The Bride born from the Bridegroom's side

I had yet another "aha!" moment when thinking about the Bible recently, when reading a post at the Scriptorium blog.  The Bible's beautiful complexity, is a continuous source of delight and challenge.  We also see here not only the connectedness of the Bible, but the great overtones of Sacramental theology and of New Creation theology that permeate the whole.

So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.  And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman a brought her to the man.  Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken."  Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.  (Genesis 2:21-24, NRSV)

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.  Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.  (John 19:33-34, NRSV)

To follow the thought below, remember that St. Paul calls Christ the "New (or Last/Final) Adam" in numerous places (such as 1 Cor. 15) and this same theology is implied in other places (for example, in John's Gospel [20:15] Mary mistakes the Resurrected Jesus for "the Gardener," as Adam was in Paradise, etc.).

From St. John Chrysostom:

"There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolised baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water [representing the sacraments of Communion and Baptism] from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.