Check out this week’s phone wallpaper pics below the transcript and head to the Strengthen Facebook page to download them.
To listen to Luke 2 and John 1, click those links and they’ll take you to the Bible Study Tools page.
If you’d like to read instead or read along, here’s the transcript:
Hello and welcome to week three of Advent! We are enjoying drawing closer to Jesus this Advent and celebrating all that he has done and looking forward to Christmas when we will really be enjoying and just reveling in the amazing gift that God has given us through Jesus. Not just for Christmas but for every day in our lives, our whole lives, everything about our lives.
So this week we're going to be looking at Jesus as the Lamb of God. Traditionally during Advent, in week three, people often focus on joy and the theme of the shepherds. So we'll weave that in a little bit but we're certainly going to be kicking off with the shepherds and the whole idea of Jesus as the Lamb of God. As well as, later in the week in the devotionals that go along with this mini deep dive, we're also going to be looking at Jesus as the Lion of Judah and the Lamb. The Lion and the Lamb.
So I'm really looking forward to that one!
So today let's just get on with it. We'll be looking at Luke 2 and John 1, specifically John 1 verse 29 which is when John the Baptist sees Jesus, an adult, as an adult and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.
Keep a pin in that one and we'll be coming back to that later.
Luke 2, if you want to come through the next bit of the Nativity story, I will pop a link if you want to listen to that through a different app, to listen to a recording of Luke 2. I think that's Bible Study Tools that I usually do the link for. Otherwise open your Bible and have a read there of the whole passage that talks about when the angels came to speak to the shepherds.
Now, why the shepherds? Well obviously when we think about Jesus as the lamb of God it starts to make a little bit more sense. Now there's an awful lot of stuff online about the shepherds and the significance of the shepherds, and also lots of scholars go into that as well.
So there are people who say look shepherds were really the lowliest of the low and this is about God announcing that Jesus came for all mankind, but you know, perhaps there's some truth in that. However, if you think about shepherds and you think about the Jewish celebration for example of Passover, lambs and sacrificial lambs in the temple, perfect lambs, were a really important commodity.
They weren't just a commodity that the shepherds raised and would have been looking out for and selling for people to use in sacrifices and in celebrations, but they also would have understood in that, not just in the business sense, but they would have understood the importance of a perfect lamb.
It's interesting in the story as it's told in Luke 2 where it says in verse 12, and this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Traditionally we show all our pictures in the west of a manger, usually of some kind of wooden construction, but it's more likely mangers would have been a lot more secure than that, almost certainly of stone, somewhere where lambs might be lain for security and safety, as well as being perhaps used as a feeding trough, but it was a place of protection as well, and a place where a lamb that was precious may have been placed for protection.
So, yeah, that would really be a sign to the shepherds, wouldn't it? The perfect one, the perfect one has come, come and see, and there he was lying in the place where they would, or a place where they would have put a perfect lamb to be taken care of or protected.
Really, really interesting. But let's think more and talk more about Jesus as the lamb of God. Now it's this perfection, it's the fact that this, this one, this child is the one who they've been waiting for. The Messiah, the gift from God, the perfect sacrifice and at this point they don't know that Jesus is going to give his life to save the sins of the world.
And when we pop over to John 1, that verse that I mentioned at the beginning where we've popped a pin in that one: “Next day, he saw Jesus coming to him and said, Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.
Today, let's focus on the perfection of God's plan in sending Jesus for us, not just for the sin of the world, but for our sin to bring us into relationship with God.
And sometimes people think Christmas is a bit of an odd thing and a difficult thing to explain to people. But the birth of Jesus is part of a perfect plan for our lives and for the world, for our neighbours, for our family, for those who we encounter in our lives. The birth of Jesus is part of a perfect plan as that perfect Lamb of God comes to earth to save each one of us from our sins. And taking that forward into understanding as we do, not just that the lamb came, but that the lamb was slain for us. That Jesus did that ultimate sacrifice for us, and he was the only perfect one who could do that. That we, in our own effort, in our own trying to do our best, can never accomplish that worthiness that Jesus gifts us through his blood and through his birth.
And so it's really such a precious, deep thing that we're praying about and thinking about today. Not just welcoming a baby, but really coming under the blood of Jesus and saying:
Thank you for the sacrifice that you made for me. You are the perfect plan. the perfect lamb to save me. You are the perfect one to save me. You are the perfect saviour to bring me into relationship with God. You are the perfect God who restores me and redeems me.
And that is a thing of joy!
Lord Jesus we thank you that you came to part of your father's perfect plan. You the perfect lamb, the lamb of God saving us, saving me.
And as we walk through this week, this week, we want to celebrate the joy of your mercy, the joy of the sacrifice that you made for us to restore us, to redeem our life and to gift us joy and fullness of life.
Jesus you weren't just the answer for these shepherds in the story but you are the answer for each one of us as well. And as we walk into this week may we remember that. Whatever we're walking through whatever comes our way however we're encouraging others may we remember Jesus you are the perfect answer. Thank you Lord
So thank you for joining me today and I encourage you to think more and pray more on just the perfection of God's plan in bringing Jesus and that he truly is the perfect answer and the perfect sacrifice for you and I.
I will see you later in the week for the rest of the devotionals!
Advent 3 Mini Deep Dive: The Perfect Plan