Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
“Behold the Lamb
of God!”
Behold the Lamb.
If you were a Jew
living in first century Palestine how would you hear those words?
You would think
of Abraham, of Isaac:
1 After these things God tested Abraham. He
said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 He
said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the
land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains
that I shall show you." 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled
his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut
the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the
distance that God had shown him. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw
the place far away. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with
the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will
come back to you." 6 Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid
it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two
of them walked on together. 7 Isaac said to his father Abraham,
"Father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." He said,
"The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt
offering?" 8 Abraham said, "God himself will provide the lamb for
a burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.
9 When they came to the place that God had
shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound
his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham
reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. 11 But the angel of
the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And
he said, "Here I am." 12 He said, "Do not lay your hand on the
boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not
withheld your son, your only son, from me." 13 And Abraham looked up and
saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and
offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that
place "The Lord will provide"; as it is said to this day, "On
the mount of the Lord it shall be provided."
God had asked of
Abraham the impossible, as a measure of his faith. God asked that he sacrifice his son Isaac,
the son who he loved and which had been the fulfillment of God’s promise to him
and Sarah.
How could God
demand such a sacrifice of Abraham?
"God himself will provide the lamb
for a burnt offering, my son."
In the end, it
was God who provided the Son to sacrifice.
Jesus.
Behold the Lamb
of God.
21 Then Moses called all the elders of
Israel and said to them, "Go, select lambs for your families, and
slaughter the passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood
that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood
in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until
morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when
he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass
over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike
you down. 24 You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and
your children. 25 When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he
has promised, you shall keep this observance. 26 And when your children ask
you, 'What do you mean by this observance? ' 27 you shall say, 'It is the
passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites
in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses. '" And
the people bowed down and worshiped.
It is notable in
the Gospel of John that Jesus is introduced by John as the Lamb of God and then
is crucified at the very hour that the Passover Lambs were being sacrificed in
the temple.
The Passover Lamb
whose blood saved the house of Israel from the angel of death that they might
be free.
God comes to us
as a Lamb, vulnerable and weak, that he might destroy the greatest power that
holds us captive—death itself.
“Behold the Lamb
of God!”
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus
were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary
Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing
beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." 27 Then
he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour
the disciple took her into his own home.
28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was
now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am
thirsty." 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a
sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. 30 When
Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished." Then he bowed
his head and gave up his spirit.
31 Since it was the day of Preparation, the
Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially
because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have
the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. 32 Then the
soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been
crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already
dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his
side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. 35 (He who saw this
has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows
that he tells the truth.) 36 These things occurred so that the scripture might
be fulfilled, "None of his bones shall be broken." 37 And again
another passage of scripture says, "They will look on the one whom they
have pierced."
“Behold the Lamb
of God!”
And then finally,
in Revelation, yet another vision of the Lamb.
9 Then one of the seven angels who had the
seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I
will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." 10 And in the spirit he
carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It has the glory of God and a radiance
like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It has a great, high
wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are
inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; 13 on the east
three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the
west three gates. 14 And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on
them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
22 I saw no temple in the city, for its
temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need
of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp
is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth
will bring their glory into it. 25 Its gates will never be shut by day—and
there will be no night there. 26 People will bring into it the glory and the
honor of the nations. 27 But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who
practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the
Lamb's book of life.
“Behold the Lamb
of God!”
From Abraham to
the end of time the Lamb of God was central to God’s plan of salvation.
God provided the
lamb for Abraham to sacrifice.
God destroyed
Israel’s enemies and set free those who were marked with the blood of the Lamb.
On the cross,
Jesus was the lamb whose blood both was the sacrifice for our sins and the
means by which God saved us from our enemies.
And finally, the
Lamb will be the light of all people.
God with us, in
the form of a vulnerable Lamb.
Crucified and
Risen.
People laugh at
this message. They scoff and ridicule it.
Just read the
comments on Facebook.
Its part of the
vulnerability of the Lamb that God would be laughed at.
Of this Paul
writes:
18 For the message about the cross is foolishness
to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of
God.
19 For it is written,
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will
thwart."
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is
the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the
wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know
God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation,
to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness
to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Amen.
