Hoarding the Blood

Life Saving Blood

Blood donation is one of the many requests made of each of us in order to help out those who are in the midst of an emergency. In many cases, the life saving work of a surgery or other procedure would be impossible without donated blood, especially for those with rare blood types. Because of this need, groups exist to collect donated blood and systems are in place to assure that it is distributed to those who need it.

Let us consider for a moment, however, a scenario where donated blood was tightly controlled by a particular hospital and its staff. Instead of making blood immediately available to the most emergent of patients (e.g. those about to die), the blood was given to those favored by the hospital itself. The favored perhaps being those most familiar to the hospital staff or those who make the staff the most comfortable. What if the favored only included the families of the hospital staff themselves?

Of course, any hospital that followed such a policy would be out of business in short order. Between public ridicule, criminal trespass, and civil litigation there would be little of the hospital left; and for good reason. To withhold something life giving such as blood from a needing patient for the sole reason of preference would be morally reprehensible.

What About Us?

So what about congregations of the body of Christ? We are those entrusted with the message of the Gospel – in a sense entrusted with sharing the blood of Christ. While hospitals face shortages of donated blood, ours is in eternal supply having already been donated “once and for all” (Heb. 7:27, NASU). Does a need for the life giving blood of Jesus Christ not exist all around us each and every day?

How different would we be than a hospital that refused donated blood from patients if we only offer Christ’s blood to those we are familiar with, or to those that make us the most comfortable, or only to our own families? How much more reprehensible would such a choice be?

Jesus offered Himself freely for all of mankind. It is the role of Christians to make sure that offer is made to all of mankind. The means of delivering that blood is found in the Gospel (Rom. 1:16; et al.). Whether we share or hoard the blood of Christ is up to us.