The Lamb and the Lamb of God (Exodus 12)

The Passover meal is at the heart of the Jewish faith tradition. In slightly revised form, it is also one of the central observance of the Christian faith. In both cases, it involves the death of an innocent victim.

Wait a minute! "The death of an innocent victim"?

Yes. Both the Jewish Passover and the Christian Eucharist memorialize a sacrificial death.

In the first instance, it involves the death of a perfectly spotless lamb, whose life was taken to set the Israelites free. In the second, it involves the death of the perfectly spotless Lamb of God, whose life was given to set humanity free.

Christians and Jews find this a meaningful act of worship, a powerful reminder of God’s rescuing love. But how does it look from the outside? For many, it raises a lot of difficult questions. For example:

• Why should the innocent suffer for the guilty? Isn’t sacrificial death a barbaric practice that should be abandoned in the face of modern sensibilities? And if, as is generally asserted, this is all done at God's direction, shouldn’t this vengeful God be rejected? After all, what kind of God is it whose wrath is only appeased if someone dies?

These are objections worthy of serious consideration. Is there a barbaric act at the root of the Judeo-Christian tradition? At first glance, we might think so. But deeper reflection suggests otherwise, and reveals a rich vein of truth. For the larger issue at stake includes questions like these:

• Is there a moral law to which we are accountable? Are we morally responsible for our actions? Does it matter whether people behave rightly or wrongly? And if it does, are there consequences for bad behavior?

There are many today who want morality to matter, but who do not want there to be consequences for immorality. However, this thinking is inconsistent. 

A personal example: many years ago I lost a relative through a well-known act of domestic terrorism. The man who did it was caught, tried, convicted and condemned. Suppose the judge had said to him, “If you are sorry for what you’ve done, and you promise never to do it again, you may go free.” 

Would justice have been served in this scenario? Of course not. On the contrary, we would be justly outraged at the injustice of letting a convicted murderer go free. Why? Because — and we seem to know this in our bones — there ought to be consequences for bad behavior. The worse the behavior, the greater the consequences. Mass murder, as in this instance, is an affront against humanity. It cannot go unpunished. Justice demands it.

If we agree to this line of reasoning – and surely, we do – it is perfectly sensible to see that humanity as a whole is racking up an overwhelming debt against itself, and against the God to whom it is accountable. Justice demands it.

If we accept that a guilty murderer must pay his debt, we are inconsistent if we maintain that a guilty humanity is not accountable for its actions. (And if you think humanity is not guilty of wrongdoing, you are neither watching the news, nor paying attention to your own wayward heart. After all, how often to you fail to obey the dictates of your own best intentions?)

It is a hard pill to swallow. We want God to wink at humanity’s rebellion. But we do not believe parents should do the same when their children misbehave, or that teachers and coaches should let students run roughshod over school or team rules, or that murderers should be given a slap on the wrist. 

Do we seriously want to hold parents, coaches, and the courts to a higher standard than God? We cannot have it both ways: moral laws require moral consequences.

In the Exodus stories we are reading, God gives Pharaoh nine opportunities to comply with his demand that Israel be set free. Each time, Pharaoh refuses. How many more chances should he be given? If rivers of blood, infestations of frogs, gnats, darkness, boils and you-name-it didn’t get his attention, what would have — short of the dramatic things that happened on that fateful night when the Destroyer came?

Even then, mercy was available: the blood of an innocent lamb would have protected him. But of course, that is the point that makes us uncomfortable. Why should an innocent lamb suffer? Where is the justice in that?

Indeed. Were justice fully served, no one would have survived that auspicious night. God overlooked (passed over) the guilt of all humanity (not only the Israelites) when the slaughtered lamb’s blood was obediently spread on their doorposts, and its innocent body was eaten by the family indoors.

Barbaric? No. It was mercy. For God was intent on finding a means by which he could cultivate a loving relationship with his beloved humanity — despite its rebelliousness. And the lamb, innocent though he was, was merely a symbol, pointing toward a future reality.

Fifteen hundred years later, another group of Israelites would gather inside a closed building. They would share the traditional Passover cup and bread. But there would be no lamb. Why? Because later that evening, the true Lamb of God would lay down his life. He was the One toward which all the previous lambs had been pointing. 

For this was not merely an innocent lamb offered by guilty men before a holy God. No. This was The Innocent Lamb – God Incarnate – laying down his life in order to rescue guilty humanity. 

God took personal responsibility for our rebellion. God took upon himself the moral consequence for our moral misbehavior. God accepted our punishment so we wouldn’t have to.

With this in mind, on this the first day of Lent, may our hearts be filled with gratitude and wonder as we contemplate this truth: God became one of us for the express purpose of sharing our guilt so that, in exchange, he could offer us new life. He died, the just for the unjust, in order that justice could be served without destroying us.

Barbaric? Absolutely not. It was the greatest act of love the world has ever known.