It Is Finished

The night God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, He commanded that, every year, every family was to sacrifice a lamb on Passover.

Thousands of families sacrificed thousands of lambs that day.

Jesus celebrated Passover with His disciples the night before He was crucified. The lamb they ate that night was part of the family sacrifice.

The next day, there was one sacrifice made in the Temple in the morning and one sacrifice made in the afternoon on behalf of all of Israel. In other words, it was a national sacrifice.

The first sacrifice was made at nine in the morning. When that lamb had been slaughtered, a priest would blow the shofar, a trumpet of sorts, fashioned out of a ram’s horn.

It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. (Mark 15:25, NLT)

I wonder if Jesus could hear the shofar blowing from the Temple as the Roman soldiers pounded the nails into His wrists. I wonder if, just for a moment, all of the people passing by quieted at the sound announcing that the sacrifice had been made.

The second sacrifice was made at three in the afternoon.

Darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. The light from the sun was gone. And suddenly, the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn down the middle. Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46, NLT)

As the shofar blew for a second time that day, again announcing that the sacrifice had been made, Jesus drank the last drop from the Cup of God’s Wrath. The perfect, eternal sacrifice had been made.

“It is finished!” (John 19:30, NLT)

Jesus, on the cross, did what no lamb could ever do.

As the perfect man, He is the perfect substitute.

As the eternal God, He is the eternal sacrifice.

And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices. (Hebrews 10:18, NLT)

Jesus is the Lamb sacrificed once and for all.

And so, it is finished.

Read Hebrews 10:11-18 and reflect on how the old covenant foreshadowed the new covenant that Jesus initiated.

The Heart of Lent

This Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent – the forty days leading up to Easter.

Christians around the world fast during this season as a reminder of the self-denial and self-sacrifice of Jesus.

To be honest, I haven’t given anything up for Lent in, well, years.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the call to self-denial and self-sacrifice in preparation of the celebration of Easter.

It’s just that that’s not why I ever participated in Lent.

I participated in Lent because, consciously or not, I understood it to be an opportunity to drop a couple of pounds under the guise of spiritual discipline. I never gave up sugar so that I could better reflect on the self-denial and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. I gave up sugar because I wanted a better body.

I’m not saying that anyone who gives up sugar – or anything else, for that matter – must have a skewed heart or skewed motives. If sugar is an addiction for you, giving it up may, in fact, serve as a reminder that Jesus gave Himself us so that we could be free from any and every stronghold. So, please don’t hear condemnation for what you’ve given up in the past or intend to give up this year.

I’m telling you about me. I’m telling you about my heart and my motives.

I have a remarkable propensity for taking what is intended to fix my eyes on Christ and twisting it so I can keep my eyes on myself.

Maybe you can relate.

If you can, let’s, together, agree to do Lent differently this year.

If we give up anything, let’s make it that which places us, rather than Jesus, at the center of the story.

After all, Lent is not about what we can do for ourselves.

Lent is about remembering what Christ has already done for us.