The Glory

           Oh, what untold power exists in the medium of song: the power to brighten our moods and to express the inexpressible angst brewing within our souls—the power to resuscitate dormant memories and in a sense, to rewind time.  But, every now and then, when we least expect it, a song does more than that.  It breaks through the barrier of our tympanic membrane and with it the walls we have neatly constructed around our hearts.  And it changes us - the way we think - the way we see - the way we live.  Or, perhaps it causes us to live again.

So it was for me when I first heard Avalon’s “The Glory of the Blood.”   There I was in the midst of my darkest hour, my deepest need, writhing in the pain of betrayals and brokenness, when that song had the audacity to invade my hearing.  It rattled me like Golgotha, like the temple veil ripped in two from top to bottom.  “So that what cannot be shaken [could] remain.”  (Heb. 12:27)

            No longer was I kneeling on tear-stained carpet in the corner of my bedroom.  Now I was kneeling on blood-stained dirt at the foot of the cross.  He had carried me to Calvary.  Instead of the betrayal done to me, I saw my betrayal of Him – my sin, my shame, my guilt.  And, I sobbed for the ugliness of it.   

Even as I cried those body-wracking sobs, a drop of blood trickled off of the Word Made Flesh, and like a time-lapsed image, I saw it descend in my direction.  And then, oh the glory of then, it graced the back of my bowed head and brought with it a deluge of forgiveness. 

And, I felt the cleansing.  I felt the filth running off of me.  I felt the salve of His lifeblood penetrating wounds that had festered so long.  Sweeter to me than the oil running down Aaron’s beard onto his robe (Psalm 133:2) was the reality that my own robes were being made white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14)  My Great High Priest had “opened for [me]” “a new and living way,” “through the veil, that is, his body.”  (Hebrews 10:21)  And when, for the first time, I peered behind the veil, mine eyes did see the glory of the coming of the Lord.  His robe dipped in blood, mine as white as snow. (Rev. 19:13-15)

"The Glory of the Blood"
by Avalon
Listen Here

In the solitary moment of His birth,
On this barren dusty land,
All of heaven kissed the face of the earth.
With a miracle of love,
God became a man.
But He was sent away to draw His final breath,
When He was only thirty-three.
And in the shame of dying a criminal's death,
He cleansed an angry world,
And in his suffering I see

The glory of the blood
The beauty of the body
That was broken for our forgiveness
The glory of His perfect love
Is the heart of the story
The glory of the blood

I have tried to find salvation on my own, 
In a search for something real.
There's a guilty heart inside this flesh and bone.
I fall upon his grace,
And I begin to feel

The glory of the blood
The beauty of the body
That was broken for our forgiveness
The glory of His perfect love 
Is the heart of the story
The glory of the blood.

And when I close my eyes I can see Him hanging there
Oh the precious wounded lamb of God.
And all the majesty in this world cannot compare 
To the glory,
The beauty of the body
That was broken for our forgiveness.

The glory of the blood
The beauty of the body
That was broken for our forgiveness
The glory of His perfect love
Is the heart of the story
The glory of the blood

He was sent away to draw His final breath
When He was only thirty-three.

"I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and He turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire.  He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.  He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God." ~ Psalm 40:1-3a