with fresh water in it. Taking the living bird with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, the priest shall dip them, including the living bird, in the blood of the bird that was slaughtered over the fresh water, and then sprinkle seven times on the person to be purified from the scaly infection. When he has thus purified that person, he shall let the living bird fly away over the countryside” (Leviticus 14:4-7).

The cedar wood brings to mind the sweet wood of the Cross which Jesus would carry up Calvary and to which He would be nailed; the scarlet yarn brings to mind the color of His Precious Blood flowing down in rivulets upon His Body, down the wood of the Cross (and it is interesting to note that several other Old Testament sacrifices called for scarlet yarn); and the hyssop brings to mind John 19:29 which speaks of how the soldiers put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it to Jesus’ mouth in response to His plea – “I thirst” – from the Cross.

The bird that was to be sacrificed had to be sacrificed over an earthen vessel filled with fresh water – literally “living water” in the original Hebrew. In John 7:37-38 we read that “Jesus stood up and exclaimed ‘Let anyone who thirsts come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’” The blood from the bird sacrificed over the vessel of living water would have mingled with the water below it, and so the vessel would have been filled with both blood and water. Of Jesus death on the Cross, St. John records: “But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs, but one of the soldiers thrust his lance into His side and, immediately Blood and water flowed out” (John 19:33-35).

Once this innocent little bird was sacrificed, its blood mingled with the living water, the living bird was dipped into the mixture of blood and water, together with the cedar wood and the scarlet yarn. Then the living bird was to fly away free. Here we see two birds: one sacrificed and one set free. So Christ became one of us and offered His life in sacrifice so that we could be set free, but in a far greater mystery whose depths eternity will not be enough to sound. Christ, the eternal Son of God, offered Himself to set us free from sin, Satan, and death - free to fly to Heaven, into the very depths of the Trinity. As the Easter Exsultet sings to the Eternal Father, “O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave You gave away Your Son!”

We who are Christians have received this great gift of the Blood and water – representing the Sacraments of the Church (especially Baptism and the Eucharist) and grace and mercy – flowing from Christ’s side and applied to our very souls. We must guard this gift, for as St. Paul says: we “hold this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:3).

What of the “scaly infection” which was the context for this entire Old Testament ritual? It is interesting to note that when St. Paul the Apostle had his conversion, “things like scales fell from his eyes” (Acts 9:18). His encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ on the road to Damascus purified him of the spiritual blindness by which he had been bound up to that point, and he was set free to live wholeheartedly for Christ, being baptized and becoming the greatest missionary the Church has ever known.

So ultimately is our freedom given to us, that we may choose to live wholeheartedly for God within the context of our own vocations and daily lives, taking Christ’s sweet yoke upon ourselves (cf. Matt. 11:28-30), and serving our neighbor out of love (cf. Gal. 5:13). To give the great Apostle the last word: “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).