The Prophecy of Spilt Blood
The week after George Floyd’s murder, I visited the intersection of 38th & Chicago in Minneapolis where he was killed. It has become a site of both protest and memorial. People from all over have been coming to lay flowers, artwork, and protest signs. One of the more prominent signs has Genesis 4:10 written on it, “Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”
I’ve been thinking about the prophecy of spilt blood.
It is interesting, and maybe important, that Abel is considered the earliest prophet in the Bible. He never speaks a word. We do not hear him say anything. We simply see him killed by his brother Cain.
What we are told repeatedly in the Bible is that Abel’s blood speaks. God tells Cain, “Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me…” Jesus calls Abel the earliest prophet in Luke 11. And Hebrews 11:4 says, “…by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.” In his murder, Abel becomes the “patron saint” of those whose voices have been violently silenced and suppressed.
I consider the prophecy of Abel’s blood often these days. We know George Floyd’s name. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. (And this, only to name a few.) We’ve seen how their deaths cry out for justice, amplified through the demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. But in the stories of injustice and displacement that we have lived or that our forcibly-displaced brothers and sisters have lived - whether in North America or on the other side of the globe, there are a lot of voices that have not been heard, lost lives that may never be named here on earth.
It’s important for me in understanding God’s justice to know that their blood speaks out. Even murder cannot succeed in robbing them of their agency. What was perpetrated against them does not go unseen or unheard.
I’ve been thinking about how enacting violence is its own exile.
Cain kills his brother Abel. When he tries to pretend nothing has happened, three different actors testify against him: God, his brother’s blood, and the land. In Genesis 4:15, God tells him, “When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on earth.”
For those of us with refugee friends or lived refugee experience, we’re used to violence being the cause of exile and displacement. And in North America right now we are clearly reckoning with our historical to present-day legacy of the genocide and displacement of Native/First Nations peoples, forcibly displacing and enslaving Black people, and keeping immigrants and people of color imprisoned or disenfranchised while profiting from their labor.
But I think it is really key to how we receive and live out the Gospel in these days to realize that to enact violence is an exile, too. You can’t live in peace in a land that testifies against you.
I’ve been reminded of the better word of Jesus’ shed blood.
An asylum-seeking brother and I spoke recently about George Floyd and the protests that have followed. He shared that he saw God working good out of the evil of Floyd’s murder to bring about new things: progress and change around the world. He said, “It’s like in the Bible. Jesus had to die, but through that there was a good change: we were saved.”
It’s challenging for me to know how to speak this Gospel word of new things right now. I don’t want to imply somehow that we skip over the need for true lament, repentance, and justice. I know that Jesus isn’t skipping over the need for justice either, though; he is meeting it in himself.
Hebrews tells us that Abel’s voice still speaks, and that Jesus’ blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. We absolutely need that better word: the Word that animates and answers the blood crying out from the ground. The Word that calls those exiled in their own violence back home. The Word that dismantles oppressive empires by proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.
So I want to end with Hebrews 12:22-29. As we stand with marginalized communities, address systemic racism in our hearts, churches, and countries, and pray for a peace founded on justice in our lands, may the better word of Jesus speak its judgment and salvation:
But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”
SJ serves as the Minneapolis-St. Paul Ministry Leader with International Association for Refugees (IAFR). She currently lives in community with asylum-seeking women and children at IAFR Jonathan House, which provides safe, stable shelter and supportive community to asylum seekers in St. Paul, MN.
SJ holds a BA in Spanish from Wheaton College and an MFA in creative nonfiction from University of Alaska - Fairbanks. She believes that shared stories form a foundation for healing and belonging, and she enjoys inviting reflection on where we see God in our stories, as well as where He might be calling us deeper into His.
In her free time, SJ finds joy and restoration through spending time with good art or hiking in the woods. She has served on the RHPNA Leadership Team since January 2019.