The Lamb - Part 2
Last week, we started looking
at the Lamb of God. We found (in
Revelation 6:15) that no-one - kings, generals, rich, powerful, slave or free -
expects to be able to stand before the wrath of the Lamb … the Lamb, to whom (Revelation
5:13) every creature in heaven, on and under the earth, in the sea, and all
that is in them ascribe blessing and honour and glory and might forever.
And we saw that John the
Baptist identified this “Lamb of God” as Jesus (“the Lord who saves”) Christ (“the
anointed one”), who takes away the sin of the world.
This lamb is clearly
something - or someone - to be feared and respected: its wrath strikes terror;
it receives all the honour in the world; and it will take away all sin. … Pretty unusual activities for a lamb, to be
fair!
It’s probably safe to presume
that the title ‘lamb’ is more symbolic than actual - but, even so, why would
such an ironic symbol be used for such a great hero?
Isaiah 53:6-7 may provide a
clue:
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his
own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet
he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a
sheep that, before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
Here, we have three
references to sheep:
1. Sheep go astray;
2. The Lord lays on the sacrificial lamb the
iniquity of the one slaying the lamb;
3. Lambs led to the slaughter are silent.
Let’s have a look at each of
these in turn.
1. Sheep go astray.
Speaking of salvation, as we
are, that sheep stray from the narrow path back to the Good Shepherd, as he is
trying to lead us by still waters, is a great commentary on the human
condition!
God has only ever had good in
mind for us ever since the beginning of creation, but we have strayed so far
from him that we can’t get back on our own.
I recently learned about the
behaviour of sheep when they are lost.
Apparently, if a sheep gets lost from the rest of the flock, it seems to
become paralysed in fear – even if a wolf approaches it, it will just remain
rooted to the spot. In fact, the wolf
could quite happily saunter over at a very unhurried pace and there would be no
risk whatsoever of the stupid sheep trying to run away. Likewise, if the Shepherd, out looking for
the sheep, calls it, it still does not respond - even if the Shepherd actually
finds it and walks right up to it, it will not move. There are two ways to break the paralysis: either
the flock has to get around the lost sheep (bringing it ‘back into the fold’)
or the Shepherd has to actually physically lift the sheep onto his shoulders
and carry it back to the flock.
(Again, the similarities are
uncanny!)
Jesus is The Good Shepherd,
carrying us away from the jaws of death and back to green pastures, but he also
took on flesh - taking human form - in order to redeem our flesh. In this case, if we are represented as a flock of stupid sheep, it makes sense that,
symbolically, he is also represented as ovine.
2. The Lord lays on the sacrificial lamb the
iniquity of the one slaying the lamb.
In Genesis 22, we read that,
early one morning, Father Abraham - accompanied by two other men - led his
'only son', whom he loves, out to be sacrificed on Mount Moriah (later
Jerusalem), the wood upon which the son was to be sacrificed upon his own back. We then read that Abraham’s son returned
alive, a ram having been provided to take Isaac’s place.
In Exodus 12, we read that -
just like in Genesis 22 - it was ‘Firstborn Son vs. Lamb’ again. In Exodus 12, the one, true, living God sets
up a Judgement Day, in which all idol-worshippers will be judged and destroyed
according to their sin … but then offers a lamb’s blood as an acceptable substitute.
We saw that salvation from
the coming judgement had nothing to do with the moral character, standing in
society, state of heart or mind, or anything else to do with the people inside the house, and everything to do
with the presence of the blood on the door outside
the house.
It was another example of
God’s wonderful irony (or perhaps ours, from his perspective!) that it’s not about
what’s on the inside that counts, but
what’s on the outside!
The lamb didn’t deserve to be
slain, and the slayer didn’t deserve to go free, but the Lord laid on the lamb
the iniquity of the slayer.
3. Lambs led to the slaughter, and sheep
before shearers, are silent.
So, this week, we’ll look at
little closer at why Isaiah mentioned this aspect of ovine behaviour.
Last week, we looked at our
need to remind ourselves of our pronouncement as ‘innocent’, because of Jesus,
through things like taking communion together.
This week, I want to make it more personal.
Last week, we looked at three
hypothetical families preparing the roast lamb on the night of the Passover,
and saw that it doesn’t matter what they might be like as people – what sins
they might have committed or even still be guilty of – Christ’s blood is
available for all. This week, I want to explore
what might mean for you and for me.
So let’s look at an
individual who was very directly and personally impacted by Jesus’ crucifixion
– in fact, he was arguably the person who was most literally ‘substituted’ in
the whole Bible … let’s open up Matthew 27:15… [page … in the church bibles]
Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd
any one prisoner whom they wanted. And
they had, then, a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to
them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus … who is
called Christ?” For he knew that it was
out of envy that they had delivered him up.
Besides, while he was sitting on the judgement seat, his wife sent word
to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much
because of him today in a dream.”
Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for
Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor
again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?”
And they said, “Barabbas.”
Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus … who is called
Christ?!”
They all said, “Let him be crucified!”
And he said, “Why, what evil has he done?”
But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!”
So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot
was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I
am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.”
And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”
Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus,
delivered him to be crucified.
So who was this
Barabbas? Mark 15:7 and Luke 23:19
describe him as a man, among the rebels in prison, who had been thrown into
prison for an insurrection started in the city, and who had committed murder in
the insurrection. John 18:40 suggests he
might just have been a robber. He could
be any kind of criminal, but it’s entirely probable that he was a compatriot of
the two men crucified either side of Jesus - and crucifixion was his fate.
Did he deserve to be
there? Possibly: if he committed murder,
God’s Law does demand a life for a life; if he was an insurrectionist, however,
he was merely ideological; a conscientious objector; a political prisoner –
surely that doesn’t deserve crucifixion!
How did he get to be in the
position he was in? What was his
background? We are not told – all we
have is his name … but what a name! Barabbas
means ‘son of the father’ or, perhaps more accurately, ‘son of daddy’! This suggests that he was named by a doting
father, which suggests a loving home, or possibly a home that knew salvation
(naming their son trinitarianly!?) … either way, it doesn’t sound like the
classic environment for raising a criminal!
My point is this: Barabbas
represents all of us. Brought up in a
loving home / brought up to be a criminal; Christian / non-Christian; murderer
/ robber / freedom fighter / political ideologue.
… And someone - representing
all of us - for whom Jesus was willing to keep his silence in the face of false
accusations in order to take his place on the cross. Just before our reading in Matthew 27, verses
11-14 read:
Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you
the King of the Jews?”
Jesus said, “You have said so.”
But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no
answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you
not hear how many things they testify against you?”
But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the
governor was greatly amazed.
Why would he do that? Why would Jesus hold his tongue when he had
every right to label every single one of his accusers as liars, or at least misguided?
It might be easier to flip
the question around: if you were
accused (falsely or otherwise!) of something that you objected to, why would
you speak out, instead of holding
your silence?
Would it not be to clear your
name? To defend your honour? To stop people from judging and condemning
you?
So why didn’t Jesus speak out?
Well, he didn’t need to
‘clear his name’. His name, “Jesus”,
means “The Lord (who) saves” … and The Lord saves by taking upon himself the
sin of the world. So, far from wanting
to disassociate all the accusations of sinfulness from his name, it was through
those very accusations being associated with him that his name realised its
truest meaning.
He also didn’t need to defend
any honour, either. He was about to go
the cross, where there was no honour,
and achieve something that would result in his being given the highest honour of
all.
And he didn’t need to worry
about stopping people from judging and condemning him – he was walking headlong
into the ultimate judgement, before the one, true, living judge, in order to
take the condemnation of all of us …
the judgement and condemnation of anyone other than this judge would have meant nothing to him by comparison.
So Jesus had no need to speak
out. He, who knew no sin, was made to be
sin, that we might become the righteousness of God. In his not-speaking-out, Jesus was accepting
our sin onto himself, that he might take it all to the cross and put it to
death. He was crushed, that we might go
free.
Jesus became our substitute.
So let’s get back to
Barabbas, the man who possibly felt this substitution more keenly than anyone
else in the whole Bible. Let’s re-read,
together, the passage in Matthew 27 that describes how Christ becomes Barabbas’
substitute on the cross on page … of the church bibles.
I would like to read verses 15-17
and then verses 21-25 in order to preserve the flow of the narrative … but I
wonder if we, together, could perform it?!
If I narrate and take Pilates’ part, would you do me the honour of playing
the part of the crowd?!
Despite my being a school
teacher, this is not a “I want to see
if you’re all still awake” thing, and it’s not a “I’m up here embarrassing myself so I want to share the love”
thing – I’m just hoping that we will get a clearer understanding of what might
have happened that day, and to be able to identify with what Jesus did on the
cross in a more personal way.
Will you help me?
So I’m going to read from
verse 15 to 17 and then we’ll jump to verse 21 and just read to verse 25. Do listen to the whole thing as well as speaking
your lines, but your parts basically come when I read: “they said”; “they all
said”; “they shouted all the more”; and “all the people answered”! … Let’s give it a go!
Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd
any one prisoner whom they wanted. And
they had, then, a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to
them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus … who is
called Christ?”
The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to
release for you?”
And they said, “Barabbas.”
Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called
Christ?”
They all said, “Let him be crucified!”
And he said, “Why, what evil has he done?”
But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!”
So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot
was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I
am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.”
And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”
(Great - thank you!)
Now let me just push this
dramatization a little further: this time you don’t have to say anything or
perform or anything, I just want you to imagine – so if you want to close your
eyes for this bit, please feel free.
So, imagine, now, you are Barabbas,
in the prison beneath the Praetorium - what do you hear?
Well, first of all, you’d
probably hear the crowd chanting … you can just make it out … they just shouted
out your name: “Barabbas!” … that made your ears prick up!
But you’re concerned: the
tone of the crowd is angry, like a riot is about to break out. Last time you
were in a riot, you were on the side of those with the power – to begin with,
at least – and in your hot-headedness you had mercilessly ended the life of
another human being … someone whose life you know it was only ever God’s
right to end.
What are they saying? You listen carefully…
“Crucify him!” … Oh God, no! That can’t be!
You know you’ve killed someone but you were part of the insurrection –
you were on the side of the people, against the occupying forces … you must have mis-heard them.
“Crucify him!” … No. You heard correctly … and it was louder this
time; more urgent. … But surely they can’t be so angry with you … they have
misunderstood you – if only you could explain to them about the insurrection,
they’d forgive the murder…
“His blood be on us and on
our children!”
No, there was no question of
forgiveness: there was no excuse for taking a man’s life. Today your judgement has come. You’ve heard it with your very own ears and
there is a murderous crowd up above, who are baying for your blood. It’s all over now.
You know how this goes –
you’ve seen it happen to others on Death Row with you, who have been crucified
before you: you are going to be dragged from your cell, beaten and scourged by
the local garrison of those hated oppressors, forced to carry the instrument of
your own torture through the streets of the city in which you once used to run
freely whilst the baying crowd strike you, spit on you, scream at you, and then
you’re going to be thrown down onto the hard wooden cross, iron spikes driven
through your hands and feet, and then you’ll be lifted high for all to see. For all to see you naked and bleeding to
death. For all to see your enemy’s
victory over you, as you die slowly from the sheer pain, agony, suffocation,
and bleeding. Death cannot come too soon
… and yet, as you sit there in your cell, this hell is all still ahead of you!
Your heart races as you hear
the guards’ keys open the door at the end of the corridor. Footsteps echo louder and louder before
stopping at the next-cell-but-one from you.
The door opens. Suddenly, there is
the frantic, desperate screaming of a man faced with all his worst nightmares
at once. A shout, a sickening thud,
silence, and the sound of an unconscious body being dragged out into the
corridor.
Then the next-door cell to
yours is opened. You can hear the
pathetic, uncontrollable whimpering of a man whose strength has left him. No words are spoken but the dragging chains
give away his departure to the same fate.
Then you hear the key in your
own cell door. You will not scream; you will
not cry – you will not give them the
pleasure of seeing you broken – but your heart is beating so fast that you
might die from a cardiac arrest before they get to you. The cell door creaks open. Your entire body is shaking. The silhouette of a massive brute of a man
blocks the light from the corridor. You
close your eyes as he enters the cell, bends over, unlocks your shackles,
stands up, and says:
“On your feet! … Your lucky
day: imperial pardon – you’re going home, and Jesus of Nazareth is going to be
crucified in your place.”
As I think through this
story, I get a lump in my throat every time.
That Jesus loves me so much that he would do that for me, when all he
deserved was nothing but good and blessing and all the love in the world, moves
me.
But, too often, I then go on
to think: “…but my sin doesn’t
deserve crucifixion like that – I’m not that
bad. Surely just an angry talking-to
would suffice for my sin – not death.”
But God’s word speaks to me
and people like me:
“For although they knew God,
they didn't love him - their thinking became futile, their foolish hearts
darkened - they claimed wisdom, but became fools, exchanging the truth about
God for a lie, and worshipping, and serving, created things rather than the
Creator.
“As they did not think it
worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, God gave them over to a depraved
mind, filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity: full of
envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice, they are gossips, slanderers,
God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful, inventing ways of doing evil! They have no understanding, no love, no
mercy. They know God’s righteous decree,
that those who do such things deserve death, but continue to do them.
“You who pass judgment do the
same things! Seeing God’s judgment
against those who do such things, finding it to be based on truth, and finding
yourself to be free, you show contempt for the riches of God’s kindness and
patience, not realising that it is intended to lead you to him. But he will repay each person according to
what they have done - for those who are self-seeking, reject God, and follow
evil, there will be wrath and anger.”
I don’t know the half of how
my selfish ways hurt others.
The FairTrade movement has
made me more aware that my ‘buying cheap’, in order to preserve as much money
for myself as possible, has a knock-on effect that keeps poor people thousands
of miles away enslaved.
So I’ve come to be able to
see myself as one of the ‘rich that oppress the poor’, who I condemn when I
read about such people in the Bible. … And
yet do I change? Or do I justify it to
myself citing excuses like “I have more burdens on my disposable income”, or “everyone
else is doing it”, or “nothing I can do will make a difference”, while the poor
– also made in the image of God and loved by him - remain oppressed by me and
my kind? Who else do I tread down in my
self-centred way of living?
I am guilty. I do deserve to be thrust out of God’s
loving presence. I do need Jesus to take that hit for me, because I won’t survive the
devastation of being removed from God’s love and blessing.
Thankfully, not everyone is
like me, and there are some whose response to this wonderful gospel of Jesus is
more along the lines of “What must I do?”- I wonder if that was Barabbas’
reaction?
Certainly Matthew 19:16, Mark
10:17, and Luke 18:18 all mention a situation where this was a typical response
to Jesus – from Luke 18:
A ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal
life?”
Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit
adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour your
father and mother.’”
And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.”
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the
poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was
extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he
had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter
the kingdom of God! For it is easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the
kingdom of God.”
Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”
But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”
So this young man has witnessed
Jesus’ life and teaching, and found him to be good – he addresses him as ‘good
teacher’ – so it would seem that Jesus would be a good person to ask how to
guarantee eternal life.
Jesus’ response is
cryptic! He questions the man as to why
he has made the judgement that Jesus is ‘good’, when he should know that only
‘God’ is good – will the young man make the logical connection, that Jesus is,
therefore, God?
Jesus then lists the
commandments – why has he called Jesus ‘good’? Is it because he has witnessed him keeping the commandments Jesus is now listing? It’s almost as though he is pointing to himself as the vessel
through which the man can be saved.
Of course, the response –
typical of every human being – is focussed on himself and his own performance:
“All these I have kept!” … so
Jesus follows his lead – if the man wants to put the focus onto himself, so
will Jesus: “can you give up all that
you have been given for the sake of
those who do not have?”
This was Jesus’ mission in a
nutshell: he was the one who had come
to sell all that he had, to give it all to the poor.
If the ruler had had ‘ears to
hear’, he might have taken his focus off himself and realised that he needed to
be hidden in Christ with God.
Sadly, not only he, but also
Jesus’ disciples, are foxed … so Jesus puts it in the simplest terms possible:
“what is impossible with men, is possible with God” – in other words, trust not
in yourself, but only in God. In Christ, we are saved.
Acts 16:30, perhaps, puts it
more simply: when Paul and Silas’ Philippian jailer sees God’s power and
righteousness, he cries out “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
And they said, “Believe in
the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved”.
It's as simple as that - no contract; no give and take ... pretty much just take!
From Psalm 116:12-13...
What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.
In a minute, we are going to have an opportunity to raise the cup of salvation symbolically as we take communion together. If you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, please do join us ... but let me pray first:
Father, thank you for loving
us so much that you have not left us depraved and hopeless but that you have
shown your love for us at the cross, with you offering up your only son, whom
you love – and your son willingly offering himself up – in order that we might
live forever with you. Transform our
minds and hearts, we pray, to be able to grasp how high and how wide and how
deep is your love for us, and to be able to love you with all our hearts and
minds and souls and spirits and strength – in Jesus Christ’s name – Amen!
