A small drop of red never made me so nervous.
“Who’s bleeding? Everyone show me your noses. Who has a
bloody nose? Anyone?”
It was the first time I had seen blood in my classroom and I
had no idea what to expect. Most likely a bloody nose, but I never had one as a
child and only heard about how my friends had them regularly and prolifically. It
was the prolific part I was worried about. Please, Lord, no gushing bloody
noses this early in the term!
“No one?”
“Ok…check your hands. Are anyone’s fingers bleeding?”
Nothing again.
I was baffled, but I let them keep playing as I watched for
any other signs of blood.
“Oh! My nose is bleeding,” piped up a little girl.
I was relieved that I found the source of the blood and that
it was not a bad nose bleed at all. Still, it only took one small drop of
crimson on the white tile floor to make me worry that a downpour might follow.
***
A hand shot up in the dimly lit classroom where my students
were resting. I walked over to her mat. Her arm was bleeding, she said.
“I need a Band-Aid!”
“Let’s take a look at it,” I responded. “It’s only just a
scab! I think you’ll be alright without a
Band-Aid. “
“But it’s bleeding!” She said the word “bleeding” with such
pleading persuasion. I didn’t have the heart to refuse her. It seemed she would
not be able to rest without the magical healing of a Band-Aid and I was not
going to fight this battle in the middle of nap time. A few extra Band-Aids were
within our budget, anyway.
As soon as I placed the Band-Aid over the scab and threw out
the plastic sticky-covers, another hand shot up: “My thumb hurts!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Let me blow it a kiss. All better?”
She was not fooled. “I need a Band-Aid.”
***
There is something terrible about bleeding. Little people
know this and even when it’s only a scab, it is just not right. The body is
wounded; something needs to be fixed.
Blood is our river of life. It stays inside us where it can
give us life and as soon as it flows out or away from us, we Band-Aid it up.
We’re not used to seeing battle fields, war wounds, or bloody blisters. After
all, we have gauze and padding and bandages to prevent any bleeding. When we do
bleed, it’s regulated and on purpose.
I’ve had plenty of blood taken from me on purpose, but I’ve
never liked it: the poking, the sterilizing, the rubbery touch of elastic
covered fingers. “Which arm? Not that one, maybe the other one. Nope. That
first vein was better.” But at least all that comes with the promise of test
results. Not so, when you donate blood, when you give it up for someone else’s
life.
One time when I donated blood I decided to be brave. Everyone
said you could faint, so I decided to tough it out and prove I wasn’t a fainter
by intentionally staring at my pint of blood.
Wow. Look at me. What was the nurse so worried about?
She returned after labeling the pint of blood. Her worried
brows were cinched tight: “How do you feel?”
“Just fine,” I assured her.
“Are you sure?” She said doubtfully. “You look a little
yellow. You look very yellow.”
The room started to blur. I felt dreamy.
“I’m going to put you down. Stay. Down.”
Defeated.
I saw my blood taken away from me, and despite my best
efforts, it took my breath away. I had no choice in the matter. Apparently,
giving my blood, giving of my life for someone else, was harder than I thought
it would be. Mental fortitude had nothing to do with it. Giving my life meant
that somehow I had to die.
***
The Word, Christ, hung upon the cross. Nails tore His hands
and a spear cut open his side. No one sterilized the needle, no one held a
piece of gauze over his wounds, no one offered a Band-Aid so that He could walk
away after the blood-draw. No one said, “At least we’ll get the test results.”
The Rock was struck and blood was the flood of waters to
cleanse the world. It was a new and better flood to wash away Babel, to wash
away the sins of the world.
Egypt and the wilderness were lifeless. We were a
wilderness. A flood of grace was needed, so He was poured out. And like the
flood that gave us a new world, like the waves of the Red Sea, like grace from
the dams of heaven, life came pouring out.
We are men filthy and unfit for life. We need new blood and
a washing away of Pharaoh’s army. We need the Word, the one who speaks better things
than the blood of Abel, better things than the blood of bulls and goats, better
things than the blood of the prophets. We need Christ to mount the cross and
bleed for us.
The blood of the Firstborn on the doorposts of the world is
an everlasting covenant that still cries out. His blood was spilt to speak. It
can never be made dumb. It cries out for babes in Egypt, for kids boiled in
their mother’s milk, for wombs that became tombs. It cries out for judgment to
conquer injustice, it cries out for life to conquer death. It cries out that
this is not how it should be, this is not how it will be.
***
I wonder what Adam and Eve’s first reaction was to the sight
of blood. Adam was asleep the first time a surgery was performed and God, being
the best of surgeons, surely didn’t allow his patient to come out of the
operation a bloody mess.
The second time we know there must have been blood was at the
births of Cain and Abel. There was the first sign of the woman’s curse in the
form of pain and death, but after that was life. With each birth there was a
new man, a new son, a renewed hope that maybe another Adam had come to crush
the serpent.
The third time there was blood in the newly-born world was at
Cain’s hands. Cain became the first murderer and Abel, the first sacrifice. His
blood was the first cry for justice.
***
Heaven hands have painted signs on our earthly doorposts;
sunny yellows, citrus oranges, and blood-reds splatter the hillside. It is
fall, but even that name denotes the true meaning behind the beautiful colors:
the trees are dying.
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving
…
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you morn for.[1]
Sprawled out beneath the face of heaven is God’s Son; He
sees, He knows.
***
When Egypt drowned the Israelite sons in the life-giving
Nile, God turned Egypt’s source of life and prosperity into death. When Egypt
tried to recapture and enslave God’s Israelite sons, He drowned Egypt in red
waves.
Bloody will be the judgment of those who cry for innocent blood.
Bloody will be the judgment of the abortion doctors who wear
their clean, white coats and the politicians who make laws and wash their hands
with Pilot. Yet the throng says, “Let His blood be on our hands and our
children’s.”[2]
This is not a bloody nose that our mother America can wipe
away. This is not a scab. How dare we offer the lives of the innocent as a
sacrifice, as a blood draw to keep us living? Don’t we know whose blood we are
sucking, whose pound of flesh we are demanding?
Forgive them, Father,
for they know not what they do.[3]
***
God’s story has a surprising twist though: Cain, the
murderer, does not die. A mark is put on his forehead. Cain says, “God, now
anyone who sees me will know I’m a murderer and will kill me!” But God says: “Whoever
kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” I will put this mark on
you, “lest anyone finding [you] should kill [you].”[4]
We have blood on our hands and on our heads. His blood on
our hands makes us guilty, His blood on our heads makes us atoned for.
We are marked, but with a mark that is better than Cain’s: we
are marked with the blood of Christ so that the Father sees Him in all of our human
faces.
***
When we cried out for the Rock to be struck, we did not know
what we asked for: the Rock is Life-giver most especially when He is struck. He
was pierced to pierce and save the world. As He bled, the world bled from its
cross-pierced side and we, though mere men, were made like Him, crowned like
Him, enthroned like Him. Through the cross, this world is remade to be a womb
of life, an Egypt of justice, a new Israel giving freedom and hope. Every
crooked place will be made straight, every valley exalted. The days of glory
are restored and even wayward Egypt will return with rejoicing.
When His blood washes us, we become a rock to the world, we
become Jesus. Strike us and we will pour out life, we will go out to flood the
world.
