Leviticus...It's kind of a messy book.  Everywhere you turn, there's blood.  Verse, after verse, after verse mentions the spilling/releasing of blood.  The word "blood" is used in Leviticus more than 80 times.  Perhaps this verse explains the purpose and necessity of this fluid best:

"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." 

(Lev. 17:11)

Hymns written long ago commonly focused on blood and its atonement, perhaps more so than Christian music today. Do any of these ring a bell with you?

• "I see a crimson stream of blood; it flows from Calvary. It's waves, which reach the throne of God, are sweeping over me."
• "What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!"
• "Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow? There's power in the blood, power in the blood! Sin's stains are lost in its life-giving flow. There's wonderful power in the blood!"
• "There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains."
• "Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die! Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?"
• "Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin, and be washed in the blood of the Lamb. There’s a fountain flowing for the soul unclean. Oh, be washed in the blood of the Lamb!"
• "I know it was the blood; I know it was the blood. I know it was the bloodblood for me." for me. One day when I was lost, Jesus died on the cross. And I know it was the

"We need to learn how to celebrate the cross," says songwriter and minister Donnie McClurkin.  "It is the cross of Calvary that gives us access to eternal life. It was a bloody cross. It was a cross of suffering. It was a gory cross. It was by His sacrifice that salvation was extended unto man."

Our Christian forefathers certainly celebrated. Have we forgotten to do so? "Worship is not solely about focusing on the pleasant aspects of the Christian faith. After all, the book of Psalms -- Israel's hymnbook -- includes songs of lament and sorrow over sin, as well as uplifting praises of thanksgiving and gratitude" (Integrity's iWorship Daily Devotional Bible).  

Let us not forget the power of this "life-giving flow." So much more can and should be sung about the miraculous atonement extended to us and generations to come.