John 19:31-37
The most common cause of death for a victim of a Roman crucifixion was not the effusion of blood, but was a form of suffocation. Because of the way in which the arms of the victim were outstretched, fluid would begin to build up in his lungs.
After a while, then, in order to take a breath, he would have to push up with his legs, which caused excruciating pain due to the fact that nails had been driven through his feet or ankles. Then, when he dropped down after taking that breath, there would be excruciating pain in his wrists and hands, where, of course, nails had also been driven.
This extremely painful and exhausting process of pushing up and dropping down, each time a breath was to be taken, could go on for days. So, it would be a humane reprieve from this hopeless agony for the legs of a crucified man to be broken.
Then he could no longer push up to take a breath, and then he would quickly succumb to an internal suffocation, in his fluid-filled lungs.
That’s what the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to do for the three men who were being crucified on that first Good Friday, because they didn’t want these men to be up there – alive and in agony – during the Passover Sabbath. And so this is the way the two thieves who were executed with Jesus were dispatched.
St. John tells us, however, that Jesus had already died, so that his legs did not need to be broken. His death came sooner than expected, probably for a couple reasons.
First, he had been flogged to within an inch of his life already before his crucifixion. The blood loss and physical trauma of that beating certainly contributed toward his death.
And second, the very real mental and emotional stress of what was going on at a supernatural level in and with Jesus, would also have worn him out physically. He was bearing the weight of the sins of the world, and he knew it.
And according to his human nature, Jesus felt the horror of being forsaken by his Father, due to the fact that – in God’s eyes – he was smeared with all human sin and with all of the offensiveness of sin.
Jesus thereby experienced the equivalent of hell itself – for us – so that we need never know what hell is like, with the eternal separation from God that defines what damnation really is.
So, Jesus died. And we know that he had really died, and had not merely passed out or entered into a comatose state, because when the spear was thrust into his side, blood and water gushed out.
The most likely physiological explanation for this is that the spear released the water-like fluid that in death had pooled in his chest cavity; and that the spear then entered directly into his heart, where some residual blood remained in that now-stilled organ.
If by some remote chance Jesus was still barely alive before this was done, the spear being thrust in his side certainly would have killed him.
But even apart from the fact that water and blood flowing out from the spear wound testified incontrovertibly to Jesus’ death, that water and blood that did come out of the Lord’s body have always been understood by the Christian church to have saving significance for Christians.
The water at Calvary stands for the water of Baptism, which flows out from Jesus – the true baptizer – and which, through the power of his Word, delivers to Christians the forgiveness of sins that his death on the cross won for them.
And the blood that came out of the Lord’s side on the cross, is the same blood that is now distributed to communicants in the Lord’s Supper, according to Jesus’ Word and institution: again, for the forgiveness of sins.
There are many examples of Lutheran artwork from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that show water flowing out from the side of a portrayal of the crucified Christ onto a child being baptized. And there are even more historic Lutheran paintings and woodcuts that show a vivid image of the crucified Savior behind and above an altar, with blood coming out from his side directly into a chalice that rests on that altar, as the Lord’s Supper is being administered.
We believe that the sacraments instituted for us by Jesus are real, and that they really do connect us to Christ for grace and forgiveness, because the atoning sacrifice of Christ is real. And we believe that the atoning sacrifice of Christ is real, because of the reliable eyewitness testimony of John and the other apostles.
John, in his Gospel, emphasizes as strongly and clearly as he can, how certain his readers can be that what he is saying about Jesus’ suffering and death really happened; and especially that what he is saying about the flowing out of water and blood from Jesus’ side really happened. He writes:
“One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.”
It is, of course, the Holy Spirit who supernaturally creates faith in our hearts. Faith in Jesus Christ is not merely a rational human process, but is a divine work and a divine gift.
But the Holy Spirit uses means – namely the Word of God. And the Word of God, as God inspired the writing of his Word through prophets and apostles in Holy Scripture, is filled with real testimonies to real historical events that were accomplished for our deliverance from sin and death.
The crucifixion of God’s Son was such a real event. The flow of water and blood out of the side of his body was such a real event.
Human reason would probably be able and willing to accept that a man named Jesus got himself in trouble with the authorities in Jerusalem, around the year 33 A.D., and was killed. But human reason would have a very difficult time accepting that this man was also the eternal God in human flesh, or that his death was a propitiatory sacrifice that reconciled a holy God to a rebellious humanity.
And even when some, through the help of the Holy Spirit, are willing to believe this, their human reason resists believing that the blessings of this sacrifice are truly distributed through the concrete sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.
In regard to the sacraments, in their case, human reason believes only what it sees: Baptism is water, and the Lord’s Supper is bread and wine. These earthly elements may symbolize something more, but in themselves they are not something more.
But on this Good Friday, as we have heard St. John’s clear and adamant testimony, we do believe in more than what we can see. We believe in more than what our reason tells us is possible.
Jesus, sent into the world to be the one mediator between God and men, is indeed the mediator of a new covenant: a covenant where God, in Christ, gives forgiveness, life, and salvation; and where we, with a humble and penitent faith, receive what God gives.
Jesus, sent into the world to be the Lamb of God, takes away the sin of that world by his sacrificial death. And therefore he takes away our sin, and before God presents us as clean and righteous.
And Jesus is still sent, and still comes – invisibly – even now. He unites himself to us in his sacred sacraments.
On the day of your christening, when you received Holy Baptism, you received Christ, and he received you into his church. Last night, and on every other occasion when you received Holy Communion, you received Christ, and he renewed and strengthened your attachment to him and to your brothers and sisters in faith in the fellowship of his church.
The water and the blood really did flow from him as his body hung from the cross. The water and the blood really did flow down to you, to cleanse you, and nurture you, in the sacraments that have touched your life in body and soul.
As a matter of geography and history, the crucifixion of Jesus – in Jerusalem, 2,000 years ago – is very far away from you. But the water and the blood that came forth from his side, when he was crucified, are not very far away. They are very close.
And the now-living Christ – through this water and this blood, and in his gospel in all of its forms – is very, very close. He was there for you on the day you were baptized. He was there for you last night, when you communed. And he is here, for you, now.
“One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.” Amen.