Life of Christ 8
Why did God choose to
have shepherds be the very first to kneel in worship before His Son (Luke
2.8-20)? After all, He could have chosen to send the heavenly angelic
announcement and choir to anyone in the vicinity of Bethlehem that night. Why
did He choose the shepherds?
I believe the answer is
simple: God wanted to point toward the redemptive work of Jesus Christ via His
sacrificial atoning death on the cross from the very beginning.
One of the clearest
pictures in all of the Old Testament of the atoning death of Christ is found in
the Passover. We find its genesis in Exodus 12 as Moses comes to the final
round of his match with Pharaoh and the demon gods of Egypt. God expressed through
Moses that the firstborn in each home would die when the death angel passed
over unless they applied the blood of a perfect sacrificial lamb on their
doorposts. To quote the Lord, 'When I see the blood I will pass over you.'
The centrality of the shed
blood of a sacrificed lamb to cover sin was reinforced in almost every aspect
of the Old Testament religion that Moses set up in Leviticus, and continued
alive and well into the time of Christ. Josephus tells us that at Passover
alone in Jesus' time 200,000 lambs were slaughtered on the Temple Mount.
Wherever did the Temple
get access to all those lambs each April? Well, the Mishnah (the largest
section of the Talmud) tells us Temple raised them – watch this now – on
pastures around Bethlehem. That's right, the very shepherds who came to see the
Christ child at the instigation of the angelic choir were responsible for
delivering thousands of lambs each April to the Temple to be sacrificed on
Passover. That night they left those flocks of sacrificial lambs to kneel in
worshipful adoration in the muck of that stable courtyard in the inn of
Bethlehem at the feet of the Lamb of God Himself.
It is no coincidence
that Jesus, our Paschal Lamb, was born in the city that raised them, and that
His first visitors were the shepherds who watched them – just as it was no
coincidence that at the exact time of His death on Mt. Calvary, thirty three
years later, the Passover lambs were being slaughtered by the thousands in the
Temple.
John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and
saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
1Corinthians 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a
new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for
us:
If you would like to listen to the audio sermon that accompanies
this blog post you may find it here on our church website. Press 'launch media player'
and choose We Preach Christ 3, 'The Babe Lying in a Manger'.
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