Eighteenth Day of Lent

Eighteenth Day of Lent

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

When he [John] saw Jesus passing by, he said,
“Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
John 1:30

Very early in Jesus’ ministry, John identified him in a very unusual way, and proclaims quite clearly the work that Jesus had come to do. But as I read the entire passage, I saw no evidence that those hearing him understood what he was saying.

We seldom see lambs, but lambs were all over the hillsides in Jesus’ day. For the most part they were good for their wool and for their meat, but Jews also knew very well their importance for sacrifice. The priest sacrificed lambs for the sins of the people, an extremely important ritual in the temple.

When they heard John say that Jesus was a lamb who would take away the sin of the world, they would have heard a totally different message than we hear today. If they were listening, they would have heard death. They would have understood that atonement only comes through the shedding of blood, and they’d have known that to be God’s lamb was to be sacrificed!

From early in Jesus’ ministry to the very end, the message was clear. Jesus was going to die. But everything in the gospels encourages us to believe that nobody understood the message.

Why didn’t they hear? Why didn’t they see what was coming? Why didn’t they understand what the prophets had said, carefully recorded in their scrolls and read in the synagogues? I must not be too harsh in my criticism of them, for I know that I don’t really understand! It hurts to think about Jesus – God’s Lamb that died for my sins. But it’s true.

Prayer: Father, open our eye to see the enormity of this fact: Jesus, your Lamb, has taken away our sin. Amen.

And He Set His Face toward Jerusalem. . . .

A Lenten Devotional Guide
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, Spring 2007,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator