The Blood That Cries Mercy
August 27, 2025
Fr. John Riccardo
Brothers and sisters: you have not approached that which could be touched and a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm and a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words such that those who heard begged that no message be further addressed to them. No, you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God, the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel (Hebrews 12:18-29,22-24).
“My sin is always before me,” David sang in Psalm 51, a Psalm the Church prays every Friday throughout the year.
Is there anybody who cannot relate? Is not one of the devil’s primary strategies against us to continually hold before us our sin, not our mistakes, but those rebellious moments when we knowingly chose our own path and shut God out of our thoughts? The devil, someone once said, knows our names, but he calls us by our sins. How true. And so we cry out for mercy. Earlier in the same Psalm David cries, “Have mercy on me God, in Your kindness. In Your compassion blot out my offense!” There are few things we desire in life as much as a chance to start over, to begin again.
This all comes to mind as we pray with this passage from Hebrews this week. What does it mean to say that we have approached “the blood that speaks more eloquently [literally “better”] than that of Abel?” Abel, we remember, was the victim of the world’s first murder, at the hands of his own brother, Cain. After it was spilled, from the ground Abel’s blood cried out for vengeance, for justice, for retribution.
Jesus’ blood, on the other hand, cries out for…. mercy. This should take our breath away. The most unjust, horrific, hideous act in human history took place on Calvary some two thousand years ago now. There, on that hill, the God who is Love, gave Himself into the hands of the creature He had fashioned out of love for friendship, and was torn to shreds, quite literally. Why? So that we might be rescued from the clutches of the powers of Sin and Death, into whose grip we had fallen as a result of fateful decisions just before Abel’s murder.
From that cross, naked and utterly exposed, pinned up like an insect, Jesus, the God-man, the One through whom and for whom all things were made, cried out not for vengeance like Abel but for mercy: “Father, forgive them.”
But He did more than that. He went so far as to make excuses for those who were executing Him in the most shameful and humiliating way. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they’re doing.” These startling words from Jesus weren’t just directed to the Father on behalf of the Roman soldiers who had just scourged Him nearly to death and were now nailing His hands and feet into a cross. Nor were they uttered on behalf of the chief priests and other religious leaders who handed Jesus over to the Romans, saying, “We have no king but Caesar.”
Jesus cried out to the Father for me. For you. For all of the sins He was making atonement for that had already happened and for all the sins that were still to come. My sins. Your sins. Not the little white lies, but the ones that cause us to recoil in horror and shame.
I keep coming back to the same question over and over again in prayer: What kind of God is this? Who are You, Lord?
We can’t stop here. If most of us are honest, we must admit that though we desire mercy for ourselves, we so often protest when others get a chance for the same mercy, or doubt the sincerity of their repentance. Perhaps, then, a most appropriate response to the Scriptures this week is to approach the Blood that cries out more eloquently than that of Abel in the Eucharist and to ask Him to change our hearts so that they more resemble His. The Eucharist is something akin to a blood transfusion. He gives His mercy-crying blood to us. And commands us to do for others what He has done for us.
Image: The Passion of the Christ
ACTS XXIX Prayer Intentions
AUGUST 2025
For Pope Leo XIV and all his intentions.
For all our efforts with Lorraine Cross Media, that all God is inviting us to create and offer will bear great fruit as we seek to bring hope and encouragement to the world and the Church hungry for such things.
For wisdom, courage and protection upon Fr. John Riccardo and the ACTS XXIX missionaries, as we lean into an exciting fall with many opportunities to pour into clergy and lay leaders.
For our Board of Directors, our Episcopal Advisory Council, and our faithful partners, that God would continue to reveal Himself ever more deeply to them as they seek to build for His Kingdom in their lives and vocations.