“God went for the jugular when He sent His own Son.  He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant.  In His Son, Jesus, He personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.  The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.” – Romans 8:3-4 (The Message)

The jugular.  I’ve never heard the gospel explained like that before.  It sounds pretty graphic, decidedly untidy, and really extreme.  Maybe even a little offensive.

What I know about human anatomy is very limited.  But I know that if you are ever in Africa on safari and attacked by a lioness, she will “go for your jugular”.  She is going for your lifeblood, and she means business.  It would be a direct hit.

Society tends to think of the Bible as a book of stories of ancient peoples. But it isn’t just a bestseller.   It is an account of the disordered mess of struggling humanity being set right with a true and omnipotent Creator. 

In the beginning there was God, yes.  But in the end?  

We know where eternity lies, but “the end” is not inside the dusty pages of prophecy in Revelation.  The end is still being recorded in the lives we live today.  In my life; in your life.

In “going for the jugular”, God meant business.  To reconcile His people –full of sin and selfishness and corruption – back to him, sacrificial blood had to be spilled.  He had to have contact with this fractured human condition directly, swiftly.   I forget this sometimes, when I try to tidy up the gospel to suit me.

In “going for the jugular” of humanity, he poured himself over bone and under skin, walked around in flesh with all of the discomfort that entails and was brutally nailed to the cross by the same people he was saving  to become restitution.  His lifeblood was spilled while we were still sinners, the ultimate and fatal blow to death.

Webster’s dictionary defines “jugular” simply as:  “The most vital part."

God’s relationship with us individually was not remote and unimportant then….it is of the utmost importance now.

In him, we are set right, once and for all.