The Silent Lamb: Why Jesus Had to Die Only Once

Scripture

Our verse for today comes from Acts 8:32, “Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: ‘Like a sheep He was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opens not His mouth.'”

Background

I read an article in a British magazine called Country Smallholding about the killing and butchering of sheep. In the article, the writer, who had raised and butchered his own livestock for twenty years, described with great care and humaneness the process of raising sheep and then butchering them to feed his family. The article was very clear to address the proper way to raise and nurture and love the animal, but was also very clear as to the intention of its existence and the ultimate end of its life. The slaughter was described quite matter-of-factly and was intended to express the quickest and least traumatic way to kill the sheep, while at the same time prepare it for butchering. Coincidentally, as we approach Veterans Day, it was 82 years ago that a different kind of slaughter took place. On June 6, 1944, allied troops invaded the beaches of Normandy in the efforts to reclaim France from Hitler and turn the tide in World War II. In a brief article, the salient details were noted regarding the thousands of troops who landed that day amidst poor weather conditions and well-armed German forces. Like the description of the gunshot that took the sheep’s life, the picture painted of the 4,414 men who died was direct and without apology or exception. Quite frankly, what those bullets brought about was necessary for the intended results. Over 150,000 men landed that day, both by boat and by air, and at least 10,000 were killed, wounded or went missing. And each one had a part in stopping Nazism.

Application

Far less glorious were the slaughters that took place in the concentration camps, and those that take place each day in abortion clinics. But none have either the ignominy or the glory of the slaughter of the Lamb of God. Hitler was not Satan, a sheep is not a person, and those soldiers were not the perfect Son of God. When Scripture says that all the books of the world could not contain what Jesus did, I think much of that writing would be spent on trying to describe all that occurred on the cross. It was humiliating, and it was glorifying. It was hideous, and it was divine. It was painful, and it was purifying. It was necessary. And thank God it had to happen only once.

Charge

As we seek Him today, fill your mind with thoughts of all the deaths that you did not have to die, and thank Jesus for dying the one you deserve.

Editor Comment: This devotional reminds believers that every costly sacrifice in history points to the one, final sacrifice Christ made so we would never have to.