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A reason sometimes given for not accepting the Gospel is rejection of—indeed, revulsion at—the idea that Jesus had to shed his blood on the cross in order to save humanity from sin. Many modern people find the thought of Christ’s suffering and death so repulsive and icky barbaric that they refuse to believe it. And let’s not get into the biblical imagery of the Last Supper: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
It’s a good thing those people didn’t live in medieval Europe. According to a new book on an aspect of medieval spirituality, Christ’s blood is not emphasised nearly as much today as it was in the Middle Ages.
Caroline Walker Bynum’s Wonderful Blood . . . makes us see Christ’s blood, and see it everywhere in late-medieval Christianity: it streams from his wound on the Cross; it gushes into the waiting mouth of believers meditating on the Eucharist; it cakes on his forehead in the Passion; it soaks the earth of Golgotha; it miraculously appears when Eucharistic hosts are stolen or abused; it imprints the heart of devoted Christians; it saves, washes and nourishes all; in short, it emerges as the central object of Northern European spirituality in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Theological controversies about our Lord’s blood were also important and widespread. Did the blood decompose after he died? What happened to it during his three days in the grave?
[T]hese were important issues for theologians as well as for laypeople, who venerated Christ’s blood in the Passion, in relics and in the Eucharist, because they encapsulated their hopes for eternal life and access to the supernatural realm.
For medieval Christians, Christ’s blood ensured life beyond death. Devotional practices and emphases have changed, but Christians today affirm the same.
A Malaysian Muslim singer has been arrested and