Genesis 9:1-13 / Mark 8:27-33
The Church has issued several documents to emphasize its teaching on human life.
Documents like Humane Vitae and Evangelium Vitae talk about the dignity and sacredness of human life.
As a matter of fact, these teachings flow from the Scriptures.
In the 1st reading from Genesis, we hear this dignity and sacredness of human life emphasized once again.
God will demand an account of every man's life from his fellow-man.
And he who shed man's blood, shall have his blood shed by man, for in the image of God, man was made.
Those are powerful and authoritative words which do not need further elaboration.
But on the other hand, what happens when man sheds God's blood?
What happens when man puts God to death?
Jesus prophesied that He will be put to death by man.
If God used the same command that He gave to man, then we will be doomed to the deepest and darkest depths.
Because by our sins, we shed God's blood and we put Him to death.
Yet strangely enough, it was by the shedding of the blood of Jesus that we are saved.
Indeed, how strange God's love is for man.
The gospel of the dignity of life and the sacredness of life are one and the same gospel.
Yet the gospel of God's unconditional and sacrificial love for man, even to the point of shedding His blood and dying for man, is the good news of our salvation.