SCRIPTURE: Exodus 12:1-14
TEXT: 13The 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. THEME: God’s love for us is a sign for the spirit of death to Passover us. INTRODUCTION The discussion on the Lamb of God is a pivotal piece in the formation of the ‘theology theory’ called Original Blessing. We are more familiar with Original Sin, the Theory that most of us were raised on, where the Lamb of God pays the price of a sinful world. But in the Original Blessing theory, everything that God creates is good, especially us, because we are made in the image of God. So, God never stops loving us, even though our ‘greed’ or selfishness gets the better of us in the garden. Our indiscretion does not disqualify us from God’s love, as seen in the faith misadventures of Abraham and Sarah. If we believe this, then the Lamb of God does not need to be a sacrificial payment, to offset our debt of sin, but instead it is a profound a sign of love. If you notice, in the Passover story, the lamb has nothing to do with sin but everything about God loving and saving the people of God. SCRIPTURE After Moses and Pharaoh’s battle with plagues, the negotiations for Israel’s release from Egypt was stalemated. This all leads up to a final challenge, with death. The Israelites are instructed to gather as families and include their neighbors if need be, in sharing in this communal meal and marking the door post and lintel of their houses with the blood of the lamb. A lamb is to be prepared in a special way and eaten it as if an Uber will arrive at any moment to pick us up and take us to the airport. The left overs and anything else are to be burnt up like an offering. God will pass through Egypt and strike every firstborn both human and animals. No one will be spared, except for those who have the sign of this blood on their homes. The blood of the lamb of God, is a sign of God’s love for the people of this household and for death to Passover, leaving its inhabitants unharmed. This lamb is not a sacrifice to pay the price of personal or corporate sin. This lamb is not settling any obligation or debt. This lamb is a sign of God’s initiative of liberation towards the misery, suffering and cries of Israel. This is an act of love, creating a way out in a captivity when every other way has failed. This lamb of God brings liberation to the captive under the protective love of God. So, when death comes to Egypt, those embraced by God’s love will be saved. 1,300 years later, when John the Baptist see Jesus and says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” he may not have been talking about a sacrifice to pay a debt of sin, but the Passover lamb, is a sign signifying God’s love and death to pass over those whom God loves. Jesus reveals God’s love to us and exposes sin as ignorant hatred and violence. This is not the usual way that we interpret the Lamb of God. We bring in a scapegoat theology where sin is transferred upon a goat and beaten to free us from sin’s punishment of death. If that actually worked, John the Baptist would have said, “Behold the goat of God” so, Jesus as the Lamb of God, is a sign of God’s love incarnate, that signals death to pass over. APPLICATION Although thinking about the Lamb of God in this way can be troubling, because it goes against how we were brought up to think about this. But if this is true then it changes how we practice our salvation but not our belief in God, not our belief in Jesus or our belief in the Holy Spirit. We have made our sin a bigger problem than it is to God. We have become a problem that needs to be fixed rather than a people that are loved by God. We create a legalism that needs to be satisfied, with a payment that is never good enough. It also has made our God too small, held to so some cosmic sense of balance and justice. We have made the standard of righteousness an impossibility to be observed, with false images of piety as poor substitutes for the creative, imaginative, loving relationship with God. If parents can take past the wrong doings of their children and love them without requiring them to produce a worthy sacrifice, why can’t God can do the same with us? How does viewing the Lamb of God as a sign of God’s love, rather than a payment of sin, inform our understanding of the Lord’s Supper with Jesus? Salvation is about being loved by God and welcomed, forgiven, adopted and accepted. What Jesus reveals about God’s love for us is transformational not transactional. When we have Jesus dying for our sins, we acquire a righteousness that makes us feel superior to others with an image we believe we have to project of perfection. Salvation is not found in the facade of perfection, success, wealth or prestige but rather in the mark of the lamb’s blood, as a sign that we are loved by God. Being loved by God is the only way we can live a truthful relationship with God that defines who we are and our relationships with others. The Lamb of God is a sign of God’s love, marked by Jesus love for us. Sitting at the Passover meal with Jesus as our host is a sign of God’s love. It is a sign of God journeying with us, seeing our misery, hearing our cries and knowing our suffering. Having Jesus mark us with a sign of God’s love, brings forgiveness, acceptance, hope and new potentials of life. The reality of God and being beloved by God changes our lives, as we live as a sign of this Love. CONCLUSION The lamb of God is a sign of God’s love for us that signals death to Passover us. Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world by dramatically marking us with love and exposing sin; as ignorant hatred and violence. George Floyd’s death exposes ignorant hatred and violence. Jacob Blake being shot seven times in the back expose’s ignorant hatred and violence. The young man who goes to the protest in Kenosha with a rifle and kills two demonstrators exposes sin as ignorant hatred and violence. Jesus living with us, in our good world, is the sign of the Lamb of God, refusing to stop talking about God’s ways and not giving in to the repressive religion or authoritarian power in order to love us. The sign of the Lamb of God exposes the world’s ignorant hate and violence but also reveals God’s gracious, life giving, encompassing love for all.
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