Bloodshed is not really a pretty subject. Sure, we see it pretty often on CSI and the shoot-em-up action of our movies and even video games. Still, bloodshed is a somber topic because it is not only about the loss of blood but also the loss of life. Yet in the Baptist churches of my youth I must have sung on the subject at least a hundred times:

What can wash away my sin?
 Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

What can make me whole again? 
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Why all the talk about blood? I must admit the college-educated, more urbane side of me squirms a little at the mention of the blood. I worry about what a thoroughly secular friend of mine would think about the song. In his mind, such a song would prove his point that Christian folk are strange people obsessed with strange ideas. What good is there in such bloodshed?

The rough streets of Houston provided the answer.

For a week last month I served as a leader for Jesus N the Hood, a ministry of Hope for Youth in the inner core of Houston. Some of you may be familiar with its sister organization Yellowstone Academy. One of the high schoolers in my small group related the story of bloodshed in his own life. A friend of his was shot dead at a stop sign because someone wanted his car. As I listened to this story, I thought, “These kids are under attack. And it's more than just some bad people with guns. Here in graphic detail we can see something is really wrong with our world.”

But this is where the blood of Jesus comes in.

I think these kids, more than many of us, realize that something radical must be done to address our problems. They know that there must be a cost--a huge cost. Nothing else will do. The problem is huge, it runs deep, and it is deadly. And though we don't like to look at the stripes from the whip or the cross that represents execution, we see that it is necessary. Sin has wreaked havoc in our hearts, in our neighborhoods, in our world. Only the Son of God's shed blood--His sacrifice--can remedy that. Only it can end the hatred that is the origin of the murderous acts. Only it can heal the bruises that result from the abusive hand. Only it can remove the curse that hangs over the dark streets of the 'hood but equally over the quiet streets of the 'burbs.

Maybe the blood of Jesus has been for you some abstract idea. I've seen that in the nitty gritty streets of Houston it is as real as the precious people that live there. I see that it is certainly what we need. My young friend's words tell the truth: “If I didn't have Jesus, I don't know what I'd do. I just don't know what I'd do.”

Oh, precious is the flow,
That makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus