No Evidence

On this date four years ago, we moved up to Denver and I was admitted into the University of Colorado Hospital to undergo bone marrow transplant for leukemia. It was a dark time, and although we had great faith, this was an unknown journey. I went up to that same hospital today to do my annual labs to confirm leukemia is all gone. It is often that I do these labs around Easter each year and realize the deep connection between what Jesus did for me spiritually and what happened physically in bone marrow transplant. This understanding I have is only because heaven has whispered this insight in incredible ways.

As some of you know, my donor was my sister Bonita. She was a perfect match for me. A miracle in just that event. The goal of bone marrow transplant is to be 100% donor converted in your bone marrow. That is, it is typically not a good outcome to have both diseased stem cell DNA and donor stem cell DNA mixed in the bone marrow. Every year I get my labs done, the clinical staff does a very complete blood panel. One of the tests is to see if there is any evidence of my diseased blood DNA. With a female donor, there is one easy way to check that. We all have 23 pairs of chromosomes with the gender chromosome listed as an XY (male) or XX (female). In my case, the result comes back as 46 XX. That means 23 pairs of chromosomes with the gender chromosome now an XX (female). But here is the line of the lab result that always impacts me: “no evidence of pre-bone marrow transplant host disease.” You see, right before I accepted my sister’s stem cells, the hospital took a sample of my bone marrow with diseased leukemia in it. And now when they do this test each year, they compare that sample from April 2011 to the current sample. What this result means is that this test has the ability to see if there is any of the diseased marrow left in my body and the conclusion is absolutely not! There is no evidence of the former diseased blood. So here is the spiritual insight.

Even if you are not a Christ follower, you have probably heard, especially around Good Friday and Easter, messages about the blood of Jesus. And at some point might have even heard things like “being washed in the blood,” “being born again,” and “how Christ forgives us of our sins because of the blood sacrifice he did on the cross.” These are all hard concepts to understand and certainly very strange language. As a Christ follower, I really never understand the deepness of these concepts, until my own bone marrow transplant.

When we accept Christ into our lives and he forgives us of our sins, he is essentially giving us a spiritual bone marrow transplant. We are taking on his identity by accepting him as Lord of our lives. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us this: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” How can that be, you ask? It is just like the lab test I receive each year that says, “no evidence of your previous disease.” The evidence of that test essentially shows that I have my sister’s blood DNA composition. When we accept Christ, God now looks upon us and sees the spiritual DNA composition of Jesus. He doesn’t see our previous diseased life! Our old life has been made pure by Jesus. That is the spiritual bone marrow transplant that Jesus does for us. We are new just as 2 Corinthians 5:17 says it: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here.” Several years ago I seemed to hear God say to me, “Don’t you think if I can design your body in such a way and give medical science the ability to do this miraculous transformation of the physical blood that I can figure out a way to do the same transformation in the spiritual realm?” I was blown away by that thought.

And this story is made even more powerful on Easter Sunday when Jesus came back to life and now transforms us every day. We get the gift of his identity and our old diseased life is gone. There is no evidence of it when we are truly transformed by the blood of Christ and what he did on the cross for us. I hope you will think about that this Easter weekend.

Amazed by His Love,

Terence