Beautiful the Blood

Posted by janecaniff on Dec 10, 2008 in Daily Bread | 1 comment

Therefore.  Whenever I see that word, I automatically read the passage that comes ‘before’.  In this case, the writer of Hebrews has emphasized that blood sacrifices were a ‘reminder’ of our sin, since it would be impossible to sacrifice enough animals to completely assuage our sin.

For a long time, it made me uncomfortable to hear messages preached on blood.  It wasn’t that I was scared or afraid of blood – quite the opposite; I would donate blood every chance I had, and wounds did not gross me out.  But do we have to talk about it in church?  I understood Christ’s death on the cross, and that his body had to be a sacrifice for our sin, but I did not fully grasp the depth and breadth of blood sacrifice required for the atonement of sin.

In 2003, I traveled to Israel.  Knowing how He had wired me up, God used this to plant a very real and permanent picture of His Word in my brain.  I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of what old Jerusalem would have been like – the smell of animals, fresh and not so freshly slaughtered, of smoke, burnt animals, wood, dirt and dust, and of course, the body odor of people who had traveled from miles around on foot or by animal.  What about the sounds?  Surely there were a few children (and adults) a bit uncomfortable with what was going on – shrieks of humans and animals, the noise of the throng, and sounds typical of any bustling city.  Then the practical side of me jumps in – there were no hoses to clean down the altar, no Tilex to make it sanitary, no road kill crews to carry off any leftovers – just fire.

And then reality set in – calculating the number of animals I would have had to slaughter for my own sin.  And still…it would not have been enough.  And still, the guilt would remain, and the stain.

And still.  Christ was obedient.  What I could not possibly do for myself, He did for me – willingly.  Am I so quick to say ‘Here I am!’?