The Lamb of God
John 1:29 The next day he (John the Baptist) saw Jesus coming to him and he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
To understand the significance of Jesus being the Lamb of God, we must go back to the Israelites’ time in Egypt. They were slaves for hundreds of years after Joseph and the Pharaoh died. The new Pharaoh saw how many children they were having. He was afraid they would take over the nation of Egypt and take his power away so he forced them into slavery. God allowed them to be slaves for several generations before sending Moses to deliver them from Egypt.
However, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he would not let the people go. God sent a series of 10 plagues. The tenth and final one was an Angel of Death who came through the land and took the life of the oldest child in every household. The ONLY way to save your child was to kill a lamb and paint your doorframe with its blood. The memorial of this event is called Passover. Pretty gruesome, but the blood of the lamb was salvation for many Hebrew children that night and the absence of it was the death of every oldest Egyptian child, including the eldest son of the Pharaoh. This heartbreak is what made the Pharaoh finally let the children of Israel go.
The symbol of the lamb’s blood as a sacrifice or an instrument of salvation is woven all throughout the story of the Israelite people. There were special church ceremonies they had to perform at certain times of the year to make themselves acceptable to God involving the blood of a spotless lamb. When John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God it was a huge, cultural sign that the Messiah had come. In that phrase he was signifying that Jesus would be the final payment for the sins of the Jewish people (and all the world). There would be no more need for sacrificing lambs – Jesus is The Lamb – and He took away the sins of the world.
Activity: Make a bleach pen t-shirt
1. Take a colored t-shirt. (I put a piece of cardboard in between the front and back of the shirt so bleach didn’t bleed through.
2. Have kids use a bleach pen to make a design on the t-shirt. (You can use a stencil if you wish. If making multiple designs from stencil, wash and dry between uses.) Explain that the bleach removes the color from the shirt just like Jesus removes our sin. Your design can be simple or intricate depending on age.
3. Let the bleach dry to desired color or all the way to white. (up to 3 hrs)
4. Rinse in cold water to remove any remaining bleach.
5. Wash with like colors and dry.
6. Proudly wear the shirt and remember that Jesus, the Lamb, takes away our sins.
Optional scripture reading – the Baptism of Jesus, (Matt. 3:13-17) the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus chapters 1-14)
