I Claim the Blood of the Lamb

After the first news of the San Bernadino massacre this past Thursday, I had a sudden fear that the day would come when I would feel nothing at the next report of gun homicide in this country. And the Dali Lama (the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism) has said, "Don't pray for Paris; do something." And the front page of the New York Daily News read: God Isn't Fixing This - the headline surrounded by the texts and tweets of presidential wannabes all sending their "Thoughts and prayers to the families" of those murdered. "Thoughts and prayers" - the new cliche.

Here, I want to do more than send soft prayers and good wishes, I want to do something powerful - I'm going to claim the Blood of the Lamb (Jesus Crucified) over all the earth where there is trouble or the potential for trouble. I don't tell God what to do, but I believe claiming the Blood of the Lamb matters. The angels in this painting seem to think so too. There's no politics in this claiming - just a sense of where things are or can go very wrong - dangerously wrong - murderously wrong - sinfully wrong. 

There are books that have prayers to pray before offering Mass. They tend to be full of obsolete language and without a real-life connect. So I'm putting this claiming-prayer out there as an alternative. Most of the people who read this blog go to Mass at least once a week. We might pray it before we receive the Body and Blood of Christ.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
all the presidents, prime ministers and premiers of the world,
all the congresses, parliaments and senates,
all the politicians of all the parties and for whatever office,
and for everyone who has a vote.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for 
the Vatican
and all the spiritual headquarters of
all the religions.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
the priests, ministers, rabbis and imams,
for left and right wing,
for the people who call themselves fundamentalists,
religious, consecrated,
or who think of themselves as the base.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
MSNBC, FOX News, Al Jazeera, CNBC,
RT, Free Speech TV, NPR, BBC, CBB 
CSPAN and CNN.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
prisoners,
bullies and the bullied,
secret meetings,
locked files and courtrooms.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
those who make, buy and sell weapons and ammunition,
those who own and use guns for anything,
whether it's law enforcement,
target practice,
hunting or attacking innocent people.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
those who hate - the seeds of which are fear,
defensiveness, pride, ignorance,
power-seeking and prejudice.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for 
the Catholics, the Jews, the Protestants,
the Muslims, the Christian East, the Buddhists,
and the folks who don't believe in God.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
the people who plan and fund great evil,
who make and plant bombs,
who open fire on crowds.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
the people who neglect children,
harm children,
exploit children,
terrorize children,
enslave children,
under value children.

I claim the Blood the Lamb for 
all the families of the world whatever their arrangement,
for the hospitals, 
the nursing homes, 
the hospices,
the rescuers and the healers.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
those who are hated or mocked because they are trying
to create peace,
to save the planet 
to initiate reconciliation.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
all those who are trapped in addictions:
alcohol, drugs, pornography, anger, shopping,
entertainment, power or the money-quest. 

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for 
the United States of America and
the seventy four nations where we are either
fighting a war or supplying and supporting
the wars of other nations. 

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for
every radicalized person,
every terrorist cell or army,
every flag waving hate group.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for 
myself, my family, my friends,
the people who cause me grief,
anxiety or sadness.

And I claim the Blood of the Lamb
as a blessing for every person
who does good,
who helps or
who makes security for me and my dear ones.

But That Thy Blood Was Shed For Me

Just as I am, without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidst me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, and waiting not
to rid my soul of one dark blot,
to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

These are the first two verses of the hymn, Just As I Am, Without One Plea. The great American Evangelist, Billy Graham, ends each  revival with this hymn as people stream down the aisles to the cross, giving their lives to Christ.

The verses sing about the Blood of Jesus which has the power to cleanse us of our sins. Not much is made of sin anymore. Many people are convinced that they don't do much of anything wrong. Pope Paul VI said, "The great sin of our time is our loss of the sense of sin." Many people are good at detecting what's wrong with others but they're blind to their own hatreds, racism, how they burden others - especially their spouses, dishonesty, pride, indifference, injustice. Most of us grew up with a child's Examination of Conscience and never graduated to an adult version. Perhaps the Church has failed people in this regard.

Saint Peter writes in his first letter:

"For you know that the price of our ransom from the futile way of life handed down from your ancestors was paid, not in anything perishable like silver or gold, but in the precious blood as of a blameless and spotless lamb, Christ." 

The J.B. Philips translation says it this way:

"For you must realize  that you have been ransomed from the futile way of living passed on to you by your traditions, but not by any money payment of this passing world. No the price was in fact the life-blood of Christ, the unblemished and unstained lamb of sacrifice."

Most translations speak of the precious blood of the lamb, while the Phillips translation uses life-blood of the lamb. This distinction is perhaps important. For sure, the Blood of Christ washes sin - mine, yours, family, that of this nation and all the nations, the sins of religion. But Saint Peter then goes on throughout his letter, at some length and in some detail, speaking about the new life of the Christian. Indeed the Christian might be so transformed, so much more awake now to the deepest things that are born of attentiveness, consciousness, awake-awareness that he/she might no longer be recognizable or useful to those who knew him previously.

"Indeed your former companions may think it very strange that you no longer join with them in the riotous excesses, and accordingly say all sorts of abusive things about you." (1 Peter 4:4)

So now the prayer of the previous post: I claim the Blood of the Lamb, can be a claim I make for myself as well.

Here's a picture from the Mel Gibson film, The Passion of the Christ, of the centurion ready to spear the side of Jesus as told in the gospels. Traditionally the blood and water that came out from Jesus' side are shown to be two distinct little flows, as if from scratches. But Mel Gibson, using film as his medium, shows the moment of Christ's side being pierced as the spray of a wide angled nozzle, or a woman's water breaking violently, or a geyser. And that flood almost knocks the soldier to his feet as it cascades down on him like a heavy rain. The blood-water mix floods his eyes and as he wipes his face, it is as if he has begun to see. He is stunned by the realization of what's happening. Claim the Blood of the Lamb with that in mind. Indeed, imagine taking the centurion's place as Christ's side and heart are opened. 

I claim the Blood of the Lamb over my home and family.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb over my senses, heart, mind, soul.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb over my relationships, especially where they are troubled.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb into the lives of loved-ones who are addicted.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where my laughter and smile are fake

I claim the Blood of the Lamb over the work I have to do.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb over my life where I am self-destructive or self-injurious.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb into my life where there is discouragement and confusion.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb into my life where there has been loss, abuse or failure.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb into my life where there is predicament or indecision.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb into my life of compulsions and projecting.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb into my life where I know I have not evolved or grown-up inwardly.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I feel burdened or distrusting of myself.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I am gripped in suspicion, fear or where hatred lurks.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I dwell in negativity or cynicism.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I don't admit the truth, even to myself.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I feed on scraps of recognition and power.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where injustice is excused or tolerated..
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where guns matter more than grace.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I buy the propaganda of media, politics, advertising.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I feel there are bombs and guns in my heart.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where my beliefs don't reflect the Christ-Way.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I hang on the words of  political pundits rather than on Christ's Word.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I remain punitive, though I think myself forgiving.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb where I lack courage, for Christ's sake.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb...

AMEN

I Claim The Blood Of The Lamb

YEARS AGO, WHEN I WAS A YOUNG PRIEST, a non-believing doctor I know took up a residency in a major Catholic hospital. He told me that after working late one night he went into the chapel and looked around, following the Stations of the Cross along the side walls. For whatever reason he felt bold enough to comment: "How ridiculous; a God who dies." 

But dies for love! That's not unheard of. A parent would die for the child. Soldiers in war offer their lives for others. Maximilian Kolbe let the Nazi's kill him so that a young family man would be spared. So why not God - loving us incomprehensibly - dying for love of us who were lost to God by our folly: our power-quest, our pride and vanity, our selfishness and violence. Maybe the doctor should have said, "How ridiculous that God would die for the likes of us." 

Maybe we have to see God bleed in order to even begin to get how much we matter to God. When I was a hospital chaplain I met a young dad, covered with severe burns who had rushed back into his flaming home repeatedly to save his two little children.  If that's instinct, it's an instinct that's profoundly interwoven with love. A God who dies - but who dies mysteriously for love of us! And again, the Christian sense of the word mystery is not that there's insufficient light to see, but too much light!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And it's still July: the Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus. It's an invitation to pay attention to this love that bleeds. A Jewish rabbi told me that the reason the Book of Leviticus goes into such detail describing how to make the priest-vestments, is that the temple in Jerusalem was a bloody slaughterhouse with animals being killed all the time, and the blood soaked vestments of the priests therefore needing to be replaced frequently. She also told me that there are groups of Jews in Israel that would like to rebuild the temple and get the whole system of animal sacrifice up and running again.

But Jesus ended all of that when he over-turned the tables of the money changers and those who were selling animals to offer as temple sacrifices. And the Prophet Isaiah, long before Jesus, made it very clear that God was pretty much done with the animal sacrifice system.

"What are your endless sacrifices to me?" says the Lord.

"I am sick of burnt offerings of rams

and the fat of calves.

I take no pleasure in the blood

of bulls and lambs and goats.

When you come and present yourselves before me,

who has asked you to trample through my courts?

Bring no more futile cereal offerings,

the smoke from them fills me with disgust."

Now Jesus is the Lamb. But does that mean God somehow needs blood - especially Jesus' Blood to be somehow satisfied? The Litany of the Precious Blood of Jesus says the Blood of Christ is the price of our salvation and without which there is no pardon. This is hard for us to understand.

But blood means life. When Jesus died on the cross and the soldier pushed the spear into his side, blood came out, and water. Does that tell us Jesus-God was totally emptied of his life for us? And that physiologically, when a man was hanging in crucifixion, a great bag of water developed around the heart, and so when the spear went into the side of Jesus, it was his heart that was speared open - that now in Jesus Crucified we have access to the open heart of God as never before?

I'm thinking of that remarkable and moving scene in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, when the soldier stabbed the spear into the side of Jesus, and such a voluminous spray of bloody water poured out and down onto his  face, that he was stunned and  un-steadied by it.

Maybe then, as we live in a world that disappoints and threatens, that's dangerous and wrong-headed, instead of being resentful about it all, we can invoke the life-giving Blood of Jesus over it: as if to cover the world in God's very life. That kind and compassionate prayer might well act as an antidote, a medicine, a salve, a healing balm for the world's festering and fetid wounds.

This can be our prayer. Look at the picture of our little planet floating in space - so alive in its blue, green and white. But we know that as we come in for a landing, we discover the living sphere to be a place of smoke and flame, horror, tears, death, terror, contradiction, destruction and extinction. Claim the Blood of Jesus the Lamb over all of this, and what else and who else you know. Wherever the planet needs healing.


I claim the Blood of the Lamb for profiteers who destroy the land, the water, the animals and plants.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for religious people with hardened hearts.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for people in authority who protect locked and secret files.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for people who capture children for the sex trade.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for parents who fail their children.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for those who champion  the rights of all except the rights of the preborn child.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for those who plan terror and destruction.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for the haters and resenters.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for the countries of greed and waste.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for Christians who disavow justice.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for Americans who curse the poor.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for those who choose ignorance.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for religious anti-Semites.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for powerful people who tell lies.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for those who protect self-interests while others die.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for politicians who care for some and not for all.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for those who snare young people with drugs.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for those who make a living by death.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for war planners and producers.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for those who disregard children.

I claim the Blood of the Lamb for capitalists who are only self-referred.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for people who are sick with violence and cruelty.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for news-entertainers.
I claim the Blood of the Lamb for those who say, "Well, that's the way it is."