Over
the past month, we have been looking at the significance of the title of Jesus
that John the Baptist gave him when he saw him walking towards him and shouted,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world!” We’ve been
looking at why Jesus would have been referred to as a lamb and not some other
animal (although he was referred to as the Lion of Judah as well). After all, it’s not as if the lamb is an animal
that is greatly feared or thought of as being one that represents a place of
honor, at least not in our modern thinking.
However, if we walk back through this series, we see that the lamb did in
fact play a significant role in the proper worship and daily living of Old
Testament Israel. We also see that the
Lamb of God plays a significant role in our proper worship and daily living today. In fact, the Lamb of God doesn’t just play a
role in how we worship, but he is how we are able to worship God today.
We
saw during our first week in this series the need for an unblemished lamb as a
sin offering for the people of Israel.
The priests were to follow the rules of Leviticus 4 and take the
unblemished lamb from the people and offer it up as a means of atoning for
their sins. This was our introduction to
this system of sacrifice and atonement of sins coming through the shedding of
innocent blood. After that, we looked at
Isaiah 53 and the Song of the Suffering Servant where Isaiah made the
connection between the coming Messiah, the Suffering Servant, and this
unblemished lamb used for sin offerings.
“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.” We then moved on to
1 Peter 1 and we looked at the cross as the place (or altar) of the sacrifice
of this lamb, the Lamb of God. We noted
that the cross is both a sign of God’s love for us and a sign that we are to
fear him. God’s wrath is displayed just
as much in the cross as his love is. We
then turned to the scene in Revelation 7 that depicts the Lamb of God being surrounded
by a multitude of people who were waving palm branches at him, and we made the
connection to the scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem on that Sabbath day prior
to his arrest, trial, and crucifixion. We
talked about the ultimate victory that Jesus was on his way to accomplish despite
the people who cheered him having no idea how it was to come about. We even took a few moments earlier this week
to draw the connection between Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper and the
Passover prior to Israel’s leaving Egypt.
The blood of the lamb that saved the Hebrews in Egypt cannot be
separated from the blood of the Lamb of God that saves us this very day. We noted that the Passover was ultimately a
foreshadowing of the crucifixion, and that brings us here to our text today.
Now,
I’m sorry if any of you are disappointed that we’re not specifically looking at
one of those glorious texts that tell us of the resurrection and the empty tomb
from one of the gospel accounts. Notice
that I said I’m sorry if you’re disappointed, but I’m not sorry for the text
that we have. You see, this text that we
have today, while being part of the revelation of John as to the things that
are to come about, tells both a story of what has happened and what will
happen. This text give allusions back to
Christ’s first coming and looks forward to his second coming as well. Just look at some of the words and phrases
used with our current context of Easter Sunday and the resurrection in
mind. “And I saw a strong angel
proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its
seal?’ And no one in heaven or on earth
or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began
to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look
into it.” As I read these words,
my mind goes back to what it must have been like to have been an Israelite
prior to Christ’s coming into the world.
If we look at the scroll as being a covenant between God and man (which
is a common view of what this scroll could represent), then we can sort of
picture it. We can picture the people of
Israel looking around asking themselves if anyone was worthy of living up to this
covenant. After all, the people of
Israel knew that there was a Messiah coming to fulfill promises that God had
made, even if they didn’t know the full extent of what they really meant. Finding no one anywhere who was capable of
fulfilling the will of the Father, the only thing they could do was weep and
hope for the future Messiah to come. It’s
kind of similar to where we stand on Christ’s second coming. Sure, we believe completely that it will
happen, but we most certainly don’t live as we should in light of that fact.
Then,
we see the words, “weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of
David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” It’s as if we see the promise of the Messiah
all over again in these words. It’s as
if we’re reading Genesis 3:15 or Jeremiah 31 spoken through illustrations. In other words, Jesus has come and he and he
alone has the power to fulfill this covenant of works between God and man. How is he going to fulfill it? Well, “between the throne and the four living
creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been
slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God
sent out into all the earth.”
Now, I feel like I need to explain something here. The number 7’s usage in Revelation is not a
literal amount, but instead is used to signify completion. So, this passage is saying that whatever it
means for these scrolls to the unsealed, that work has been completed through
the slaying of this Lamb. The means by
which Jesus will complete his work is through his being slain.
Later
on John saw some of the multitude singing a song to this Lamb that goes, “Worthy
are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by
your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people
and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they
shall reign on the earth.” Does
this language not just scream out Jesus Christ?
Or how about what we find beginning in v. 12, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and
blessing!” How can we read these
words and not think of Jesus, the Lamb of God?
We even see all the creatures of the earth saying, “To him who sits on the throne and
to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” If I haven’t done an adequate job over the
past few weeks of equating Jesus and the title of Lamb of God and the
correlation between these two and the sacrifice of the lamb to atone for sins
then this certainly is taking care of that today.
Now,
with the time that I have left, I want to answer one big question. How does this Lenten series on the Lamb of
God, this text on the Lamb as being slain for the unsealing of this scroll and
the fulfillment of God’s covenant, and the resurrection that we celebrate this
day (that we read about in our Call to Worship) all relate to one another? The answer is simple really; it’s the message
of the Gospel. It’s the message of
Romans 5:12-21, that we were dead in Adam but are alive in Christ. Our Lenten series has been focused primarily
upon the sacrificial aspect of the Lamb of God.
After all that’s what that title really indicates. Sacrifice is a large part of what is included
in this particular title of Jesus. Well,
why was there a need for a sacrifice? As
we’ve said all along, because of the sins of mankind. One little lamb temporarily cleansed the sins
of an individual (or family), but the Lamb of God has the power to completely
cleanse all of mankind for all of eternity.
Jesus was the only one who could do it, which is the point that we get
to today. The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ
the Son, was the only one who could live the completely obedient life and
fulfill what we could not in the covenant of works. It would take his death to satisfy the wrath
of God, the just and righteous wrath because of the sin of Adam in the Garden. You see, as we said earlier, we can’t
separate the wrath of God from the love of God.
I
heard someone telling a story the other day about someone who didn’t believe in
the wrath of God. Upon being further
questioned, the person said that they simply viewed the cross as an act of
love. The person to whom this story was
told responded with a story of their own.
“Let’s say you’ve got two friends sitting around a campfire sharing
stories. Then, one of the friends turns
to the other and says “I love you” and jumps in the fire and is burned to
death. That’s not love, that’s
foolishness. However, let’s say your
house is on fire and your friend runs in and pulls you out but in the process
loses his life. He receives the
punishment (the fate) that should have fallen upon you; now that’s love.” You see, to have an act of love then there
has to be some punishment, some sense of sacrifice. There has to be some measure of I deserve one
thing but what I actually receive is something so much more. We cannot begin to understand the love of God
without understanding the wrath of God.
And
so we come to the empty tomb. God the
Father poured out his wrath upon his only Son, the Lamb of God, for our
sake. The Son has given his life as a
ransom for our own. He has breathed his
last breath, died, and was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. However, he did not remain in that
state. His rising up from the dead shows
us his conquering of sin and sin’s greatest weapon, death. This is the completion of his
crucifixion. This is the moment that we
celebrate the angel’s words, “He is not
here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” In just a moment, our time spent in worship
will be completed and we will be back in the “real world.” And you know what? The tomb will be just as empty in a few hours
as it is right now. And when we go back
to work tomorrow, the tomb will still be empty.
And a few weeks from now when the “high” from all the Easter
celebrations has worn off, the tomb will still be empty. As I said, this empty tomb represents the
conquering of death and sin. This is
news that is too good to keep to ourselves.
All of the other things that we read in Scripture about Jesus; his
teachings and miracles, all find their real meaning in the fact that he died
and rose again from the grave. Those
folks who look to Jesus as some moral teacher only are those who look at Jesus
as if he never came out of that tomb.
However, we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our Savior was dead,
buried, and the tomb closed in behind him.
And then on the third day, the Sabbath day, he rose again and left the
tomb and remained for 40 days before ascending to heaven and sitting at the
right hand of the Father, where he remains to this very day serving as our
Advocate, our Lord, our Savior. I think
the Italian Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli beautifully states what the
resurrection of Christ means to us: “Since
he is risen and is our head, we are also risen in him. Tell me, I pray you, when one holds his head
above the deep and deadly waters of a fast-flowing stream, do we not say that
he has escaped death even though his other bodily members are yet below the
surface? The same holds true for us, who
are all one body in Christ. Our head is
risen from the depths of death. Even
though we may appear to be overwhelmed in the mortal stream, yet we are risen
in him.” Glory be to God; in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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