Jesus, Thank You for the Blood

His blood still speaks.  “…and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel,” Hebrews 12:24.  

An angry mob has gathered at the foot of the iconic cross.  I see their faces everywhere.  Red, yellow, black and white… just like the song says.  No one is looking at the man.  No one is paying attention.  It lingers in our memories too often as merely an ancient symbol, however, the blood of Jesus speaks a word of justice that I wonder if I will ever fully understand.  It speaks the salvation of a race of individuals demanding a life for their life.  In a relatively short moment of history, God met His own demand, and ours. Our own life’s blood would have met the demand… .we were the guilty party both in relation to God and man, however, Divinity would give His Life’s blood for both causes and leave us completely liberated.  An unprecedented act of loving-kindness…

The Son of God offered to be the means of justice for the whole cosmos.   In a cosmic courtroom that transcends time and culture, we humans made our declaration concerning who should bare guilt for the atrocities done against humanity.  God should be blamed.  It did not take great predestination to accomplish Christ’s death on the cross.  No, God knew that if He showed up in person, our hearts were so ripe with anger that we would surely kill Him.  Our deceivable natures had easily facilitated the perspective of the Adversary bent on removing Creator God from human interaction.  And God let it be so.  He left His Beloved Son to our verdict; our death sentence.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46.  Jesus Christ risked His life to bring us face to face with our Heavenly Father…. .and He lost His earthly life.  “By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?” Isaiah 53:8.  It must have been a risk worth taking.  

Abel’s blood cries out to us from the ground.  In dust and ashes he reminds us of historical human injustice.  He tells us honestly that our lives are owed.  We are dead men walking.  But the blood of Christ speaks to us from elsewhere… .from a Heavenly Tabernacle, from before and unearthly Throne.  The Risk-Taker, the Earthly Forsaken One has once for all approached boldly with His own bodily, humanly red life source and announced, “It is finished.  It is done.  All are acquitted.  No one is guilty.  The debt is paid.”  Read the book of Hebrews.  You won’t be disappointed.

Jesus, Thank You for the blood…