The WHY behind Christmas, and how Christmas, the cross, and Easter intersect …

There is no artificial substitute for blood.

Many scientists have tried (and still continue to try) to devise a means of creating or replicating blood, but all efforts have failed.

It’s thought in the scientific research community that blood is the primary obstacle to humans ever learning to “create life,” and loss of blood is a fast-track to losing life.

There simply isn’t any adequate substitute for real blood.

And that is why God gave Himself to the world that very first Christmas.

Oh, His gift had nothing to do with science or medicine. It had to do with another need for blood …

“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, ‘You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden — except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die,'” Genesis 2:15-17.

Ezekiel stated this, “The person who sins is the one who will die,” in Ezekiel 18:20a. And for even greater clarification, we read, “For the wages of sin is death …” in Romans 6:23a.

Every person who disobeys God — who sins — must pay the consequences of sin: death. And death requires the shedding of blood.

Romans 3:23 gives a simple expansion of the problem: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”

That’s a problem for us humans. If we offer the shedding of our blood as a cost for sin, we die. And we are not capable of overcoming death. Yet, Hebrews 9:22 says, “In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.”

So, to pay the cost of sin, so that we may be forgiven of our sin, requires real human blood.

Not a substitute. After all, there is no artificial substitute for blood. Especially when it comes to our sin.

Because of that fact, God wrapped Himself in human flesh and was born of a virgin. He became human. With real blood. Blood which He later shed on a cross on our behalf.

Real human blood.

And Christ was able to overcome death!

Now, through Christ, our debt for sin is paid through His blood!

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water,” Hebrews 10:19-22.

God loved us so much He gave the world His Son, who was willing to shed His very real human blood on our behalf. And by the blood of Christ, our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled to God.

That is the “why” behind Christmas, and how Christmas, the cross, and Easter intersect.

Scotty