Page 2 January 8, 2012

I.  The lambs died to point to Jesus as our Savior.

   Sometimes kids ask some very difficult questions.  Can you imagine if you four year old came up to you and asked, “Mom, Dad, where do babies come from?”  Suddenly a cold shiver runs through your body.  How will you answer him?  He is only four years old.  Do you go into all the details?  You know you can’t lie an say storks drop off babies.  

    I can imagine and Old Testament four year old asking mom and dad, “Why do all the lambs have to die?”  Thousands and tens of thousands of lambs died every year in Old Testament Israel.  Now, some of you grew up on the farm you butchered animals and are not squeamish about it.  I didn’t.  I suppose if some natural disaster hit our country and we lost the past hundred years of technology, if we no longer could buy our food at the grocery store but had to raise it ourselves, I suppose I would learn to butcher animals for food.

    The Old Testament believers butchered animals for food, but some of their butchering seemed like a waste.  I mean, they would slaughter a lamb only to burn it up on a brass altar at the temple without eating it.  Did you know that God commanded that two lambs die every day at the temple?  One in the morning and one at night.  Periodically a family is suppose to sacrifice a lamb as a fellowship offering to the Lord.  If you or your family committed a sin, you were suppose to take a lamb to the temple and sacrifice it as a sin offering.  If we did that today, we would sacrifice a lamb each time we confessed our sins in the Sunday worship.  And, of course, there was the annual Passover celebration where lambs were sacrificed to remember how the blood of the lambs saved the Israelites from the angel of death in Egypt.

    These lambs were to be only one year old, in their prime.  They were suppose to be without any defect or blemish, but perfect.  That is why God got so mad at his people in Malachi; they were keeping the best lambs and giving to God the diseased, sick, one eyed lambs.

    So, your four year old asks you, “Why do these lambs have to die?”  This is how you can answer him.  “These lambs die because of us and our sins.  Remember how every year the citizens of our town gather in the town square?  The mayor takes a lamb or goat, puts his hand on its head and says, ‘I place on you the sins of our town,’ and the drive it out into the wilderness?  Our sins killed that animal.  And look at the sin offerings we make.  The blood of another alone can allow us to come into God’s presence.  That is why the priest, on the day of atonement, sprinkles blood before he can enter the Holy of Holies.  That is the only reason we can approach God in prayer or at the temple, because the blood of another makes that possible.”

    That is what you would say to your four year old.  They had it driven home that the blood of another is the only way they can be with God.  Then one day, while you were listening to this new preacher called John the Baptist, he paused in his sermon for a moment, pointed to the crest above the Jordan River where Jesus was standing, and he cries out in a loud voice, “LOOK, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

    All those lambs died as foreshadows, graphic pictures of Jesus Christ the Savior.  Like them, he will die in his prime.  Like them, he will be without any sin or stain or blemish of his own.  Like them he will be slaughtered so that they, the people, can be allowed to be in the presence of a holy and just God.  Only his blood will take away the sins of the world.  All those lambs who died didn’t really take away sins; just read the book of Hebrews.  But his blood will for sure wash and clean us of all our sins.  And unlike the lambs who had to die every day, Jesus died only once to save us!

    Now do you get it?  Now do you understand why all those lambs had to die?  The prepared the people for the sacrifice of Jesus.  We don’t need to sacrifice lambs anymore because the reality has come.  Jesus has come and has died for the forgiveness of our sins.  We don’t need the symbols anymore.  I remember once as a child, I got a letter from my aunt.  In it was cut out a picture of a sailboat from a store’s catalog.  At first I was disappointed; I really wanted that toy sailboat for Christmas.  Then a week later, my aunt came to visit and she brought the real thing, a toy sailboat for me.  That picture was only a picture, but it showed me what I was going to get.  So with all those lambs.  They were the picture.  The reality is Jesus.

    Friends, don’t lose the symbolism of the lambs.  Don’t let them die in vain.  The first lesson we learn is, if the blood of another is not shed for us, we would not be allowed in the presence of God.  Our sins are evil, shameful, horrible, damning.  We deserve to die because of them.  We deserve to be driven away from God into the most terrible place possible, hell, because of our sins.  Jesus had to die because of us.  Don’t take your sin lightly.  Don’t hide it.  Don’t excuse it.  Don’t love it.  Look at what your sin did to Jesus when he became sin for us!