HUMAN RIGHTS

The Living Word



The Living Word

Introduction

When John calls Jesus the “Lamb of God” modern people may find it a bit strange. And will find it even stranger if they realize that it refers directly to the ritual of animal sacrifice in ancient Israel. From the very beginning of its history, the nation of Israel ritually slaughtered lambs as part of the worship of God. The fundamental purpose of this sacrifice was to restore and renew any aspect of the nations' relationship with God that had been damaged or broken.

However, there was no single, simple, meaning to the sacrifice. The people of Israel understood that they had alienated themselves from God in a variety of ways. Sometimes, they had disobeyed God's law. At other times, they had lost confidence in God's power and promises and worshiped other gods. They had failed to keep themselves morally, or ritually, pure. They had failed to do justice to their families and neighbors.

As their thinking about their own relationship with God changed, so did their understanding of how the sacrifice of a lamb could restore that relationship. Early on, the lamb was primarily seen as a gift: recognizing that everything came from God, and returning something to God as a sign of appreciation and loyalty. Later, Israel began to see the lamb as a payment to God, a fine, for the sins of the community against God's law. Or the ritual sacrifice of the lamb could make it a substitute for the debt of human life owed to God. Thus, God was supposed to accept the blood of the lamb in place of the blood of the people. Much later, the prophets began to see the lamb as a symbol of repentance, a symbolic offering of self to God through something precious. By this point in Israel's history, the prophets recognized that God did not need anything humans could give. The sacrifice of the lamb must be more for our sake than for God's. And so the sacrificial ritual was not something Israel did for God, but was something God had given Israel so that the nation could make its way back to God. And since no human gift could be good enough for God, it must be God who provides the sacrifice that will be offered.

By the time John, the Baptist was preaching the “Lamb of God” was a symbol rich in meaning. It referred to a sacrificial payment, to a gift of love, to a substitute, and to a sign of repentance. It was no longer something Israel offered to God, but something which God offered to Israel as a sign of God's love.

Interpretation

The essence of the preaching of John the Baptist was to help people realize their sins and repent of them. Repentance - this is the first step toward God. The Lord will not come to us in our hearts as long as we do not correct the path, as long as we do not see their sins ...