Day 33: Humans Are In Blood

I am still not ready to respond to that article by Mr. Bell called "God does Not Require Blood." There are some things I have read in the Bible lately that I have to work through first. But I think I can at least say this: Humans are in blood. Macbeth said "I am in blood," and he knew he had entered a point of no return, entering a realm of bloodshed that he couldn't just walk away from.

When the first family broke fellowship with their Creator and Friend in the Garden of Eden, they chose a path of death and bloodshed. Abel shed the blood of a lamb to offer to God, and Cain shed the blood of his brother because he was envious of God's response to Abel.

The great king David, even this man who was known for being so close God's heart, was in blood. He killed one of his best soldiers to cover up the fact that he slept with the soldier's wife. His children were in blood. His son raped his daughter, his other son killed that son. That other son was eventually killed by another one of his best soldiers for a plot to take over David's throne. And another son was killed by his son Solomon for a different plot to become king. And Solomon put to death the soldier that killed the first son that plotted to take over David's throne.

I recently saw Paul Thomas Anderson's movie Magnolia for the second time since it came out ten years ago. The first time I saw it I said to Jeff as the credits were rolling, "Wow. I have to watch this again because it has something important to tell me and I didn't quite catch it yet." When I saw it again last fall, this is what it told me:

Humans are devouring each other. God's intervention may seem strange or scary or bloody, but things would be worse if he did not step in.

All the characters in this movie are somewhere on a path to death, and most of them are on a frightening and lonely path because their closest family relationships have become the source of their greatest pain and suffering. In the end, when there is a rainstorm of frogs, it might be a considered a reoccurence of one of the ten plagues. But by then, things seem so hopeless for all the humans, that the frogs are a relief, an interruption, a sign that Someone out there is not about to let them all continue on the course of devouring one another and dying a lonely permanent death. It is an outstanding movie.

I have also been thinking a bit about the novel Lord Of the Flies. I bet I haven't read this book since highschool, but if I recall correctly, its main message that humans, even children, when left to themselves, will eventually exterminate one another. The human race is in blood.

In 2nd Samuel 14, there is an story-within-a-story about the excruciatingly tight spot a parent is in after one child kills another. David is in that tight spot, and hears the plea from a woman pretending to be in the same dilemma. My husband is dead, she says, and I had two sons. One son killed the other and now the blood-avengers are after him. If they get their way, there will be no one to carry on our family name. The story is only a rhetorical device to persuade the king to restore Absolom from banishment. But listen to this strand of her argument: "Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him."

Is she giving a straight witness about the character of God, or is she twisting a reality to make her case stronger? It seems to me like a tight spot that humans have put God in: he loves his children, yet they insist shedding one another's blood. He wants children around to notice and praise Him, but between the ones that are killed and the ones who deserve execution for murder, there is no one left. How does he maintain his good reputation for upholding justice and at the same time preserve a people who will live long enough to spread his good reputation? It seems like a very tight spot. Excruciating.