Robert Kolb (PhD, University of Wisconsin) is mission professor of systematic theology emeritus at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles.
In my first year of preaching, Good Shepherd Sunday gave me the occasion to use a bit of information that I had picked up from a missionary. In the highlands of Papua New Guinea, according to my source, no sheep had ever set foot. But the people had an animal that supplied a vital part of their diet and that had been sacrificed to their gods. The pig. As the hymn before the sermon, we sang “I am Jesus’ Little Lamb,” and I suggested that for us city folk, who generally regard pigs as dumb and dirty—they are in fact quite smart and do take care to keep themselves clean—, it might be clearer if we sang, “I am Jesus’ little pig.” A friend whom I see occasionally begins every conversation by confessing, “I am Jesus’ little pig.” In the North American cultural context that reminds most of us that we may have some grasp of the concepts of wisdom and power of our culture, but that this operating procedure is utter foolishness and debilitating impotence in God’s sight (1 Cor. 1:21-25). For the sacrificial lamb took the place of us little lambs precisely so that he could claim our dumbness and dirtiness as his own and leave us wise and powerful as his own. He did that so we may live under his providential rule and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.
For decades I have regularly sung,
O Christ, Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.
O Christ, Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.
O Christ, Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
Grant us your peace.
And I have also sung many times, three times over,
Lamb of God, pure and holy, who on the cross did suffer,
Ever patient and lowly, Thyself to scorn did offer,
All sins Thou borest for us, Else had despair reigned o’er us.
Have mercy on us, O Jesus, O Jesus.
Those words have aided believers in confronting our sinfulness and turning our eyes to our Savior for five hundred years. The Passover Lamb of the Old Testament people of God sets in place our image of the sacrifice that secures our liberation and safety in the midst of God’s battle against our sin and all evil. Singing to the Lamb belongs to our way of life.
When the Lamb came, we human creatures had dedicated ours to pursuing another path in life. We still wander off in detours and dead-ends that prevent us from listening to him and follow in his footsteps.
We all, like sheep, are not bright enough to know better or to recognize the good path. We find our own way and turn down dark alleys where only trouble lies. We find ourselves more lost than the prodigal son. But our heavenly Father has sent the Holy Spirit to lift our iniquities from us and place them on the Lamb of sacrifice.
Like a lamb led to the slaughter, like a sheep that can no longer bleat in the presence of those with the shearing knives, Jesus was swept to the cross and cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for our transgressions. Bruised and filled with grief, he became the sin offering, the lamb on the altar of the cross, who poured out his soul unto death. He was counted as the worst of transgressors, carrying the sin of those for whom he intercedes (Isa. 53:6-12).
Despite his lying on the altar of the cross, broken and bloodied, we recognize that this Lamb is God’s almighty Son, the Messiah who has come to deliver his people from the oppressive load of our rebellion against him. This tortured man has restored us to be members of his Father’s family. He gave his all; the Old Testament Lamb of sacrifice was not brought to the altar to donate a pint or two of blood and then return to the meadow to restore itself on fine clover. The Lamb of sacrifice died. The Lamb died and with it the sins of God’s people. In Philippians 2:7 Paul describes this as emptying himself. He was obedient to the point of dying on the cross. He poured out his blood for us, and in so doing he drenched us in his love and his mercy.
His love and mercy bring us, the people upon whom his favor has fallen, peace. The angels promised the shepherds that this Messiah and Lord would establish peace for his people, a peace that defies suffering and hardship because we feel secure in the bloody hands of the one who died for us. The one who cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) went on to commit his spirit into the hands of his Father (Luke 23:46). He is the holy bride of his people, who has wept over us as he wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44) because we stumble in darkness seeking the peace that only he can give. We turn to weeping in the presence of his cross when we realize that he is the light that broke the darkness as he hung on the cross as he shook the earth and broke rocks (Matt. 27:51).
For the grave was no place for the Lamb of sacrifice to hang out. He who found a grave with us wicked creatures of his, who was buried in the part of the cemetery reserved for people of the status of Joseph of Arimathea, has prolonged his days. He gazes upon us as the offspring of his resurrection. God’s will to deliver the prodigal sheep who have strayed from his pasture came to its fullness and completion through the travail of this Lamb of sacrifice.
And so we never cease to cry out to him with our plea for mercy, for forgiveness, for the outpouring of his love once more this day. He responds by shedding light from the throne at the right hand of the Father, the throne that replaced the throne, the altar, of the cross. To him we further pray, grant us your peace—the peace that passes all human reasoning and speculation, every human effort at making things whole, the peace that preserves our hearts and minds at rest with him.