I’m not required to give gallons of blood so that others may live. That responsibility fell to one individual.
Signs encourage donors to give. The Red Cross gathers life-giving blood from volunteers across the nation and around the world and boasts of the effort. This blood bursts onto the scenes of hospitals everywhere to replenish blood loss due to trauma and surgery.
Some give gallons of blood annually. They don’t start out doing so but over the years build up a mechanism to replenish the quantity they give. Some give only once. Some can’t give because of disease or other health reasons. For me, it was the lack of veins big enough to handle the size of the needle used to harvest. I was told, “Come back when your veins grow up.” I haven’t been back because even the phlebotomist at the hospital uses a child-sized butterfly when drawing my blood.
Matthew records the words of Jesus who explains the Old Testament ritual of sacrificing animal blood. Depending upon the severity of the sin, the law determined how large the sacrificed animal had to be. It dealt with the transgression with an appropriate quantity of blood. Commit a big sin and sacrifice a big animal. Jesus, however, took the sin of the world through His sacrifice. His blood ran so all might be saved from separation from God (death).
Unlike a world collecting blood to save lives in a dire emergency, Christ gave His blood to save everyone from the daily onslaught of common life. And that’s the rub. We tend to overlook the little things for so long that we don’t realize how big they’ve grown. Still, Jesus takes on the remission. We don’t need to look around for an extra quart or two of our own.
Check your dipstick. Jesus stands ready to replenish your need.
(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)
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Warren Johnson self-published a novel years ago and works at bringing the sequel up to industry standards. He lives with his wife of forty six years, Barbara, in northwestern South Carolina. He fathered three kids and loves the ten-child descendants they bring to the table. Motorcycling and radio control airplanes use up some retirement time.