Week 3 (Joy): To Be the Lamb of God

Jesus was born to be the lamb of God. 

Today we read the story of the Passover. It’s a bleak and dark story... God sent the angel of death to kill the first born son of every living creature in Egypt. It’s one the stories that make it hard for folks to reconcile the Old Testament with Jesus. 

But the thing about the Old Testament is that Jesus' story is all over it. Specifically, this story foreshadows the cost of redemption. 

Let’s break it down: 

1. The Jews were a people in slavery. (We are all slaves to sin) 
2. The Jews were crying out for freedom. (We groan for release from sin and its devastation) 
3. God sends a messenger to plead release. (The prophets and ultimately Jesus come, teaching the ways of release) 
4. Pharaoh will not let the slaves go (Sin will not release us due to consequences or logic)
5. Finally the Pharaoh is cost his only and beloved son (as are all of his people) and he begrudgingly releases the slaves. (Sin is confronted and temporarily releases its hold in circumstances of dire consequences - the loss of our most beloved things). 
6. To be spared from this consequence the Jewish people are given a substitute for their children, the blood of a spotless lamb. (Jesus is our substitutionary atonement, our way out of sin that doesn’t cost us dearly) 

 This is Joyful! We are free to escape sin through Jesus. We don’t have to suffer the consequences to be free. This is the story from the beginning of creation.

Notice we are freed in this story not only from our own sin, but from the hold of Sin (Pharaoh). It is personal but it is also freedom from something bigger than our personal choices. It’s one of the metaphors about sin that has really gotten lost over the years.