For You, O Lord, are my hope, my trust O Lord from my youth. Upon You I leaned from before my birth. You are He Who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of You. (Verses 5-6)
Lambs are always born in mangers or out in the countryside. Hopefully the shepherd is standing near, assisting and rejoicing in the new addition to the flock. So it isn't any wonder it was to shepherds the Father first announced the birth of His Lamb. Had the scribes and Pharisees had the prescience necessary to distill the prophecies concerning Messiah, they might've understood He was to be born a flawless sacrificial offering for sin. I have heard this Christmas over and over again that the birth in the manger was about Christ's lowliness, which I guess is true. But the bigger picture God was constructing must have been conceived before He spoke the world into being. The manger wasn't about lowliness so much as it was a picture of what our Jesus came to be. A Lamb.
Abraham and Isaac set the stage for Messiah. The only son of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, was placed on an altar in the wilderness at God's command. The father raised the knife to kill his only son. But the angel of the Lord cried out to him: "Don't kill him! I know now you would not spare your son, your only son, in your reverence for me!" And there was a ram already tangled in the bushes, prepared before time, to be the replacement on the altar. It was our painting of His plan.
In exile in Egypt, the Jews were slaves to the Pharoah. Their days were spent in hard labor, but their nights evidently were more interesting because they multiplied so much the Pharoah decided to kill their babies. Moses was spared. Grew up in royalty. Murdered an Egyptian and fled. He was a very old man when the Lord burned before him in a desert bush. Commanded he take the children of Israel out of Egypt. Stuttering forth with rod and an iffy brother, Aaron, Moses met with Pharoah and pleaded their case. Plagues and natural catastrophes culminated in the death of the first born of everything.....except what was sprinkled with the blood of a perfect lamb. Passover.
The Lamb was always Jesus. The picture of it always the portent of His coming. God made the entire world to be taxed just to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem where He was prophecied to be born. Angels in their glory first told shepherds. Not because they were lowly. But because they would know where to find a lamb in a manger. The Lamb. Perfect in every sense. Born of the seed of God. His Son now begotten, covered in flesh. It would be thirty years before the connection was made.
At the river, John, the cousin of Jesus, was baptizing those who knew they needed to repent of their unclean ways. A washing away with water of their filth. But on one miraculous afternoon, Jesus comes to the river to be baptized. Not for repentance, but to fulfill the plan of God so that we understand we die as He did and are raised with Him to new life. The waters into which John dipped Jesus swirled with the sinfulness of mankind. Every evil thing imaginable coursed through its waters. The Cleanser took that sin even then and purified with living water the murky depths of its rebellion. "Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world!" John the Baptist proclaimed. And the heavens opened to Him as the Spirit, Who would later baptize those who believe into Christ, flew to His shoulder in the form of a dove. "This....This is My Beloved Son. I am so pleased with Him!" (emphasis mine) The cry of the Father over His little Lamb.
Passover many months later. After all the miracles of nature, the many healings, deliverances and teachings, Jesus had one last meal with His friends. There was no mention of lamb being served that night. No need for one. God's ageold drama was climaxing. The story of the lamb now taking form. Wine an offering of His blood. Bread sopped in it as picture of the sacrifice soaked in the bloody offering. The last time death on an altar was demanded. This Lamb's holy blood was what the story is all about. From beginning to end.
A risen Lamb, still carrying the scars of His earthly altar, strode into the throne room to the eerie stillness that gripped heaven after no one was declared worthy to open the scroll God held in His right hand. A scroll that recorded all that was to happen next. After Calvary. Because that part of the story was finished. No one in heaven knew what was next. No one worthy enough to even look. But there was a Lamb standing there. It looked as though it had been slain. The Lamb went to the throne of His Father and took the scroll from His hand. Heaven fell down to its face and sang a new song to Messiah then:
Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood you ransomed the people of God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth!"
Then I looked, and heard around the throne...the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands and thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" Revelation 5
And the Lamb opened the scroll and ushered in the age in which we live. Ever slain, ever risen, He sits at the right hand of the throne of God. His name still Lamb. Always and forever.
Lowly manger? Maybe. But the only place to put a tiny sacrificial lamb.
Lambs are always born in mangers or out in the countryside. Hopefully the shepherd is standing near, assisting and rejoicing in the new addition to the flock. So it isn't any wonder it was to shepherds the Father first announced the birth of His Lamb. Had the scribes and Pharisees had the prescience necessary to distill the prophecies concerning Messiah, they might've understood He was to be born a flawless sacrificial offering for sin. I have heard this Christmas over and over again that the birth in the manger was about Christ's lowliness, which I guess is true. But the bigger picture God was constructing must have been conceived before He spoke the world into being. The manger wasn't about lowliness so much as it was a picture of what our Jesus came to be. A Lamb.
Abraham and Isaac set the stage for Messiah. The only son of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, was placed on an altar in the wilderness at God's command. The father raised the knife to kill his only son. But the angel of the Lord cried out to him: "Don't kill him! I know now you would not spare your son, your only son, in your reverence for me!" And there was a ram already tangled in the bushes, prepared before time, to be the replacement on the altar. It was our painting of His plan.
In exile in Egypt, the Jews were slaves to the Pharoah. Their days were spent in hard labor, but their nights evidently were more interesting because they multiplied so much the Pharoah decided to kill their babies. Moses was spared. Grew up in royalty. Murdered an Egyptian and fled. He was a very old man when the Lord burned before him in a desert bush. Commanded he take the children of Israel out of Egypt. Stuttering forth with rod and an iffy brother, Aaron, Moses met with Pharoah and pleaded their case. Plagues and natural catastrophes culminated in the death of the first born of everything.....except what was sprinkled with the blood of a perfect lamb. Passover.
The Lamb was always Jesus. The picture of it always the portent of His coming. God made the entire world to be taxed just to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem where He was prophecied to be born. Angels in their glory first told shepherds. Not because they were lowly. But because they would know where to find a lamb in a manger. The Lamb. Perfect in every sense. Born of the seed of God. His Son now begotten, covered in flesh. It would be thirty years before the connection was made.
At the river, John, the cousin of Jesus, was baptizing those who knew they needed to repent of their unclean ways. A washing away with water of their filth. But on one miraculous afternoon, Jesus comes to the river to be baptized. Not for repentance, but to fulfill the plan of God so that we understand we die as He did and are raised with Him to new life. The waters into which John dipped Jesus swirled with the sinfulness of mankind. Every evil thing imaginable coursed through its waters. The Cleanser took that sin even then and purified with living water the murky depths of its rebellion. "Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world!" John the Baptist proclaimed. And the heavens opened to Him as the Spirit, Who would later baptize those who believe into Christ, flew to His shoulder in the form of a dove. "This....This is My Beloved Son. I am so pleased with Him!" (emphasis mine) The cry of the Father over His little Lamb.
Passover many months later. After all the miracles of nature, the many healings, deliverances and teachings, Jesus had one last meal with His friends. There was no mention of lamb being served that night. No need for one. God's ageold drama was climaxing. The story of the lamb now taking form. Wine an offering of His blood. Bread sopped in it as picture of the sacrifice soaked in the bloody offering. The last time death on an altar was demanded. This Lamb's holy blood was what the story is all about. From beginning to end.
A risen Lamb, still carrying the scars of His earthly altar, strode into the throne room to the eerie stillness that gripped heaven after no one was declared worthy to open the scroll God held in His right hand. A scroll that recorded all that was to happen next. After Calvary. Because that part of the story was finished. No one in heaven knew what was next. No one worthy enough to even look. But there was a Lamb standing there. It looked as though it had been slain. The Lamb went to the throne of His Father and took the scroll from His hand. Heaven fell down to its face and sang a new song to Messiah then:
Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood you ransomed the people of God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth!"
Then I looked, and heard around the throne...the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands and thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" Revelation 5
And the Lamb opened the scroll and ushered in the age in which we live. Ever slain, ever risen, He sits at the right hand of the throne of God. His name still Lamb. Always and forever.
Lowly manger? Maybe. But the only place to put a tiny sacrificial lamb.
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