Toward Fatherhood

“All language about God is ultimately mysterious,

but that is no excuse for sloppy or wooly thinking.”

~ N.T. Wright

Matt Redman sings a song called “Nothing but the Blood,” which I just can’t handle anymore. It’s a rewrite of an old hymn that I’m sure is still being pounded out on upright pianos in stiff, Southern Baptist churches across the country.

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing-but-the-blood of Jeeeesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing-but-the-blood of Jeeeesus.

The song always made me a little queasy, but Redman narrows the focus. “It’s the blood!” he shouts, eyes squinty with passion, “It’s the blood! It’s the blood! It’s YOUR blood!”

What the…?!

I’m all about Christians being a peculiar people, but careless, displaced metaphor is not the way to get there. I mean, this is some weird, macabre stuff. It’s like worshipping a severed limb. It’s like singing the praises of an organ donor by chanting, “KIDNEY! KIDNEY! KIDNEY!”

My real trouble, truth be told, is not the song itself, but the larger problem it emblemizes - this idea that “man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart” is just a way of saying that intention (“the heart”) trumps almost everything else - content, form, talent, logic, even certain realities of creation itself. See, whether our message is obfuscated by good-hearted inanery or a willful malice, it is hidden all the same. It is hidden from those who need it most.

Now, I know Jesus said “you’ll have to eat my flesh and drink my blood,” and that’s some pretty visceral imagery. There’s another verse that says, “without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.” It seems like a lot of believers read these verses and thought, “Aha! So Jesus’ blood is the magic bit!” Which I guess is how so many got so overly focused on communion.

But we’ve missed the point; Jesus’ blood is no magic potion, else literally “spilling it” would have been enough. Jesus could have had a simple bloodletting, put that in a vial, and saved the world. But that’s not the point. To the folks who first wrote these words, “the shedding of blood” meant the giving of a life. “Brought near by the blood of Christ,” “boldness to enter the Holiest [temple] by the blood of Jesus,” and “redeemed by the precious blood of Christ,” all are references to Jesus giving his life as a ransom for us.

Not a magical blood donation.

His life.

So I don’t want to hear any more blood worship; no more “pleading the blood,” no more “just one drop can save your soul.” It’s a well-meant, but grotesque and distracting transliteration of things written in the light of ancient, idiomatic connotation. We’ve foolishly forgotten the time and the original audience, and in doing so missed their understanding.

The same goes for other Christiany nonsense phrases, like “Take it to the cross!” “There’s power in that name!” and “Lift him up!”(Which is to say, literally, “Crucify him!”) These orphaned idioms are tossed out and about with such careless familiarity, as if everyone should know what they mean, as if we ourselves understand them…as if they were written in English, to us, by us.

N.T. Wright said it best, but my mom said it first:

“Think about what you are saying

Before you say it.”

This goes double for conversation relating to God. If our gospel is “sloppy or wooly” - if it is presented in an unthinking way - it is lost to the lost who are still thinking.