The Lamb of God - Part Two

 

I realize about the only time most of us associate lambs with Christmas is when we think about the manger scene.  You know, I get the fact that those of us who celebrate Christmas year after year tend to focus naturally on the birth, and the joy brought by the baby, and life in and of itself.  And, truly, it is the event worth rejoicing over perennially; for without the arrival of this infant, Immanuel, God With Us, we would never fully know God.

                    

I had nothing written when I started this blog.  I have nothing written when I start each post – even when I indicate there will be a second part.  Granted, I have notes scribbled on bits of paper – random ideas that emerge as the season progresses – great blog fodder, as I like to call them.  But, I have no agenda other than asking the Lord to speak to us about the Advent of His coming.  And He’s taken us down this path that some might feel would be better suited to the spring season when our thoughts turn to what we call Easter.  (Although that, too, contains a message of life (after the crucifixion), ‘cause that’s what God’s all about!)

It’s important that we consider the real reason why God took on human flesh and willingly subjected Himself for a time to the limitations and even degradations of His own creation.  This I can tell you, it wasn’t because we were so welcoming, warm, honorable, humble, that He was just so compelled to step out of eternal splendor in His heavenly abode to come and chill with us for a bit.

There are some who would consider the inclusion of Santa Claus and similar stories in our Christmas celebrations to be idolatrous.  Let me tell you, if we choose to celebrate the birth of Christ to the exclusion of the life, death, and resurrection of the same, that is the real idolatry.  We simply cannot celebrate conventions of our own making and call that worship.  Don’t even bother taking the tree out of the box, because without understanding the reason Christ came and the ramifications of His coming, the ritual is pointless and empty.

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Cast aside all your thoughts of chestnuts roasting and sugar plums dancing.  Eternal God came to temporal earth for one reason alone – to save us from our sin.  Jesus, the Lord is Salvation.  Now, trust me on this one, this is a gift.  This demands rejoicing!  We can be saved!  This is really good news!  So, what’s the problem?  Light the Yule log, and ladle up the nog!  Not so fast – there is a problem.  The problem is that – especially in this day and age in America – we are not so willing to admit we are sinners.  I’m okay, you’re okay.  Uh-huh.

I came to know the Lord around the age of eight-ish and before that life-changing moment was pretty much what you’d call a pleaser personality – which may sound noble but in truth is quite arrogant.  Yes, even in that persona, I understood at that elementary age that in order to be perceived in a positive light, life was a game requiring lots of gyrations.  Suffice it to say, I knew what I was really like, despite what others may have thought.  Bottom line, I knew I was a sinner.

You may be asking yourself what a barnyard animal has to do with the state of man’s condition. Moses sang in Deuteronomy 32:10 of how the LORD chose His people in order to form them into a nation:

He found him [Israel] in a desert land,

And in the howling waste of a wilderness;

He encircled him,
He cared for him,

He guarded him as the pupil of His eye.

The desert, the wilderness, symbolizes lack of abundance, a severity of isolation, harshness of state, and is analogous with a life in sin apart from the redemptive work of the Savior.  Notice the language Moses used to describe God’s love for a people who did not know Him – the watchful working of the Shepherd over His sheep.

Now you’d think a called people would respond in kind to a loving God who guarded them as He would His own eyeball, but that’s not what history would bear out. Indeed, Isaiah the prophet in one of the most profoundly prophetic passages concerning the coming Messiah (Isaiah 53) lamented in verse 6:

All of us like sheep have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to his own way;

But the LORD has caused

the iniquity of us all

To fall on Him.

Oh, the glory contained in those three tiny words, But the LORD!  The apostle Paul expressed the same sentiment in just two tiny words in his letter to the church at Rome (Romans 8:3): “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh…”  God did!

God had given the Israelites the Law through Moses (think Charlie Heston and The Ten Commandments if that helps you) and had instituted the sacrificial system whereby the Jewish people would have to offer over and over and over again young, blemish-free lambs to somehow act as a substitution for the sins of the people.  This would have gone on ad infinitum had it not been for the intervention of Christ, the Lamb of God.

So, to recap, what we had no power to do for ourselves (atone for our sins), and what we apparently had no desire to even worry about (relating to the God who created and loves us), our God did for us, because He cares that much about being with us and knowing us and enjoying us and vice versa.  Dunno ‘bout you, but I find that simply AMAZING.

This October my brother’s fam and Jared and I went camping up north of the Valley of the Sun a bit and soon realized elk hunting season had officially opened.  Around here they ensure the elk population is not annihilated via a lottery system.  Suffice it to say, you don’t always find the most experienced hunters when they’re only permitted to hone their skills about every fourth year or so.  So my nephew and his brother found themselves leaving the comfort of the campfire one evening after midnight to assist some yahoos (sorry) in carting back their elk carcass in pieces… on quads.  Now if you know my nephew, Daniel, he’s no sissy lala (his terminology).  He’s a buff, tatted out dude who ain’t skerred o’ nothin’ or nobody (but with a heart of gold, mind you).  But the blood spilt from this cervid was enough to cause him to turn away lest he regurgitate that night’s fire-roasted steak.  I got to see the animal’s decapitated head the next day with the blood still running out of its mouth, and I know what he meant.

And I know you’re thinking, Jill’s lost her mind blogging about bloody murder at Christmas time.  But, I think it’s appropriate that we face what our sin does, what it did, and not try to pretty it up, because it just cannot be done.

Our sin – yours and mine – caused innocent blood to be shed – and it was not pretty (read Isaiah 53 in its entirety, and you’ll see what I mean).  I pray you realize the cost to Christ and acknowledge Him as your Savior this season.

…knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. ~ 1 Peter 1:18-19