Christmas Advent Bible Reading Plan: Jesus Is BornSample

To Be the Lamb of God

I’m fascinated by the traditional Jewish Seder meal, the ceremonial dinner that takes place on the first night of Passover. This meal is the product of God’s command thousands of years ago. He instructed the Israelites (through Moses) to continue the Passover year after year to remember their slavery and the redemption that followed because of God’s love for His people (Exodus 12:14,24).

Roasted lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread—every item holds both a physical and a symbolic position on the table, reminders of the difficult experience of leaving their life of bondage in Egypt. This was a meal that had to be eaten quickly. It was a meal that required a sacrificial lamb to provide sustenance for a long journey. And the blood of that lamb would mark those God would save from death (Exodus 12:23).

It is no coincidence that Jesus’s death and crucifixion occurred during Passover week; God is always right on time, despite what I may sometimes think. Jesus is the full embodiment of the Passover Lamb. For thousands of years, Israelites had been practising the story, remembering. A lamb without defect would need to be sacrificed. People, oppressed and in bondage to slavery, would need God to act in a mighty way to lose their chains and set them free. Over and over again, the story was told year after year so that even the children would ask their parents, “What does this ceremony mean to you?” (Exodus 12:26).

We are no different from the Israelites. We are oppressed and, in bondage, slaves to sin. We need God to act in a mighty way to set us free from the world and the sin that can so easily entangle us. But this can’t happen without the precious blood of Jesus, the “unblemished and spotless lamb,” who laid down His life so that we might be free (1 Peter 1:19). Just as the lambs of the Passover shielded the Israelites from physical death, Jesus, our eternal Lamb of God, “takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and spares us from spiritual death.

We are free! Like the Israelites, who walked out of Egypt without chains, you and I are absolutely free from the sin that leads to death. And as we prepare to celebrate Christmas, I wonder what our children think. I wonder what we will answer when they ask about Christmas: “What does this ceremony mean to you?”

Prayer

Jesus, today I thank You for being the perfect lamb. Unblemished. Spotless. Who laid down His life so that we may be free. I pray I will remember the significance of that moment today and every day. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.