Good Friday- The Lamb of God
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).
These are the words of John the Baptist at the beginning of the Gospel according to John. … What might have come to mind for people when John used the phrase “Lamb of God”?
The tradition of Morning and Evening Prayer is based on the ancient rhythm of the Temple sacrifices. As a part of morning and evening offerings, a lamb was offered along with grain (or bread), oil, and wine. In the thinking of ancient people, they are creating a ritual meal of hospitality for God. It was a ritual of welcome. It was about maintaining the covenant relationship between God and Israel through daily worship. It was the heartbeat of the Temple.
Leviticus 17:11 tells us that “the life is in the blood”. As a part of a sacrifice, blood was used to purify. Sprinkling blood was like sprinkling life. The blood of the lamb would be poured against the side of the altar to keep it in a state of purity.
This is hard for us to understand. We have been soaked in an dis-enchanted way of looking at the world. Our assumptions are materialist, so we tend to think of blood as not having any real spiritual significance. We see it purely as plasma and a variety of cells. It can be a bit of an uphill battle for us to try to grasp how the ancients saw the material and spiritual world as intermingled without looking down on them as naïve. They didn’t really separate the two. … For ancient Israel, blood is life.
When St. John the Baptist called Jesus the “Lamb of God” people may have thought about the Passover Lamb, which was a part of the Exodus story. On behalf of His people, God is at war with Pharaoh and the Egyptian gods. In preparation for the final plague against Egypt, where all the firstborn will die, the people of God are instructed to take a lamb without blemish, which is to be slaughtered and its blood is to be put on the doorposts and lintel of their houses. We read,
“For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments … The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt” (Ex 12:12-13).
The blood of the lamb identifies them as belonging to God. … Then, they are to roast the Lamb over a fire and eat it. And they are to eat it ready to run- ready to leave at a moment’s notice. … This was all orchestrated in order to free God’s people from slavery in Egypt. This will be a defining event. It will be a new beginning and so it will be the beginning of their calendar year.[1] …
Passover traditions for the Jewish people changed when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans (70AD). So, present Jewish Passover celebrations don’t include the sacrificing and eating of lambs. … While the Temple stood, there were specific rituals concerning the sacrifice of the Passover lambs. …
There are some interesting details about this that I read in a book titled, The Crucifixion of the King of Glory. According to the Scholar Jeannie Constantinou[2], The Passover lambs were roasted in a new clay oven created especially for Passover and used only once for this specific purpose.[3] The Lambs were roasted upright in the oven, so the oven was made to be tall. Constantinou writes,
“A wooden skewer was inserted from the bottom of the lamb up to the head. Another skewer was inserted across its back with its forelegs spread out and tied to the skewer along its back”.[4]
Essentially, the lamb looked as though it had been crucified. Furthermore, the skewers were made of wood, since metal skewers were not allowed. Metal skewers would get hot in the fire and start cooking the lamb from the inside, which would designate the lamb as “grilled” rather than “roasted”. The ritual directions required the lamb to be “roasted”.
The practice was discontinued when Rabbis forbade eating lambs at Passover, which were only supposed to be slaughtered at the Temple, which was destroyed in the year 70AD. … But this practice didn’t die out overnight[5] and Justin Martyr, an early church Father, said he witnessed this practice.[6] … We can imagine Christian religious authorities telling Christians that they aren’t supposed to have Christmas trees in their homes anymore at Christmas- Well, the momentum of community tradition is a tricky thing to change.
The Passover Lamb may have also been connected to the mysterious story of the Binding of Isaac.[7] In Genesis 22 we read about Abraham planning to offer his son as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. Isaac carried the wood on his back for the sacrificial fire (Gen 22:6). Isaac is old enough that he can carry a significant amount of wood up a mountain, and so many assume that Isaac is a willing sacrificial victim because he should have been able to overpower his elderly father.[8]
The date in the Jewish calendar when Isaac was said to be bound was at the start of Passover (14th of Nisan). When God stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, He provided a ram whose horns were caught in a thicket to sacrifice instead of Isaac. … The whole of Israel was, in a sense, within Isaac. The ram being sacrificed instead of Isaac meant Israel was saved from death. If Isaac died, as their common ancestor, all of Israel would have died with him.
The sacrifice of the Passover Lamb has a similar kind of saving effect in the Exodus story for the Hebrew people who placed the blood of the sacrificed lamb on their doors. The blood of the lamb, protected the firstborn, who would have died in the final plague that struck Egypt. And, “within” these firstborn, were whole families who would be born in the future through them, just as with Isaac. They are alive due to the sacrifice of the Passover lamb whose blood saved them from the final plague.
St. Paul says
“Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7).
John the Baptist says,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29).
In Peter’s first letter he says,
“You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. …” (1 Peter 1:18-20).
It would have been natural for these first Christians, soaked in these Exodus traditions, to see these symbols pointing to Christ, the Lamb of God, the beloved Son. …
At the Last Supper Jesus says,
“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer …” (Luke 22:15-16).
It is at this Passover supper where Jesus offers bread as his flesh for his disciples to eat. The Passover Lamb was eaten as a participation in in the Exodus and a part of belonging to God’s people. … The blood of the Passover lamb marked households as belonging to God. And the blood of the lamb was used to purify the altar in the Temple. Now Jesus offers them wine as his blood, which marks his disciples as belonging to God and purifies them as a new altar- as a new Temple for the dwelling of God in the New Covenant. …
When Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to death, it was noon (the 6th hour). At the same time crowds were bringing their lambs to be sacrificed at the Temple. At 3pm the lambs began to be sacrificed. Their blood was collected in bowls which were poured at the base of the altar. … To prepare the lambs to be roasted later, the lambs were skinned by hanging them on hooks, with the forelegs outstretched, just as Christ’s arms were outstretched on the cross as he hung outside the city walls. … Jesus died on the cross as lambs began to be slaughtered in the Temple, on the Day of Preparation (Matthew 27:62; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:14, 31, 42). …
The final plague, and the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, opened the door to freedom from slavery in Egypt, and set them on the path to the Promised Land. It came at a horrible cost, which was escalated due to the stubbornness of Pharaoh. … Similarly, the death of Christ, as the Lamb of God, saves us from the power of sin, Evil, and everlasting death, … and opens the way to the Kingdom of God.
The blood of the lamb is life given for purification and for deliverance. Christ enters into the human condition- He dies in the place of cursing on a tree outside the gates, and engages with death and evil- He enters the place where sin has brought corruption and death, and by his self-offering he breaks sin’s claim over us: he cleanses what is unclean, he marks us as belonging to God, and he opens the way for us to enter the Kingdom with “hearts sprinkled clean” (Heb 10:22) by his blood.
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).
AMEN
[1] Nisan-
starts the biblical festival cycle
[2] Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou
[3] Tabory,
“Crucifixion,” 402.
Tabory,
Joseph. “The Crucifixion of the Paschal Lamb.” Jewish Quarterly Review 86
(1996); 395-406
[4]
The Crucifixion of the King of Glory, p.355 (This book is the source for much
of the historical information here)
[5] Tabory,
“Crucifixion,” 396.
[6]
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 40, ANF 1:215
[7] E.g.
Jubilees 17-18
[8] So, he was at least a teenager. Rabbinic
tradition says he was 37 (Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, Gen 22.5.1),
and the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus says he was 25 (The
Antiquities of the Jews, 1.13.2)
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