Where it all came from- the title

In my dream, Gabe Nester was in a hammock with a cotton blanket covering him. He had used a black marker to write words that he had learned in school all over the blanket. They were all simple words that started with the letter A. But, at the bottom, was this phrase, “A Rampage of History, a Bloodstream of Intensity.” I woke up immediately after this dream and wrote down this phrase. It was directly apparent that this was referring to Jesus. That his life furiously changed history in a way that was violent to the status quo, that the blood that coursed through his body was of such intensity that everything was done with an unrivaled passion.

So in this “title” there are innumerable pathways. To focus on Jesus’ affect on history, does not seem right. To focus on the intensity of Christ seems more correct, but there is something else there. Something that is yet to jump off of the page, something magical that is a treasure that I don’t have the map for. A bloodstream of intensity.

“This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people.” (Mark 14:24)

This is HIS blood, poured out. When we drink of His blood, we are consuming his intensity.

I have for so long viewed Christ’s blood as this symbol of the sacrifice, and it is that. He didn’t just get nailed to the cross. He was brutally beaten until he was weak and bloody. I’m sure he tripped as a he carried this heavy cross up the hill. He had been falling down all day so that his knees were bloody; his back was bloody from being beaten. This blood represents a man that took an incredible amount of bloody punishment before he took death, and so in this act of communion, we take of the sacrifice.

But that blood was so much more that just a liquid spilled from his body, that blood coursed through his veins for over three decades before of the physical Jesus, but had been pumping through him since, since. That blood contained God, and God is intense. Intensity is great energy, great strength. It is exciting, it is emotional.