Saturday, December 29, 2012
John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
BEHOLD!
No room in the Inn? We understood that. Laid in a manger, a feed trough for sheep? Well we have made beds for babies out of motel dresser drawers. Yes, it was lowly, but the angels were not ashamed of a manger, and the shepherds were not put off by it either. They did not say, "Oh, this is too common a setting for the Savior, Christ the Lord. Stables and mangers? Why, we see these kind of things every day." No, they went out telling everyone they met what the Lord's messengers had said about the baby they had seen.
But there is more in this stable to amaze! The shepherds who came to the manger in response to the angel's message could have been from a flock that was kept in the vicinity all year round, in order to provide sheep for the sacrifices at the temple in nearby Jerusalem. If it was this flock which they tended, when they knelt before the feed-trough they saw one who was actually the one whom all their lambs represented, for He was in truth "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). It nothing short of amazing that he would become one of us sheep, bear our sin and guilt, and bring us all to the safe haven of His great love.
He becomes the Lamb that taketh
Sin away And for aye
Full atonement maketh.
For our life His own He tenders
And our race, By His grace,
Meet for glory renders!
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 77:6)
