Signed in Blood

In 2019, a couple in Portland, Oregon named David and Maria Chen stood before 200 guests and spoke their wedding vows. But what made the moment unforgettable wasn't the words themselves — it was what happened next. David's grandmother, a Korean immigrant who had survived war and famine, stood up and read aloud the promises the couple had written to each other. Then she asked them both, point-blank, in front of everyone: "Do you understand what you are agreeing to?" They said yes. She asked again. They said yes again. Then she pressed their thumbs into red ink and stamped a silk scroll — an ancient Korean tradition binding their word to something visible, something permanent.

That grandmother understood something we've nearly lost: a promise isn't real until it costs you something. Words alone float away like smoke. But when a vow is sealed — marked, witnessed, made physical — it becomes unbreakable.

This is exactly what happens at the foot of Mount Sinai in Exodus 24. Moses reads the covenant aloud. The people respond together, "Everything the LORD has said we will do." And then Moses takes the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkles it on the altar and on the people, declaring, "This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you."

The Almighty wasn't interested in casual agreement. He wanted His people bound — not by force, but by solemn, costly, witnessed commitment. Every drop of that blood said: this promise is life-and-death serious. And centuries later, another cup of blood would seal an even greater covenant — one that would never be broken.