Giving Blood: The Story Behind The Story

I sat in the big blue reclining chair today waiting to be pierced. Every eight weeks I get a polite call from an American Red Cross saying that they are in great need of my blood. As I sit back, I think about why I am waiting to be poked with a needle in the first place. What is the reason for all of this?

It’s true that if there were no accidents, there would be no American Red Cross. Without sick or dying people, giving blood would not be necessary. Accidents cause problems. Problems require solutions – giving blood. Without the problem, no solution is needed.

Jesus, at one time, was not very necessary for me. People told me that he was the solution to my problems but I didn’t see a problem in the first place. I thought of Jesus as a really nice guy who came to teach us how to live good moral lives. That’s the extent of why I thought Jesus came down to earth. So, when I heard about Jesus dying on the cross and spilling his blood for me, it didn’t make sense. I didn’t see a problem in my life for such a solution to exist.

In order for Jesus to become relevant to us, we have to realize that we are sick and dying right here right now. Though we like to think that we aren’t sick and dying, we talk about our brokenness everyday. However, we usually like to talk about others’ problems – conveniently looking beyond our own.

Hospitals contain many unique and wonderful people, who were going about their lives as usual until they got hit by a car, struck with cancer, or some other tragedy. However, in the case of our spirituality, our sick and dying state in not an accident. Though we were created uniquely and significantly in the eyes of God, by our own free will we stepped out of the yard and wandered into the street. We caused our own accident.

Now we sit in pain as the doctors desperately try to put us back together again. The only hope that we have of surviving is someone else’s blood. Without the blood, our efforts as well as the doctors don’t matter.

In a physical accident, the blood that I’m giving today may save someone’s physical life. But in the spiritual context, only the blood shed by Jesus will save someone’s spiritual life. What you or I could not do, he’s done.

“He lived the life we should have lived and he died the death we should have died,” pastor Mark Driscoll explains.

That’s the story behind my story today.

Every time I sit in that big blue chair, I think not of the blood I’m giving, but the blood I’ve been given by him.

“But [Jesus] was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” - Isaiah 53:5