But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. – Genesis 9:4

But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. – Genesis 9:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 20, 2018): Genesis 9

It infatuates us. It lives in our dreams, and in our nightmares. It is the necessity of a vampire. It is the key that is needed to open a mystically or supernaturally locked door. It is the record of your ancestry. If you will drink it, it has the power to transform you into whatever being possessed it before you. Increase it, and you will perform better, decrease it and you will feel tired. Drain it and, even though everything else in your body is working perfectly, you will die. It is your blood. Admittedly, not everything that everyone believes about blood is true, but there is no doubt that blood is special. It is the substance that carries our life force. And as of yet, no other substance has been discovered or created that can enable life. And so, blood is often said to be in you to donate. It is an absolutely marvelous thing to know that the life force inside of you can be given away, causing other people to have a chance to live; even when their life is compromised because of a lack of blood.

Because it is the force of life, and not because of any superstitious beliefs, blood is to be respected. According to God, it doesn’t matter where the blood originates; it deserves our respect. Drinking the blood of a wolf will not give you the power of a wolf, no matter what that thriller that you read says, but it is a life force without which the wolf cannot live. And because all life comes from God, respect for the lifeblood of any animal is commanded of us.

Of course, in our contemporary understanding, we know that there are many reasons to be careful with blood, not the least of these are that blood and other bodily fluids have the potential to carry disease. In ancient times, great care was exercised in making sure that all the blood was removed from an animal, which often included salting the meat to draw out any fluids that might remain in the animal. Blood from the very beginning has been considered to be both important, and sacred.

For the Christian, blood takes on another meaning. We carry an image of the blood of Christ being “donated” to us to give us life. The apostle Paul writes these words: “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself (or gave his blood) for me” (Galatians 2:20). The life that we live is only available to us because of the lifeblood that Jesus freely release and donated to us.

Knowing the great respect for blood that Judaism holds, it is not hard to imagine the revulsion created by an important ritual in the Christian faith. We often hear the words spoken over the Table of the Lord, “the blood of Christ, poured out for you. Take, drink, and remember.” The ritual seems to violate this respect for blood that was commanded from the earliest times. Of course, it is not blood that we are drinking. It is juice or maybe wine, depending on the faith and the section of the tray from which you took your cup. But the ritual, albeit offensive to some, is a reminder that all life comes from blood. And our life comes from the blood of Christ, which we symbolically partake of in this sacred moment. We are possessors of a truth that others may miss. We need to be continually reminded that our life comes only from his blood. 

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 10

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my daughter-in-law Michelle. I hope you have a great day.