The Sara Groves’ song Awakening has a line “His blood is real, not just a symbol of…”
Those words bring up lots of images. There is the scene from Mel Gibsons movie where Mary and Mary Magdalene use towels to wipe up the blood from the scourging from the stones of the courtyard. If ever a physical place were anointed, that would be such a place.
There is also the scene in Ben Hur, when the storm hits the hill of the crucifixion, the rain carries the blood of Jesus down the wood of the cross, onto the ground, and from there throughout the city of Jerusalem, running in little streams and rivulets until it reaches Juda Ben Hur’s mother and sister and washes their leprosy clean.
I like the Ben Hur scene since it reminds me of the passage in Revelations 7:14, where the great multitude has been washed white in the blood of the Lamb.
In Genesis 9:4:-5, God says the life is in the blood. So, in Christ and his crucifixion that truth finds its ascendancy. But God also says we are not allowed to eat the blood, or the life of the animal. This is very interesting, because it is in the Eucharist we find the first time in all of human history that God sanctions consuming any blood, albeit the blood of Christ represented by the Communion wine, but think on this, any blood. Jesus himself says that unless we consume his blood, which he calls food indeed, we have no life in us (John 6:53).
So, it is only the blood of Christ that we are allowed to access to. It is with it we are washed, are required to consume, and represents to us the life God Himself given to those who accept His Son as Lord and Savior. It would appear that thinking on the blood as real, and not just a symbol, takes us into interesting and unique places.
With this in mind, as you finish your day, spend a few moments contemplating the real blood of Christ and see where the Spirit takes you and in what things He instructs you and may God bless your efforts with a renewed sense of His life within you. Amen.
This is interesting. It makes me wonder about those humans who do drink blood…they do so for a reason, right? And many of those reasons, for some, might correspond with what the Blood of Jesus actually CAN and DOES provide – healing, strength (God’s, to be sure)…very interesting, Bill.
That scene from Ben-Hur has been with me since I was a very, very small child. It still makes me weep, with both fear and joy. It helps to remember that His very blood covers and protects and heals me; that scene is a comfort.
It wasn’t until I was writing this post that I realized the prohibition on consuming all blood except the blood of Christ. That revelation has begun to work its work on my thinking and I am interested where it will take me.