Please read this passage before reading this homily.
Jesus slept on the cross. He was already dead when the soldier came to break his leg and so hasten his death. The soldiers then thrust a spear into Jesus’ side and immediately flowed out blood and water.
Jesus slept on the cross in the garden of Golgotha; Adam had slept in the garden of Eden. From the sleeping side of Adam, God formed woman, the one who would be the mother of the living. From the sleeping side of Jesus, opened by that spear, God formed the Church, the bride of Christ. Many Christians see in this the birth of the Church just as in Adam we had the birth of woman.
Adam woke from sleep and called the woman “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”; Christ woke from his sleep and exclaimed of the Church, “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”.
There is more. When the soldiers pierced the side of Jesus, blood and water flowed out. Many Christians see in the water and blood the sacraments of baptism and eucharist.
While we were thinking of death, God had in mind life, a new life from a new creation. Water and blood, baptism into Christ, nourished by Christ’s blood. While death slept, new life leapt from the sleeping side of Christ.
Scripture says that God provides for his beloved as they sleep (Psalm 127 [126] ,2). As Jesus slept, God gave us the good things of Christ’s life. Through the sleep of Jesus on the cross, we have found salvation, the forgiveness of sin, and life everlasting. The life we have in Christ comes from his sleep; we can never earn it, merit it, or deserve it. Our life comes from the sleeping Christ. Our life came to us before we had life. A sleeping Christ in a way called us into life. Baptismal water, coming from the sleeping Christ, called us into Christ’s life. Eucharistic wine, flowing from the sleeping Christ, has rid us of the bad bacteria in our lives.
Jesus slept on the cross and calls us out of death’s darkness into the wonderful light of God’s life. Out of Christ’s sleeping on the Cross, we are born into Christ’s self.