We are all sinners living in a sinful world. Anyone who would assert otherwise has not worked with blood or is terribly self-deceived.
Partied too hard last weekend? It's in the blood.
Been sleeping around? It's in the blood.
Overindulging in food? It's in the blood.
Not eating enough? It's in the blood.
Harboring bitterness? It's in the blood.
Chronically fearful and anxious? It's in the blood.
Sometimes, the brokenness of our parents and grandparents even shows up in our blood, passed down like a family heirloom. How it grieves me to realize that my own brokenness has most likely been passed on to the people I love most!
Our blood is with us our whole lives -from before we are born until we die - testifying against us, even as it sustains life. Even if our lives look pretty and like we have everything together, even if we look morally and socially competent, even if we truly believe we are "enough" - our blood screams that we are fallen, guilty, broken, lacking.
Our blood, so essential and so dear to us, testifies against us. Like Lady Macbeth, wringing our hands, we cry: "Out, damn'd spot!" But to no avail.
* * *
All those bloody passages in the Old Testament...the human carnage, the animal sacrifices, the sprinkling and pouring of blood ALL OVER EVERYTHING...these passages have long been difficult for me.
And the cross...SO MUCH BLOOD.
Grieved by the bloodshed, I have wondered, "Why, God? Why so much blood?! Couldn't there have been a less traumatic way to save your people?"
But since I began working in the lab, I see blood - and all the bloody Scripture - in a completely different light.
Since the Fall, the blood of every single person has testified: Guilty!
Every single person but one.
One man lived and walked on this earth with perfectly clean, healthy, righteous, holy blood. ONE man.
That one man, knowing that one day I would stand before a holy, righteous, perfect God, to whom I must give an account...that one man understood that no matter how good I looked on the outside, no matter how good I talked game, no matter what glowing testimony others gave in my defense, my blood would give irrefutable evidence of my unholiness, and I would be condemned.
That one man poured out his perfect blood, opened his veins and said to me, "I will take your blood. Here, you take mine."
And that blood - his blood - testifies on my behalf, now and forever:
Redeemed. Righteous. Beloved.
Why so much blood? Because sin is in our blood, and only sinless blood can save us.
I get that now, with every needle stick and every tube I draw. I get that now in a way I never did before.
* * *
"...you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ..." 1 Peter 1:18-19
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