Tuesday, October 11, 2005
John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
AND HE SHALL BE CALLED "LAMB OF GOD"
On the tenth day of the first month all of the men of Israel were to take a lamb for their household. On the 14th day, the lamb would be butchered. All the people of the house would eat part of the lamb in the Passover Supper.
Jewish children no doubt remembered caring for the lamb on those days before it was killed and the supper prepared. And so they would be reminded every year of how Jehovah had saved their ancestors from final plague in Egypt with the blood of a lamb.
There were many lambs sacrificed at the temple. A lamb was sacrificed every morning and every evening. Lambs were sacrificed in the temple as sin offerings and for other burnt offerings before God. The Israelites were very familiar with the idea of a sacrifice for sin.
However, at the time of Jesus, they didn't yet understand that the Christ would actually BE the ultimate lamb of sacrifice. The Holy Spirit let John the Baptist know this, and John proclaimed this message one day as he was baptizing the people.
The people who had gathered to listen to John knew about the sacrifices for sins that had been made a million times before. In that first month of the year they each took care of their own lamb for the supper. They might have even remembered a son or a daughter turning to say to a friend, "That's our lamb for the sacrifice."
But John points his finger to JESUS and says, "Behold! The Lamb OF GOD . . ."
All the blood of all the sacrificed animals that were ever killed on Jewish altars could not take away sins. But the sacrifice that GOD brought DOES. The sacrifice of God's Lamb, Jesus Christ forgives sin.
Whose sin? Yours, mine, as John says, "the sin of the world!"
