08 Feb Blood Brothers
Read John 15:9-17
On a hot summer night in Wardak province, Afghanistan, in 2019, a special operations U.S. Army Ranger raid force began an assault on a compound with enemy targets.
As enemy fighters fired back at U.S. forces and the Rangers began to close in on a target, there was a huge explosion, injuring three Rangers. Amidst rounds of machine gun fire, rockets and grenades, two Ranger combat medics, Army Staff Sgt. Charles Bowen and Army Sgt. Ty Able, leapt into action to save six American lives that night.
Pulling the critically wounded behind cover from enemy fire, Bowen and Able quickly began performing advanced surgical techniques and providing Rangers with blood infusions with supplies they had on hand.
While the medics stabilized some of the injured, unfortunately, two of the injured Rangers were losing blood, and fast. Unfortunately, Bowen and Able had already utilized all of their blood units for other injured service members. Knowing that this was a life-or-death matter, the two medics decided to attempt the Ranger O-Low (ROLO) Titre protocol, in which a volunteer transfers his or her blood to the injured Ranger on the battlefield, with the assistance and equipment from the medics. The procedure at the time was relatively new and had never been done in the middle of combat, but Bowen, Able and a volunteer blood donor were able to pull it off. (Photograph above is of the actual event as it unfolded. Photo credit, U.S. Army.)
The men did not hesitate but employed an emergency technique that had never before been used in battle. Blood was transferred, man to man. The imagery is striking and gives new meaning to the term, “Blood Brothers”.
Jesus commands us, in John 15, to love one another as He loves us. He tells us that no greater love has any man but he that lays down his life for a friend. It would be within our selfish nature to point out that Jesus was alluding to Himself and foretelling of His death on the cross, yet, we cannot forget the context He spoke the words was within a teaching on Christian love and brotherhood.
Seldom, if ever, will we have to make a sacrifice like the soldiers on the field in Afghanistan that day, opening our own veins to literally save the life of another. Yet, He asks us to lay down our lives daily, to pick up our crosses and to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. What does that look like at any random time? Our lives consist of days, hours and moments, all of which (for a true disciple) belong to Christ. When He calls us to lay down our lives, it is giving up those moments to serve someone else in whatever life-giving way the Holy Spirit directs.
C.S. Lewis once said, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
In the Body of Christ, we are brought into a sacred, eternal brotherhood. As we are called to Christ, we are called to one another. Like the soldiers there on the front lines in Afghanistan, we are the medics to the poor, the weary, the wounded, and the broken. If we truly love God, we will love one another sacrificially and become true brothers by our Lord’s powerful, healing Blood.