Lessons from a Lamb by Phil

As much as I love my birthday, Christmas and Squirrel Appreciation Day (that's January 21st, in case you were wondering), this is my favorite week of the year. The week between Palm Sunday and Easter, often called Holy Week, not only encompasses Jesus's sacrificial crucifixion for our sins and His resurrection, it is also the rich fulfillment of so much that was hinted about and foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Let's take a look at just one example.

Way back in the book of Exodus we find God's people enslaved by the Egyptians. Moses and Pharaoh butt heads which leads to God unleashing ten plaques on the people. With the final plague (the killing of the first born children) God gave the Israelites instructions on how to be "passed over" by the angel of death by the sacrifice of a spotless lamb and applying the blood to the doorposts of each house. (If you're not familiar with this story, it's time to watch The Ten Commandments where you'll also discover that Moses looked a lot like Charlton Heston.) Check out some often overlooked details in this familiar story...

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. - Exodus 12:3-6

From surrounding scriptures we see that all this occurred in the month of Nisan. According to this passage and Jewish tradition, the lamb was selected on the tenth of Nisan. It was then examined for four days to make sure it was truly spotless and didn't have some hidden defect. If it passed the test, the lamb was pronounced faultless and sacrificed to save the family. The passover meal is celebrated on Nisan 15. Doing a little backward counting in John's gospel we see that Jesus entered Jerusalem and was welcomed (selected) by the people on Palm Sunday which would have been Nisan 10. The next few days Jesus taught in the temple and was questioned and "examined" by the religious teachers. At Jesus's final trial, Pilate (the highest authority in the area) examined Jesus and declared "I find no fault in this man" - Luke 23:4 and John 19:4. Jesus was selected, examined and confirmed to be the perfect spotless lamb, just as God had prescribed thousands of years earlier!

Add to this the very strange pronouncement from John the Baptist at the beginning of Jesus's ministry - "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" - John 1:29. The Jews at that time were looking for a military Messiah to overthrow Rome, not a solution for their sin problem. In their minds, they already had sin covered with the Temple sacrifices. And "the world" wouldn't just apply to Jews, it would also include filthy Gentiles and those outside God's chosen nation - people like you and me.

As we celebrate Holy Week this year, let's take time to thank God for remembering us way back at the first Passover. Undeserving, unworthy, and unable to save ourselves, yet not overlooked in God's age-old salvation plan. To quote a few lines from the hymn...

I know that my Redeemer lives,
He lives triumphant from the grave,
He lives, and while He lives, I'll sing;
He lives, all glory to His name!
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Oh, what a Savior!
Phil and Pam

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