THE RACE - Dag Heward-Mills

READ: Leviticus 17:10-14

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us

Hebrews 9:12

God revealed the importance of blood through the prophet Moses and therefore commanded that blood should not be eaten.

The generation that lived in the time of Moses would not have known about the importance of blood. Perhaps they would have thought that it was the heart, the brain or the kidneys that were important. But through the teaching of Moses, they learnt that the life of a person is in his blood. All the other parts of the body could be eaten but the blood was not supposed to be eaten because it represented a life. Long before medical science discovered it, Moses taught us that the blood of a person contained his life. Today, we know that the blood carries life to all parts of the body. Moses could not have known that by medical science. He knew this because God revealed it to him. Life is in the blood!

One night, I was on duty at the emergency ward when a young man was brought to the hospital, who was vomiting bright red blood uncontrollably. He retched and vomited all night long. I went to the blood bank many times that night, fetching blood for this man. It was a race for life. Sadly, he died because he had brought out more blood than we were able to replace. The race that night was a race to get as much blood to the man quickly enough. Only the blood could prevent the man from dying.

Indeed, the race today is the race to get the blood of Jesus to as many places as possible quickly enough.