Moment of Meditation: Bloody Field (Matthew 27:7-8)

''So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. (Matthew 27:7-8)''

When we think of bloody fields, we think of places like Gettysburg, Antietam or the shores of Normandy. But outside Jerusalem is probably one of the most underrated bloody fields in history. The chief priests couldn't put the thirty silver pieces back in the temple's treasury. That wouldn't be kosher. But it would be kosher for them to use the blood money to buy a field to bury strangers.

One Church tradition says that this potter's field was the same place where Judas hanged himself. But Judas' blood money paid for the field. It was paid for with the price of blood.

Your heart is a bloody field. Not only the blood that flows through your body. The blood that was poured upon you in your Baptism. The blood that clothes you with perfect righteousness.

Through Christ's blood, your heart has been purified. A burial place for the stranger to God that is your sinful nature. The resurrection place of the Christian inside you. The place where faith resides and hope belongs. Amen.