Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, July 23, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Water and blood. Not just water, a sign of God’s presence, holiness, baptism, spirit, but also blood, a sign of embodiedness, creaturely-ness. The Holy Spirit, which is God, proclaims the truth of Jesus’ divinity and humanity, that which makes him the “Son of God,” our faith in whom “conquers the world” (see yesterday).
Frankly this text is a little mystifying, but that’s what comes up for me when I try to wrestle some sense out of it for the purposes of living into it today (and thank goodness that theology is never static, so that what it brings up for us in the moment is more than sufficient to God’s purposes!) It’s a beautiful reminder that as Jesus is both divine and human, so we house God’s divinity in us along with our embodiedness. And we get to see Jesus in one another and in all of creation and be called into mutually sacrificial love and service for one another. (I am not claiming that each of us is God, as Jesus is God, but that God in Christ is in each of us fully and works through us as we encounter each other and the world.) As God’s children, we are born of water and blood and Spirit, and that’s way cool.
What does it mean to me to “come by” (be born of) water and blood?
