Lesson 30 - Jesus is the Lamb of God

(Lesson 30)

Jesus is the Lamb of God

”…I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” Revelation 5:6

Discussion Guide:

When Jesus is called the Lamb of God, it is in reference to his being the perfect and ultimate sacrifice for sin. In order to understand Jesus Christ as the ultimate sacrifice for sins we must begin with the Old Testament. The Old Testament must be read in light of the New Testament. For example, there are prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah as an offering for sin: “Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand (Isaiah 53:10). There are also events in the Old Testament that are types or prefigurments of events in the New Testament. The Passover is a type of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ at Calvary.

The sacrifice of lambs and other animals played a very important role in the Jewish religious life. When John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, the Jewish people who heard him would have immediately associated it with a sacrificial offering. Since the Passover feast was very near, their first thought might have been the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb. The Passover feast was one of the main Jewish holidays and a celebration in remembrance of when God delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. Jesus leads us all out of the bondage of sin and death by his sacrifice on the cross.

At the crucifixion, Jesus takes all of our sins upon himself. He expiates our sins. As high Priest he offers himself on the altar of the cross. Through his blood he washes away the sins of the world. However, unlike the Passover lamb that was slaughtered, roasted, and eaten, Jesus rose from the dead and conquered both sin and death. He delivered us from the slavery of sin, left us a Church, instituted the sacraments, and gave us the means to attain eternal salvation.

Discussion Points:

· The Old Testament must be read in light of the New Testament and the teachings of the Catholic faith

· Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled by Jesus the Messiah

· Our Christian “Passover” is Jesus Christ crucified on the altar of the cross

· Jesus Christ is The Lamb of God because he sacrificed himself for our sins

· The Passover of the Israelites was a prefiguring of the sacrifice on Calvary

· Moses lead the Israelites out of bondage from the Egyptians, and Jesus leads mankind out of bondage to sin

· The Sacrifice of Jesus is far superior to the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant

The Suffering Servant

Isaiah Chapter 53

Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand; he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.


Jesus is the Lamb of God

”…I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” Revelation 5:6

Opening Prayer:

Heavenly Father, give us the grace to appreciate the infinite love and mercy that You have freely given us by the gift of your Son Jesus Christ. Help us to never take the sacrifice of the Cross for granted and help us to have reverence for the Holy Eucharist. We ask all this through Christ our Lord. Amen

Theme:

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Passover lamb is a prefiguring of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary. Our Christian “Passover” is the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the altar of the cross.

Bible Readings:

Exodus 12:1-14 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household; and if the household is too small for a lamb, then a man and his neighbor next to his house shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old; you shall take it from the sheep or from the goats; and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening. Then they shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled with water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD's passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. "This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever.

John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Matthew 26:1-2 When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, "You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified."

Explanation of the Bible readings: The first reading from Exodus gives us details about the institution of the first Passover. God gave Moses the details and Moses gave them to the Israelites. The offering must be without blemish because it is being offered to God. Smearing the doorposts with blood is an essential part of the ritual and signifies protection from danger. The blood on the doorposts is a sign of the faith of the people. The urgency of the circumstances can be witnessed by the fact that no other food is eaten with the lamb except for unleavened bread and herbs. In the New Covenant, Jesus becomes the sacrificial Lamb of God. He is without blemish and he atones for the sins of his people with his own blood. It was not a coincidence that Jesus chose the time of the Passover feast to be the time of his redeeming sacrifice. The first Passover should be viewed as an anticipation of the more perfect offering of God’s only Son. The Cross of Christ supplants the Passover meal and its observation is no longer necessary.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1151 Signs taken up by Christ. In his preaching the Lord Jesus often makes use of the signs of creation to make known the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. He performs healings and illustrates his preaching with physical signs or symbolic gestures. He gives new meaning to the deeds and signs of the Old Covenant, above all to the Exodus and the Passover, for he himself is the meaning of all these signs.

608 After agreeing to baptize him along with the sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel's redemption at the first Passover. Christ's whole life expresses his mission: "to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

1334 In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the Creator. But they also received a new significance in the context of the Exodus: the unleavened bread that Israel eats every year at Passover commemorates the haste of the departure that liberated them from Egypt; the remembrance of the manna in the desert will always recall to Israel that it lives by the bread of the Word of God; their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land, the pledge of God's faithfulness to his promises. The "cup of blessing" at the end of the Jewish Passover meal adds to the festive joy of wine an eschatological dimension: the messianic expectation of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he gave a new and definitive meaning to the blessing of the bread and the cup.

1339 Jesus chose the time of Passover to fulfill what he had announced at Capernaum: giving his disciples his Body and his Blood: Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the passover meal for us, that we may eat it. . . ." They went . . . and prepared the passover. And when the hour came, he sat at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.". . . . And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." And likewise the cup after supper, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood."

1340 By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom.

Faith words:

Expiate: make amends for; "expiate one's sins"

Passover: Annual feast commemorating the deliverance of the firstborn in Egypt when the angel of death took all those who did not have blood on the doorpost

Types (Biblical): A person, a thing, or an action, having its own independent and absolute existence, but at the same time intended by God to prefigure a future person, thing, or action

Reflection Questions:

Can you recognize any other Old Testament Biblical types of New Testament events?





What characteristics of a “lamb” did Jesus have?





When John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the “Lamb of God”, what do you believe the people that heard him thought about it?



Dei Verbum: The Old Testament

Second Vatican Council

14. In carefully planning and preparing the salvation of the whole human race the God of infinite love, by a special dispensation, chose for Himself a people to whom He would entrust His promises. First He entered into a covenant with Abraham (see Gen. 15:18) and, through Moses, with the people of Israel (see Ex. 24:8). To this people which He had acquired for Himself, He so manifested Himself through words and deeds as the one true and living God that Israel came to know by experience the ways of God with men. Then too, when God Himself spoke to them through the mouth of the prophets, Israel daily gained a deeper and clearer understanding of His ways and made them more widely known among the nations (see Ps. 22:29; 96:1-3; Is. 2:1-5; Jer. 3:17). The plan of salvation foretold by the sacred authors, recounted and explained by them, is found as the true word of God in the books of the Old Testament: these books, therefore, written under divine inspiration, remain permanently valuable. "For all that was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).

15. The principal purpose to which the plan of the old covenant was directed was to prepare for the coming of Christ, the redeemer of all and of the messianic kingdom, to announce this coming by prophecy (see Luke 24:44; John 5:39; 1 Peter 1:10), and to indicate its meaning through various types (see 1 Cor. 10:12). Now the books of the Old Testament, in accordance with the state of mankind before the time of salvation established by Christ, reveal to all men the knowledge of God and of man and the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men. These books, though they also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy. (1) These same books, then, give expression to a lively sense of God, contain a store of sublime teachings about God, sound wisdom about human life, and a wonderful treasury of prayers, and in them the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way. Christians should receive them with reverence.

16. God, the inspirer and author of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New. (2) For, though Christ established the new covenant in His blood (see Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25), still the books of the Old Testament with all their parts, caught up into the proclamation of the Gospel, (3) acquire and show forth their full meaning in the New Testament (see Matt. 5:17; Luke 24:27; Rom. 16:25-26; 2 Cor. 4:6) and in turn shed light on it and explain it.