Today, the 10th of Nisan was the day everyone that intended to celebrate the Passover Feast was to choose a lamb. It had to be a year old, without spot or blemish of any kind to be acceptable. For the next 4 days it was to be like a pet in that it would dwell with the family that it was to shed it’s innocent blood for. It was a reminder to the family of the 1st Passover lamb used to cover their sins and protect them from the death angel when God set them free from the bondage and oppression of Egypt.
I’ve been thinking about how it might have made the family feel about this cute and cuddly little lamb. How could you not become emotionally attached to a little animal like that. You had to spend time with it bathing and inspecting it. This was all done by physical contact with it. I wonder if in it’s innocense did it do like a pet cat or dog does and would come to snuggle up to you as if greeting a loved master. It was surely old enough to realize it had been given an upgrade in it’s normal living arrangements and then getting so much personal attention. Surely some bonding had to be occurring from one, or maybe both sides.
Today for most Christians, Passover or Good Friday is a day of celebration. Well it use to be a big celebration before I became a Born Again with God’s Spirit Christian. It was a day to eat lots of seafood, boiled crabs, shrimp and crawfish. It was a day for all the family to get together, sometimes enough to play volley ball or have a baseball game with the 30 or so people at times.
Honestly not much thought was given to the root meaning of the day. The horrible and cruel death of my Lord, Savior and the person who has loved me like no one else ever could. Sadly, I knew the story and even believed it but not deeply enough to let it change my life and carnal nature.
Imagine that Jesus, God in the flesh, knew exactly every pain to come, blow by blow of His flesh being torn from His body. Beaten as it says more brutally than any person has ever been beaten. Then nailed to a tree with His arms stretched wide. Being God, knowing the pain of the jolt when the tree was stood up and then fall into the socket chiseled out of the rock to hold it errect.
Leonard Ravenhill tells a story in this short video of an event in his life that caused him to think of “The Cup” that Jesus asked His Father to let pass from Him IF IT WAS HIS WILL. But it wasn’t the Fathers will to let it pass.
The LORD says, “It was my will that he should suffer; his death was a sacrifice to bring forgiveness. And so he will see his descendants; he will live a long life, and through him my purpose will succeed. After a life of suffering, he will again have joy; he will know that he did not suffer in vain. My devoted servant, with whom I am pleased, will bear the punishment of many and for his sake I will forgive them. And so I will give him a place of honour, a place among the great and powerful. He willingly gave his life and shared the fate of evil men. He took the place of many sinners and prayed that they might be forgiven.”
Isaiah 53:10-12 GNB
I saw these trees floating in the bay where I work on March 25 this year. Then saw it again on the 27th, the horizontal tree had move to the opposite end of the vertical then.
As Jesus sweat drops of His Blood in great anguish at Gethsemane pleading with His Father, I wonder if He asked the Father to hold Him in His Arms. Jesus’ arms are still stretched wide but now they are beckoning everyone to come to Him. He’s waiting to hear us say, “Father, I want You to Hold me” and become “In Touch” with Him.
In The Word 