By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

Jesus is dead.

Even amidst His final moments, prophecy after prophecy began to be fulfilled.

“After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), ‘I am thirsty’”(John 19:28)

“These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘None of his bones shall be broken.’ And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced’” (John 19:36-37).

But there is one thing that is particularly noticeable in Christ’s final moments.

“One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth)” (John 19:34-35).

When the soldiers pierced Christ’s side water and blood flowed from the wound. It’s such an unbelievable event that John has to assure us that someone saw it and is telling it just as it happened!

Blood and water.

“‘but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:14).

“So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;  for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them’” (John 6:53-56).

It is with Christ’s death that all these things have come to be.

As we read about the blood that flows from Jesus’s side, our minds are drawn to the Communion Supper in which we as a community of God partake. It’s in the Lord’s Supper that we remember this very event–Christ’s death–and it is the crucifixion and the eucharist that defines us as one Body, building unity and oneness.

And as we read about the water that spills from His wound we are reminded of our baptisms. A public symbol that represents the fact that we died with Christ in John 19, but it is not over, because we were raised with Him into new life.

Christ’s death is the end, but it fulfilled everything we believe and everything we stand on. While we read this passage with heavy hearts, we celebrate the fact that we found life in His death.