Behold the Lamb!

Welcome! In a little while we will remember the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on a dark day some two thousand years ago. We will remember Him with the bread and with the cup, doing what Jesus Himself taught His disciples to do. As Paul wrote in I Cor. 11,

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. – I Cor. 11:23-26


Before we do this, however, I would like to share a few things I have thought about this week.

In terms of the news stories in the media this week, it has not been a pleasant week. The ink is barely dry on the stimulus package, and already people are saying that it won’t fix our economic problems. There have been more layoffs, and the stock market went down, way down, again. More and more reporters use the “d” word – depression – and taken all together it is enough to make anyone, well, depressed.

But our citizenship, our real citizenship, is not of this country; it is not of this earth! We are simply aliens here, visitors passing through, spending a brief night here before we come to the eternal Day. In this we are simply followers; there is One who took this journey before us, the One who existed from even before the beginning of time. When John the Baptist saw Him, he exclaimed,

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” – John 1:29b

Today, we cannot behold Him in the flesh, but we can fix our eyes of faith on Him. Jesus is the news story above all other news stories. Imagine a newscast that only talked about the results of junior high football games. In comparison to Jesus, all of the daily chatter that gets called news is similarly unimportant, equally trivial. I Peter 1:18 says this:

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about perishable things, I think about food, about milk, and meat, and fruit, and vegetables, and bread. But gold and silver? Perishable?

Did you know that back even in the days of ancient Egypt, one ounce of gold could buy roughly 300 or 400 loaves of bread. Today, after thousands of years, that ratio is about the same. In my mind, stocks may go down, properties may lose value, and businesses may fail, but gold and silver and yes, diamonds, are forever. But God’s Word says they are perishable. And of course, God’s Word, as always, is right! Gold and silver can be confiscated. They are not easily traded. And a day will come when even all the gold and silver in the world will be useless to save people.

And as the verse says, they are worse than useless when it comes to redeeming us from the “empty way of life.” They are part of the empty way of life. They cannot save our souls or protect us on the day of God’s judgment. Truly they are perishable, just as our entire world is perishable.

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. – I Peter 1:18-19
There He is! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! He is our redeemer. He saves us, not from temporary economic hardships, but for eternity. He saves us from our sins. He takes our sin away!

Jesus does this with His blood. The Old Testament law hinted at the incredible truth to come, but it was only a pale shadow of what Christ, the Lamb of God, has done. In the Old Testament law, ritualistic sacrifice of innocent animals was proscribed as a formula for taking away sin. Read Lev. 4-6 to get a sense of the different sacrifices and the rules involved. Leviticus 6:1 says this:

The Lord said to Moses: "If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the Lord by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him, or if he finds lost property and lies about it, or if he swears falsely, or if he commits any such sin that people may do- when he thus sins and becomes guilty, he must return what he has stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to him, or the lost property he found, or whatever it was he swore falsely about. He must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day he presents his guilt offering. And as a penalty he must bring to the priest, that is, to the Lord, his guilt offering, a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for him before the Lord, and he will be forgiven for any of these things he did that made him guilty." – Lev. 6:1-7

I love how this is worded… It highlights some particular sins, but then goes on to lump in everything else – “if he commits any such sin that people may do.” Do you think people really obeyed this law? I know that if it were me, I would run out of unblemished animals in a day or two! Then what are you supposed to do? Do you understand that the Law didn’t really work? There weren’t enough animals to atone for the Israelites more than a few days. There weren’t enough priests around to sacrifice that many animals. Can you imagine the backlog, if people really fully obeyed this law? You would have to wait months to atone for something you did, and in the meantime, what about the other hundreds of sins you had committed since then?

As for the phrase “of proper value,” other translations are I think a bit more clear, in that it implies that the decision of what it means to be without defect is not left to the man who has sinned, but that it is decided by Moses or by the priest. In other words, “without defect” meant according to God’s standards, not ours. And as a shadow of things to come, we know that Jesus was not just better than average, He was without sin according to God’s perfect standards.

Because sacrifices for every single sin, although in the Law, could not really work, there were also provisions for the annual sacrifice for sins. This is the annual Day of Atonement, on the 10th day of the 7th month. This sacrifice involved the blood of a bull and goat. It is described in Lev. 16. But do you understand how inadequate an annual sacrifice really is? What happens when you commit sin on the 11th day of 7th month? The book of Hebrews comments directly on the Old Testament sacrificial system. In Chapter 10, it says,

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. – Hebr. 10:1-4

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body you prepared for Me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am—it is written about Me in the scroll—I have come to do Your will, O God.' " 

First He said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then He said, "Here I am, I have come to do Your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. – Hebr. 10:5-10

Once for all! Only one sacrifice. Jesus was without sin, without blemish, by God’s own standards. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away your sins and my sins!
Jesus dying on the cross was the most important event in all of history. Even the amazing events foretold in Revelations pale to the cross. To help you see this, I am going to read a large passage beginning in Revelations 5. In the midst of all that is happening, listen for how Jesus is called the Lamb, and listen for how He is praised for what that means, that He chose to die on the cross to rescue us and to take away our sin.

Then I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. And when He had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain, and with Your blood You purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth."

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped. – Rev. 5:1-14

As we now individually take the bread and the cup “of the Lord”, let us make sure we do not do so in an “unworthy manner,” as Paul warns in I Cor. 11. What does this mean? It certainly doesn’t mean that we have to have our lives all together before we take the bread and the cup – certainly not! Paul’s context in I Cor. 11 was people who viewed the time of the bread and cup as simply a party or a meal. There is little risk of us calling this a meal, but clearly we, each of us, should spend time remembering the Lamb and what He has done for us. And we should each in our hearts respond to the Lord, thanking Him and worshiping Him for taking away our sin. The purpose of the bread and the cup is to help us remember. Paul tells us to examine ourselves. If we have un-confessed sin in our lives, we should tell the Lord, confessing our sin to Him. Let us all recognize what we do here so that, as Paul says, we do not “eat and drink judgment on ourselves.” We should never fear these times, but we should realize that they are holy because we come before the Lord who is holy. And so, with our eyes of faith, let us put aside worry, or anxiousness, or fear for the future. Instead, let us behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.