Day 2, Mexíca: Sol y vida

As she walked she felt the cool grass beneath her feet. In her heart, she was thankful Tlaloc sent rain so their maize would grow. But she also was worried. The cycle was almost over. What good is Tlaloc's water without the sun allowing the Earth to grow? What if this time, the sun stopped shining? What if she wasn't enough?

To the Mexíca, the Aztecs, the sun was held in high religious regard as it helped to create and sustain plants, animals, and people. The esteem placed upon the sun is evident in rituals and religous history. According to Aztec legend, there were 5 suns in the creation of the world and humankind - under each of the first four suns, humans were destroyed. Under the 5th sun, charged by Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, humankind was recreated once again, but not destroyed.

She felt the blood pumping through her veins as she awaited her fate at the altar. Would her blood, her life source, keep the gods pleased? Would her blood be enough to keep the sun in the sky?

Once misidentfied as the Aztec calendar, the Stone of the Sun (pictured here), was a sacrificial altar on which human sacrifice took place. Human sacrifice was common in Aztec and other indigenous societies in pre-hispanic America for religious rituals. Blood was a symbol of life and human sacrifice was a way to keep the sun, the source of life, alive.

******

Just as blood was a symbol of life for Aztec society, the blood of Jesus Christ is the life source of the world: He, as the ultimate sacrifice, has erased the fear of the sun dying as there is eternal life through Him.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." - John 3:16-17, NIV