The night of Jesus’ arrest on the Mount of Olives, blood was shed twice. Jesus sweated drops of blood, and the servant of the high priest’s blood was shed when Peter took his sword and cut off the man’s ear. Peter was part of a group of Jesus’ followers who had shown up with their swords. They had come to the garden in warrior mode, which is the default mindset that we enter when we are just ‘doing our duty’. A warrior culture organizes itself around the principle of the blood brotherhood, where each member is willing to spill blood in the pursuit of their common goal, and they are captivated by the righteousness of their cause.

Jesus chastises Peter for his choice of problem-solving techniques, and he heals the man’s ear. In his contrition Peter says, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death,” (Luke 22:33), but throughout that night Satan sifts Peter like wheat and he ends up denying Jesus three times. As day breaks, and just as Peter’s third denial takes place as Jesus predicted, the cock crows and Peteris devastated. Something dawned on Peter that morning; perhaps it was the revelation that he always thought that he could check out of his default mindset any time he liked, but finally saw that, by his own strength, he can never leave it.
Or in more biblical language, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," (Matthew 26:41). Little does Peter know that by sundown that day, Jesus would provide the passageway for Peter to escape from his captivity to the ways of the world.

In our modern culture, there is no lack of social reformers who are willing to spill the blood, metaphorically and literally, of whomever is labelled as the enemy and, as 21st century Christians, we can find ourselves caught in the crosshairs of those who believe that they are just doing their duty for a better world. These brotherhoods and sisterhoods can be lethal.

After the resurrection, Jesus’ followers were redeemed from having to use violence as their default problem-solving technique and were given the power to become his disciples, a group of blood brothers and sisters, organized not around the blood of vengeance, but ordered around the sacramental blood of the Eucharist.