Lent, Repentance, and the Blood of Jesus

Repentance is both painful and comforting. I can’t explain how that works, but meeting God in desperation and confessing personal guilt—deep, raw guilt of motives as well as actions—becomes a place of restoration. And I agree with others when I say I somehow never feel condemnation from God—only restoration.

I have a bit of a problem with looking to Lent as a time of repentance, however. I don’t think repentance should be limited to a season. But I appreciate the focus anyway. God knows how to reach us by arranging life around our liturgical mindsets. I’m reminded of something I heard my dad (who was a pastor) tell my mom. He said, “I’ve learned that when something happens to people spiritually, it usually happens during Lent.”

My parents communicated on all sorts of topics all the time. I remember only a few of their conversations, but I remember the two reasons he gave: during Lent he preached on the cross of Jesus and the Blood of Jesus.

I seem to remember him preaching on the cross quite often—or at least making references to the cross. But the Blood was a uniquely Lenten topic for him.

Fast forward to my mid-20s when I learned in a Bible study that, “the life of the flesh is in the blood . . . .” from Leviticus 17:11. (RSV) Leviticus says a great deal about blood, but I wasn’t walking with the Lord at the time, and the concept didn’t resonate. How could blood shed almost 2,000 years ago have anything to do with my guilt?

I’ve shared in other posts how God gave me a life-changing revelation one morning when in my late-20s. He actually did it by bypassing the subject of Jesus’ blood. I accepted His sacrifice by faith because God said so in His Word. Not until my mid-40s, when I took a class in cell biology to satisfy general college requirements, did I receive a revelation on Christ’s blood.

Biology was a new world for my non-scientific mind. I’ve not retained a lot from the class, except for one thing: life is in the blood. Science and Scripture are in total agreement on the subject.

I can’t provide an adequate description of the process any more—but I can tell you our blood cells absorb the inorganic elements we eat and breathe and convert them into organic material. Somehow carbon—yes, the funny black stuff of charcoal briquettes—ignites with oxygen—and little fires burn in every cell of our body. That’s why we have body temperatures.

Life is in the blood, because that’s where it happens. Where non-living converts to living.

Jesus’ life was/is in His blood. Because He’s eternal—because His eternal existence entered human form and brought eternity along—the effectiveness of His blood sacrifice never ceases.

Yeah, blood is bloody, messy. Polite people often want to downplay the importance of Jesus’ Blood. We miss much if we do. God is bigger than our inability to understand His plan for bringing us to Him, and I think He excuses our ignorance to a point. But the more we appreciate the value of His Blood, the more we appreciate the value of His sacrifice.

When Jesus became Immanuel, God with us, He became human. Messy blood carrying His infinite nature coursed through his veins and arteries. Have you ever wondered if He fell while playing and scraped a knee? Did His blood clot to form a scab? That precious blood with the imprint of eternity.

A worthy subject any time of the year—but certainly a worthy subject during Lent. There’s power in the blood of Jesus.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, . . . let us draw near to God with a sincere heart . . . . (Heb. 10:19a,22a NIV)

For you know it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life . . . but with the precious blood of Christ . . . . (I Pet. 1:18a,19a NIV)