Someone Else's Marrow

In a bone marrow transplant, the recipient first undergoes something brutal. Chemotherapy destroys their entire blood-producing system — every stem cell in the marrow wiped out. The patient is left with no immune system, no ability to make new blood. They are, medically speaking, as close to death as a living person can be.

Then comes the transplant. A donor — sometimes a stranger who endured the pain of surgical extraction — gives their own marrow. Those donated stem cells travel through the bloodstream, find their way into the hollow of the recipient's bones, and begin to engraft. Slowly, the donor's cells take root and start producing new blood. The recipient's blood type may actually change to match the donor's. Their entire immune system is rebuilt from someone else's sacrifice.

Doctors call this process engraftment. Scripture might call it something else: new creation.

Paul wrote, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). What happened on Calvary was not merely an external transaction. Through His sacrifice, Christ's very life entered ours. The old self — like that failing marrow — had to die. And from His offering, something entirely new took root within us.

The next time you take communion, consider this: you are not simply remembering a sacrifice. You are living proof of it. His life courses through yours, remaking you from the inside out.