Strange Blood

    I was invited to take communion out to a Bible study class at the Woodward Academy. The Woodward Academy is a boot-camp program for male youth offenders. As a set up for explaining communion I told them a story from being in seminary.

    I had gone to chapel one noon when communion was being served. Due to where I was sitting I was one of the first to come forward.  I took my bread, dipped in the cup. As I brought the combination to my mouth, I held my other hand under it to catch any drips. As it happened that day I dripped A LOT. As I returned to my seat I thought about this pool of juice in my hand. As I saw it at the time I had few choices, about what I could do. I could not get up and go to the bathroom and wash; that would disturb the people that were still in line as I cut through it. I couldn’t slurp it from my hand; that would disturb the people around me, and would just be rude. I couldn’t wipe it on my pants or shirt; my pants were khaki, my shirt was white, and I did not want to stain either of them. I could not wait too long to decide; the gospel choir was going to sing the closing hymn and I knew that I would accidentally clap along, thus getting the grape juice all over me. WHAT TO DO?

    I wound up deciding to visit the bathroom after worship and treat the juice much as you would hand lotion rubbing it all over my hands. So with a thin layer of grape juice on my hands and the juice no longer a threat to my clothing or a potential disturbance to my neighbors I could wait.

    Then a small part of my brain that makes connections out of seemingly unrelated things spoke. “You do realize that you now have the blood of Christ on your hands.”

    I asked this group of young offenders if they had ever had blood on their hands or if someone close to them ever had. I then told them that the blood of Christ is strange blood. All other blood is sticky and makes us feel dirty, it gets into our clothes and creates stains that don’t come out. Jesus blood, when it gets on us and in us, does the exact opposite.

Jesus blood stains us clean.

    I also told them the story that when Pilate declared that He was not going to be responsible for Jesus death, the crowd took the responsibility on themselves. They did so with the declaration, “His blood be on us and on our children.” This phrase should have brought a curse on them for condemning an innocent man. But like I said, Jesus blood is strange blood.

Jesus blood can take a curse and turn it into a blessing.

    After that story and explanation I went through a short “Great Thanksgiving” then served communion to them. I watched as many deliberately took too much juice in their bread, just to have it on their hands, and watch other dip a finger in the juice and mark themselves on their foreheads much like we would with ashes on Ash Wednesday. I was also struck with the thought that these young men were probably closer to those that Jesus spoke to than many that I saw weekly in worship.