The Blood That Still Speaks
A Good Friday Reflection
It was 1955, and Billy Graham had come to Cambridge to preach a university mission at Great St. Mary's Church. The London press had been brutal before he arrived, questioning what business a "backwoods American fundamentalist" had speaking to England's best and brightest. Graham felt the weight of it, and for the first four nights he loaded his sermons with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre, working hard to look like he belonged. By his own account, those nights did not go well.
On the final night, he made a decision. He was going to preach about the blood. Just the blood. He was going to boast in the cross and let it stand on its own.
Tim Keller, recounting this story at The Gospel Coalition, described what Graham encountered in that chancel. Seated on one side of him was the Regius Professor of Divinity. On the other, a college chaplain who would later become a bishop. Both were men of considerable learning, but both were deeply opposed to the idea that humanity needed salvation from sin through the blood of Christ. Graham stood up and started at Genesis, going right through the whole Bible, preaching every blood sacrifice the Scriptures record. The blood was flowing through Great St. Mary's for three-quarters of an hour, and both men seated beside him were, by their own admission, terribly embarrassed. It was everything they found crude and uncomfortable about evangelical Christianity. Everything they disliked and dreaded.
At the end of the sermon, four hundred young men and women stayed to commit their lives to Christ.
Years later, someone met a young curate at Birmingham Cathedral, a Cambridge graduate. They asked him over coffee where his faith had begun. Cambridge, 1955. Billy Graham. The last night. And when pressed on what had happened, he said simply: "All I remember is I walked out of Great St. Mary's for the first time in my life thinking, Christ really died for me."
Keller closed with this: "Don't be ashamed of the cross. Boast in the cross, not just in your inner being, but in your ministry, and watch mountains move."
That is the message of Good Friday. And it begins, as Graham knew it did, long before Calvary.
Before There Was a Cross, There Was a Doorpost
In the darkness of that final Egyptian night, God gave Israel a command that would echo through all of history: take a lamb, slaughter it, and put the blood over the entrance of your home. Not inside. Not hidden away. Over the threshold, where everyone could see it.
"Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, 'Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin.'" (Exodus 12:21-22, ESV)
When the angel of death moved through the land, it passed over every home marked by that blood. Not because the families inside were righteous. Not because they had earned it. But because the blood was there, and God had made a promise about the blood.
That night was not the end of the story. It was the beginning of one.
The Life Is in the Blood
Scripture tells us something that sounds strange to modern ears: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." (Leviticus 17:11, ESV)
What God was establishing through the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament was this sobering reality: sin demands a reckoning. "For the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23, ESV) That debt has to be paid somehow. The blood of bulls and goats was never enough to settle it permanently, but it pointed forward to something that would be.
Hebrews is the book of the Bible that bridges these two worlds. It takes the entire priestly architecture of the Old Testament, all the altars and offerings and high priests entering the Holy of Holies once a year with blood that had to be offered again and again, and it says: look at what Jesus has done.
"He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption." (Hebrews 9:12, ESV)
And then at the end of that same letter: "Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will." (Hebrews 13:20-21, ESV)
Two things bound together: the resurrection and the blood. You cannot separate them. There is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. There is no resurrection without the cross.
Something Powerful Changed
Every sacrifice in the Old Testament was an IOU. Every lamb that died on an altar was saying: a greater payment is coming. The system was real and it was God-ordained, but it was never the final answer. It was a sign pointing toward one who was.
Jesus was not just another sacrifice. He was the sacrifice behind all sacrifices. He was the Lamb of God that the Passover lamb had been whispering about for centuries. "For our Passover lamb has been sacrificed." (1 Corinthians 5:7, ESV) And what changed everything was this: he was without sin. Unblemished. "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." (1 Peter 1:18-19, ESV)
He did not die for his own transgressions. He died for ours.
And because of who he was, what he did was enough. Once. For all. "He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself." (Hebrews 7:27, ESV) His blood did what no animal blood ever could. It tore the veil from top to bottom. It opened a way into God's presence that has never been closed since. "And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom." (Matthew 27:51, ESV)
Don't Be Ashamed of the Blood
The sophistication of Cambridge in 1955 looked at the message of the blood and called it crude. The same verdict has been handed down in every generation since Paul first wrote: "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18, ESV)
Four hundred people found the door that night not because Graham was clever, but because he pointed them to the blood and trusted the Spirit to do what only the Spirit can do. The message did not need improving. It only needed proclaiming.
The Book of Revelation gives us the final portrait of Jesus, and it is stunning in what it chooses to show us. John hears that the Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered and is worthy to open the scroll. Then he turns to look, and what does he see? "And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain." (Revelation 5:6, ESV) The conquering Lion appears as a slaughtered Lamb. The glory of heaven is forever marked by the sacrifice of the cross.
Still Open. Still Available.
Here is what I want you to sit with today, on this Good Friday.
After his resurrection, when Jesus appeared to his disciples, he still had his wounds. He could have arrived in a body untouched by what he had endured. Instead, he held out his hands and showed his side. He said to Thomas: "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." (John 20:27, ESV)
Why would a glorified, resurrected body still bear those wounds?
I believe Jesus kept them open on purpose. Not as a reminder of suffering, but as an ongoing invitation. The blood is still available. The wounds still speak. The access they purchased has not expired. This is not just history we are commemorating today. This is a living offer.
Where the Blood Has to Go
The question the Passover has always asked is simple: has the blood been applied?
It was not enough for the lamb to be slaughtered. The blood had to be put on the doorpost. The family had to walk under it. They had to make a choice to be covered.
So I want to ask you today, plainly and directly: have you applied the blood of Jesus to the threshold of your life?
The Passover Lamb has been slain. The sacrifice has been made. The price has been paid in full. But faith is the act of walking under the doorpost, of trusting that what was done on that cross was done for you, that his blood covers your sin, that because of what he suffered, you can be forgiven and restored. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9, ESV)
That is the whole story of the gospel. His blood was shed so that you could live. His death makes your resurrection possible.
This has been the plan of God from the very beginning: that by his mercy and grace, someone else's blood would pay your debt.
Consider today where you stand at the threshold. The door is open. The blood has been applied to the wood. All that remains is for you to walk through.
A Prayer for Good Friday
Father, we come to you on this day with the weight of what it cost.
Forgive us for the times we have dressed up the gospel in sophistication when the world simply needed the truth: Jesus bled and died for sinners, and his blood is enough. Today we choose not to be ashamed. We boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For anyone reading this who has never walked under the doorpost, we pray that today would be the day. Let them hear, as that young curate heard in Cambridge long ago, that Christ really died for me. Draw them to the foot of the cross, and let them find there what they have been searching for: forgiveness, freedom, and a Father who gave everything so that none of them would have to perish.
Send us back into the world unashamed, ready to boast in the cross and watch mountains move.
In the name of the Lamb who was slain and lives forever. Amen.
