Today our words to describe Jesus are “the Lamb of God” as we read He’s called by John the Baptist…
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
John 1:29
We know going all the way back to the book of Leviticus that the Israelites offered animal sacrifices and commonly for the forgiveness of their wrongdoings. Of course, we also know about the sacrifice of a lamb and blood on the door to keep their firstborn from being killed during the infamous Passover while the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians before being freed. John the Baptist was also likely referring to the words of Isaiah which most all Jews he was speaking to would have known.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet He opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgement he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
Isaiah 53:7-8
When we think not only about Jesus sacrificial death the cross, but also how He handled the moments leading up to it from being captured in the garden, to going before the Pharisees, and then in front of Pilate and the crowd…I don’t know if there is a better way metaphor than the ones Isaiah used or much better of a way to describe what He represents than the Lamb of God as John the Baptist refers to him.
I could try to write more on this topic, but I really feel like I can’t expand much more on this than the picture John and Isaiah give us.
I will say I don’t often refer to Jesus in prayer or in words to others by this name, but every time I hear the song Broken Vessels (Amazing Grace) by Hillsong I do get the mental picture of Him going to the cross for you and me like a lamb to slaughter and the room suddenly always gets really dusty somehow causing my eyes to water.
Can you see the love in His eyes?
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me, oh
I once was lost
But now I am found
Was blind but now I see
Oh, I can see it now
Oh, I can see the love in Your eyes
Laying yourself down
Raising up the broken to life
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me, oh
I once was lost
But now I am found
Was blind but now I see